I am a part of the team which is responsible for management and hedging of commodities exposures. Some say corporates are good only in following advice from banks or brokerages. I do agree corporates do not have market insight of a bank. But here is a problem. It is not bank or broker or a hedge fund that has biggest risk that markets will go against them. These guys always have an option to do nothing and wait for a better trading opportunity where as we don't. We have to continue to purchase commodities, spend currencies for daily business. Such company is always exposed to changes to market price even if it decides not to hedge. In fact my company has probably one of the biggest short commodities portfolio in the world. Managing such risk effectively is a challenge. It is like being between a rock and a hard place. You get your behind kicked all the time be senior management, whether it was a missed opportunity to hedge or hedge that turned to be out of the money. Critics will say if you lost money on your hedge then you probably bought it cheaper on physical market. let's face it, nobody wants to loose money, full-stop.

So I do not have an option to do nothing as I am always in the position (short in this case). I think people like me have higher motivation to earn positive return on their portfolio then other players. In fact my intention is to bring hedging to a performance benchmark of proprietary trading.

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Thursday, August 5, 2010

What's bothering me now

Before I take off for a long weekend, I just wanted to share with you some risks I see to the markets and that can derail all of my scenarios...

1. Deflation talk continues to accelerate and while it is known that prices tend to fall in such environment, I feel that immediate reaction to acknowledgement of this fact is uncertain. Dollar/commodities/equities relationship in the last several years had not been "real" supply/demand relationship... moreover there is a possibility of food inflation given the drought in Eastern Europe. Yet more and more people talk about deflation and from what I read in the news some are actually buying long dated bonds as protection. Go figure what it will be deflation or inflation

2. Some time ago I spoke about web bot software that predicted increasing tensions involving the US that might lead to a 3rd world war... Feels like that tensions between Iran / Israel and the US are likely to escalate given the assassination attempt of Iranian president and recent report on terrorism by the US where they called Iran biggest state sponsor of terrorism...

Is the glass half full or half empty? PART2

Just a follow up on the recent post...

Please keep in mind I will be out the office tomorrow, so in my absence markets are likely to move hard. call it a bad luck, but experience proves it.

Correlations between assets are picking up and feels like we're going to the normal risk on/risk off mode:

Meanwhile, markets are mostly going sideways at the top of their ranges under key levels, S&P stalled just under 100d moving average and 1130-1135 is the level to watch:

Oil is showing signs of trend exhaustion at the conjunction of various resistances and as I mentioned 82-83 level gives a good risk reward for a short position:
NYMEX gas has turned upside down following an outside bearish day reversal. For this market $4.50 has to hold - which is a channel support off august09 lows. If broken, this will be a significant damage to bull scenario I had speculated about since May this year and I would not be surprised to see a test $3:

Overall, there is a risk of significant correction in the short term as not only risk assets, but assets with low correlation show downside possibility. Put this two together and this makes good case for economic situation to worsen in the nearest future.

Have a good weekend

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Is the glass half full or half empty?

My track record of being absent at work and missing something big in the markets is amazing... Keep in mind I will be off coming Friday, so expect something big to happen on this day, possibly NFP's will be a big surprise.


Deflation talk accelerates, now growing into a debate whether FED is to speed up money printing... while important as such, no obvious consensus is seen yet.

Answer the following question: is the glass half full or half empty? There is nothing wrong in answering either way, Eevery day we ask ourselves the same question, when reacting to economic data and majority wins. Yesterday it was the optimist camp that won the battle. However, it feels like yesterday's move was short covering rather then something else as volume in indices was very low. Last month performance in equities resulted in outside month bullish reversal pattern. While it is a sign of caution this actually makes little sense for trading as time frames are shorter for active investor/trader.

Does this change the picture? Are we going higher from here... Ehhhhh, I am not convinced. Start with equities:

S&P500 is still trading in bear market, according to my other scenario: having broken through 200d moving average it is sitting right under 100d and not far from June's peak, only sustainable gains through 1300 will make me change my mind:


The rally on Monday started with Chinese markets and looks like it might end with it as Shanghai index collapsed in the last minutes of trading to end up the day lower then Monday's open resulting in outside day bearish reversal:


Oil, while being up, still shows signs of range trading rather then a strong trend, especially when equities are to remain weak. Probably it is a good sell at $82:


EURUSD has effectively reached head and shoulders target and is currently a function of risk appetite rather then internal strength. my Need to wait for reversal confirmation under 1.31:



Outside bearish reversal day in Nymex gas was a surprise as well, while I think the market will rise over the long term, this signal cannot be ignored - time to tighten the stop losses:


Happy trading all!