Copper to Cash, Bond Bearish

Two signals take effect on the coming week's open of trading based on the latest Commitments of Traders report: copper goes to cash after two weeks bearish, and the 30-year Treasury bond goes bearish (meaning yields would go up, if the signal is correct).

All other signals remain the same: bullish for SPX and silver, bearish for NDX and natural gas, and cash for the other markets I follow.

See the detailed trader positioning from the CFTC's COT data on my newly updated latest signals table. Good luck this week!

Gold to Cash; Gas, NDX Bearish

Three signals take effect on this coming week's open of trading based on the latest Commitments of Traders data from the CFTC. See my latest signals table for details:

- Gold to cash after a good long while bullish.

- Natural gas goes to bearish.

- Nasdaq-100 goes bearish.

All other signals remain the same this week. Good luck!

Nasdaq-100 Goes to Cash, Copper Bearish After Four Months in Cash

Two signals take effect on Monday's open of trading based on Friday's Commitments of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

My Nasdaq-100 signal goes from bearish last week to cash this week, and my setup for copper goes bearish after four months in cash. The latter signal comes about because of an increase in bearishness of the commercial traders in copper futures and options.

See my latest signals table for more details on trader positioning in these two markets. Also see which two other markets are about to see new signals in the next two weeks.

Hope you had a good weekend, and good luck this week.

New COT Signals: Banks and Crude to Cash, Nasdaq-100 Bearish

Finally got my signals from the latest holiday-delayed Commitments of Traders report now up on my latest signals table. New signals taking effect on this week's open:

- BKX Bank Index: goes to cash
- Nasdaq-100: goes bearish
- crude oil: goes to cash

Sorry for the delay in posting these. Had a busy time, and couldn't get to it sooner. Now off to trade these new positions.

Good luck the rest of this week.

Holiday Delay

This week's usually scheduled Commitments of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is delayed until Monday afternoon because of the July 4 holiday. Have a good weekend! See you back here after Monday's release.

COT Data Turns Bullish for Crude Oil

A new signal takes effect on the coming week's open of trading based on Friday's Commitments of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: bullish for crude oil.

That's based on the small traders getting significantly more bullish in their futures and options positioning as a percentage of the total open interest. My crude oil signal is based on following the small traders and fading the large speculators.

See my latest signals table for more details on the crude positioning and what traders are doing in the other nine markets I'm following using the CFTC's free weekly COT report data.

My other signals remain the same as last week: bullish for the S&P 500, BKX U.S. Bank Index, gold and silver.

To Canadian readers, have a Happy Canada Day weekend, and U.S. readers have a Happy July 4. Good luck next week.

Cash Signals Point to Trader Uncertainty

The market's uncertainty is clear in the latest Commitments of Traders report from the CFTC.

Trader positioning in Friday's COT report puts three of my signals into cash on next week's open of trading: the Nasdaq-100 and crude oil (both of which had been bullish) and the 30-year Treasury bond (which had been bearish).

Meanwhile, my S&P 500, BKX U.S. Bank Index, gold and silver setups remain bullish for now.

See my latest signals table for more details on trader positioning in these and the other markets I follow using the free weekly COT reports.

Have a good weekend, and to Quebec readers: Joyeuse St-Jean!

Crude Bullish Signal Bodes Well for Equity Rebound

My trading setup for crude oil goes bullish on this coming week's open of trading after four weeks in cash. Meanwhile, my signal for the Nikkei goes from bullish to cash on the coming weekly open.

Those signals and other data are now up on my latest signals table, which reports on trader positioning in 10 markets I trade using the weekly Commitments of Traders data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Overall, the CFTC data appears to be balance bullish this week, signalling favourable odds of a market bounce off the recent weakness. The crude signal is bullish overall for the equity market, and three of my four equity signals are bullish.

The Nikkei, which goes to cash this week, isn't highly correlated with North American equities, so its signal this week isn't necessarily a bearish sign either.

But who knows! The data is often wrong, so do your own homework.

Good luck this week, and Happy Father's Day to all you dads and granddads and great-granddads, etc. My wife and daughters took me to Burlington, VT, and then dinner at the amazing Crossing restaurant in Richford (famous for their peanut butter pie and steak). Wow.

Wow.

So good.

Thanks, girls! I love you.

Banks Going Bullish, Equities Turn Corner?

Only one signal takes effect on this coming week's open of trading in my COTs Timer trading strategy based on the weekly Commitments of Traders reports: bullish for my trading setup for the benchmark BKX U.S Bank Index.

The signal comes as a result of a decline in bearish derivatives positioning by the large speculators in the three-month Eurodollar contract (an important measure of liquidity).

All my other equity signals have been bullish for at least several weeks, so this might mean the corner has been turned on the recent market selloff. But who rightly knows! My signals based on the free COT report data are certainly known to be wrong at times.

See my newly updated latest signals table for more details on positioning in the Eurodollars and other markets I'm following with my strategy. Good luck this coming week.

Natural Gas Short Ends Crazy Ride in Black, Going to Cash

Mostly quiet in trader positioning as reported in this afternoon's Commitments of Traders report.

What's the COT report? you ask.

Why, it's the free weekly data on futures and options positions in major markets released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

One signal takes effect on next week's open of trading: my trading setup for natural gas goes to cash after being short four weeks. That trade was a real roller coaster - deeply under water at first, then back into the black this past week. Natural gas is craaaazy! Not for the faint of heart, friends.

See my latest signals table for more details on trader positioning in gas and other markets I'm covering using the COT data. Have a good weekend, and good luck next week.

Update Done

Just finished updating my latest signals table based on Friday's Commitments of Traders results. Sorry for the delay in the update. I was interrupted part-way through my update before the open this morning when Google Docs crashed. Good luck this week!

Banks to Cash, Bond Bearish

Two new signals take effect this morning in my COTs Timer trading strategy: cash for my trading setup for BKX U.S. Bank Index (which was bearish for a single week last week) and bearish for my the 30-year Treasury bond (meaning bullish for the yield).

I was in the middle of updating these and my other signals on my latest signals table with the latest Commitments of Traders data, but it looks like Google Docs decided to crash while I was only half-way done. Thanks a lot, Google!

I'll finish updating the table after Google Docs comes back online. Apologies. Good luck this week.

Banks Bearish, Crude to Cash

Two new trading signals take effect on next week's open of trading: bearish for the BKX U.S. Bank Index (this signal will last only one week) and cash for crude oil. The bearish signal for my new crude oil trading setup had been doing nicely, and I was just wondering how long the good times can last.

That's not the case for some of my other current signals, but what interests me more is how the trade does when the signal ends. Of course, I don't expect every trade to be profitable either. Read more on my thinking about losing trades on my FAQs page.

See details on trader positioning in the two above markets and the other markets I follow on my newly updated latest signals table.

The signals are based on the free weekly Commitments of Traders data issued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission - God bless 'em. Hope you did well this past week, and have a good weekend.

New Nasdaq-100 Signal Flips to Bullish

Sorry for my late post this week! I must have got caught up in Mother's Day and am still sleeping off the festivities.

I did manage to update my latest signals table last Saturday, so if you checked there you would have seen what my signals are doing based on the weekly Commitments of Traders reports from the CFTC. To wit:

- My new Nasdaq-100 trading setup went bullish on this week's open of trading. That's based on super-bullish positioning by the "smart money" commercial hedgers and extremely bearish positioning by the wrong-way large speculators, whom I fade.

- Other signals remain the same: bullish for SPX, gold, silver and the Nikkei; bearish for crude oil, natural gas; and cash for the BKX U.S. Bank Index, copper and the 30-year Treasury bond. Good luck the rest of this week, and see you back here after this Friday's COT update.

New Silver Setup Went Up 90-Fold - Currently Bullish

Silver went up more than six-fold between 1995 and mid-2011. Meanwhile, my new trading setup for silver went up over 90-fold in backtesting.

Like the other setups in my COTs Timer trading strategy, my signals for silver are based on the Commitments of Traders reports - the free weekly data on trader positioning issued by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

My silver setup is currently in its fourth week of being bullish. It is based on trading alongside the "smart money" commercial hedgers in silver futures and options and trading in the opposite direction as the wrong-way small traders, who tend to be wrongly positioned at key market turns. The setup is in cash when the two groups of traders don't give the same signal.

See my newly updated latest signals table and backtesting results page for more details on this setup and what the silver COT data is saying these days.

I test the COT data to find levels of trader positioning that were historically followed by price moves. I use a variety of statistical techniques to identify signals that not only gave good profits, but also that did so reliably. In fact, the reliability of the signals is far more important to me than the levels of profits. See my FAQs page for more on my backtesting process.

I should soon add a setup for the Euro/USD cross.

Good luck the rest of this week, and see you back here after Friday's COT release for another weekly update.