Nice trend today in corn

After its retracement with the other grains today, corn is showing a very nice trend upward. This chart shows all three time frames (15 min, 3 min, 50 tick) of my corn triptych.

So far today, after a sympathy retracement among all the grains (corn, wheat, soybeans), the corn price has recovered and moved higher, wheat prices have continued to sink (poor manic-depressive wheat), and soybeans prices have gone flat. I lost a few points today on soybean trades. The later consolidation became so tight I couldn't even make a few ticks on my trades. I couldn't even break even. If it wasn't for corn, I would have lost money for the day.

Trading other futures

Typically, if my preferred soybeans go flat and consolidate, I will check charts for my other favorite futures until I find one that shows promise. I usually check soybeans first, then wheat, corn, gold, treasuries, and currencies, usually in this order.

When gold is consolidating, as it has been in the past few weeks, it becomes more erratic on the longer-term charts than some other commodities. However, on very short-term charts, it can be very enjoyable to trade, because shorter-term charts for gold have a certain orderliness that some other commodities don't have. I don't know how else to describe it. For example, I enjoy trading gold on CBOT. However, after the European markets close about 12:00 pm EST, gold sometimes can be thinly traded (but not always), so I am reluctant to trade during those post-European hours. I have been trading long enough that now, I can take a quick glance at the charts and decide instantly if it is worth trading.

The key to selecting which futures to trade is to trade ONLY the most liquid ones. Liquidity ensures that spreads are tight, executions are quick, and slippage is minimal. All the financial brains in the investment banks should have know that this is "Derivatives 101". You don't create financial instruments for which there is no market, no market value, and no liquidity. Duh!