COTs Timer

Ever wonder what the smart money is doing in the markets? You don’t need to pay big bucks to find out. Just read the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s free weekly Commitments of Traders report. The CFTC’s COT data is a Holy Grail of market info, listing trillions of dollars in positions in 200+ markets – gold, crude oil, natural gas, silver, forex, equity indexes and lots more. My trading system, which I posted about here for seven years, gave weekly trading signals based on the COT data.

Friday, 12 June 2009

Pause for Banks, Natural Gas is Bullish

Some interesting new signals based on this afternoon's Commitments of Traders data. I've just updated my latest signals table with the calls from my trading setups based on this interesting weekly data on derivatives positioning in various markets.

New signals: cash for my BKX U.S. Bank Index setup after three weeks bullish; and bullish for my brand new natural gas setup. The latter had been in cash for 10 weeks. It's the setup's first bullish signal since last Sept. 2008, since which time it's been either bearish or in cash.

I'll update my backtesting results table with details from that setup next week. I'll also write a fuller update for all the setups early next week. Hope you fared well this week and best wishes for a great weekend.

TAGS: SPX, S&P 500, gold, BKX, Bank Index, Nikkei, crude oil, natural gas, COT, Commitments of Traders, derivatives, Black Swans, market timing, trading system development, CFTC,Commodity Futures Trading Commission, COTs Timer,out-of-sample testing, walk-around testing

4 comments:

maximus said...: "cash for my BKX U.S. Bank Index setup and three weeks bullish"

Does this mean AFTER three weeks bullish or that the BKX is cash for next week FOLLOWED by 3 weeks bullish?

thanks for your outstanding blog -- I featured it on my site as a BEST last week.

If you have a blog roll and would be willing to add my site it would be greatly appreciated....

Thanks again....

Maximus
http://4best4worst.wordpress.com/; 12 June 2009 at 18:39
In Debt We Trust said...: Do you have any thoughts for window dressing Q2? I'm leaning slightly bearish myself (e.g. long dollar, long bonds, short commodities). What's telling is that many key macro commodity prices remain in contango - including BDI shipping rates.; 13 June 2009 at 17:53
Alex Roslin said...: Hi Maximus,

Thanks for the kind mention. Oops. That should have said "AFTER three weeks bullish" for BKX.

Best regards,
Alex; 15 June 2009 at 09:31
Alex Roslin said...: Hi In Debt...,

I'm usually pretty agnostic about the longer-term picture, but I guess leaning slightly bullish for now on commodities and equities. Housing stocks still suck, so that's a bad sign. But I've been finding lots of interesting areas to trade short-term. Mind you, the action is so volatile and breakouts fail so often, it's screwed a lot of people up. I don't believe there's really an all-clear until house prices in the U.S. stop falling and banks get cleaned up. Until then, a retest of the lows earlier this year is a big risk.

Regards,
Alex; 15 June 2009 at 09:56

About This Site

I am an active trader and award-winning investigative journalist based in Lac Brome in Quebec's Eastern Townships, just outside Montreal. I have written about investing and business for The Montreal Gazette, Investor's Digest of Canada, Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities, Futures & Options Trader, The Financial Post and others. I am not a certified financial advisor and am still refining my COTs Timer system. Please see more disclaimer information below. See my complete profile at the "Intro to COT" link above.

DISCLAIMER

I created this blog to record my personal, subjective observations about the markets, solely for my entertainment and that of interested readers and to foster research. Nothing on this blog should be construed as financial advice or an offer or recommendation to purchase or sell any security. I encourage anyone interested in the markets to do your own homework and/or consult a professional advisor. I am not a certified financial advisor and am still refining my trading system. I reserve the right to modify or stop publishing aspects of my system at any time or to delay updating my tables for whatever reason, or I may not do so in a timely manner. My system has resulted in very large drawdowns in some trades. Past backtested and real-time results are no guarantee of future performance. I will not be liable for any losses or damages of any kind that result from the content of this site. Although I consider the data, calculations and information on this blog to be reliable, I can't make any guarantees and won't be held liable or responsible for anything erroneous on this website. You are solely responsible for implementing safeguards of your data and system when you use this site and its content and links. It is up to the user of this site and content to protect yourself from worms, trojan horses, viruses and the like. I may hold positions in some of the securities mentioned in this blog.