Beans get smacked! - Neutral Nick update time

Beans got smacked today so it is time for Neutral Nick to look at his positions in an effort to try and manage his risk.

He went threw all of his positions and felt good about all of the months and all of the commodities other then July beans.

For corn he felt that his p & l graphs where at good support areas and didn't feel the need to chase in which might cause a lot of whipsaw action.

Same for wheat.

Before his soybean adjustments which I will display below he has overall profits in most of the trades he has on and his expiration profits giving him a much more potential.  Those charts have changed since his last update about a week ago.  You can find them at http://grainmarketingplans.blogspot.com/2012/05/neutral-nick-update-nearly-200k-booked.html

Soybeans today broke some major support and could very well see plenty of follow threw weakness; then again if you look at the report a couple days ago you might think beans have plenty more upside.

The corn and wheat markets are at the bottom end of the ranges they have been for some time; if we don't bounce Mr Neutral Nick might have to look to adjust sometime in the near future as he does have put options sold that are now close to or in some cases slightly in the money.  As mentioned before Neutral Nick this time around is using a little bias and his bias for those markets are A we are near a harvest low for wheat and we have year over year month over month decreasing supplies and B the cash corn market has shown no weakness leaving the cheapest spot to buy corn still the board for many so he isn't wanting to adjust at this time and C the new crop corn showing a yield of 166 is a little premature; Nick and myself are in the camp that we should see a weather scare at some point.

Here are Nick's updates and his corresponding bean graphs.

His only trades this week are the sale of 50 July 13.50 puts and 100 of the July 14.50 calls.  With us getting closer to the June expiration of these options this will probably be the last time he sells any July options.  He might buy some; but one thing he has to watch out for is Gamma Risk.

How do I decide what type of protection?

I was looking today at what gives me the best protection ahead of the USDA crop report.

To answer that question one has to ask more questions; such as how long do I want protection; what type of protection do I need if we move X cents or X dollars up or down......how much do I want to spend.

So after one answers those questions the next thing to do is the what if's; for me I use position book from RJO and run various what if's.

Today I ran the example of if I want to spend $50k in protection using Dec put options what gives me the best bang for my buck.  Do i buy out of the money options?  In the money?  Deep out of the money?  Etc

So I decided to run threw some what if's using Dec corn futures and various strikes.  I believe that I want to have the trigger pulled by July 4th ish; on the cash side; so i ran what if's or theoretically values based on July 6th.

I took 50k and bought as many put options as I could using the following strikes.

5.20 or ATM puts which i figured at 41-42 cents i could buy about 24 of them
5.00 or OTM put which i figured at 31-32 cents i could buy about 32 of them
4.50 or Deep OTM puts which i figured i could buy 77 of them
4.00 or Very Deep OTM (OTM out of the money) which i figured i could buy about 286 of them.

I didn't take into account the more commissions with the more quantity; but here is what i found that gains or losses to be (theoretically based on no volatility changes) at these various futures levels on the Dec Futures

6.00 Dec Futures - all four of the trades are big losers; with the ATM losing the least at 38k loss; followed by the 5.00 puts which lose about 41k, then the 4.50 puts which loss 45k, and lastly the 4.00 puts have lost about all value down about 48k.  Now if we are a producer this is the best option if you don't have 100 % protection because it means we have rallied 80 cents and should have more then paid for the 50k paid in protection


5.00 Dec Futures...give the Higher the strike the more profit. The 5.20 would be up aprox 2500, the 5.00 strikes about 1200, the 4.50 would be losing about 4500 and the 4.00 strikes would have lost you about 14k



4.50 Dec Futures....Here is where you see them all start to make money; this time however the more puts you have the more they make; so the best performance at 4.50 on July 6th ish would be the 4.00 puts which should be up about 75k, followed by the 4.50 puts which should be up about 60k, then followed by the 5.00 up about 48k, and lastly the at the money 5.20 puts are now up only 42k



4.00 Dec Futures....this levels and below is where you really see how well leverage can work for one.....the pattern is the same you are better off having bought more out of the money puts then you are at the money puts even though we are not yet in the money on the 4.00 puts they lead by far; you would now have turned your 50k investment into about 306k profit, your 4.50 would be 176k, your 5.00 would be 111k, and your 5.20 puts would be up about 94k profit



3.50 Dec Futures.....This is where you hit the home run so to speak; turning your 4.00 puts that are worth less then 4 cents when you buy them into about 55 cents each; having bought 286 of them you are now up nearly 750,000 in profits, the others also do good; but not even close versus having the many more 4.00 puts; the 4.50 puts would have about 335k in profit; the 5.00 puts would be up about 111k, and the 5.20 puts up about 94k

Bottom line when deciding what type of coverage you are looking for don't forget to look at the what if's; also keep in mind that the what if's i am looking at are based on 60 days from now; not expiration; as at expiration 4.00 dec futures don't make you any money at 4.00 puts; but in the shorter term they could make you a lot of money

Overall it seems to make sense to buy more OTM if you plan on only holding a short term; they don't perform as well in a sideways market nor an up market; but they are in another league as for performance in a down market

Please give me a call if you have questions

and as always make sure you understand that futures and options are very risky

Here is a screen shot of the what if's that i used in the above example

Neutral Nick Update - Nearly 200k booked profits

It's been a while since we heard from our mock trading character Neutral Nick.  That is both good and bad; good in that he hasn't been over trading and bad that he hasn't done a good job following up and monitoring his positions as much as he should be.

He recently had his May options expire; in which he left most expire worthless; both the ones he owned and had sold.  But he did have some soybean options that left him long; he chose to get out of them on the close on Friday.

Net with all of his May options expiring and his now turned futures positions Nick booked $193,437.50 profit before his costs and commissions.

Under normal full service brokers he would have paid about 10,800 in commissions; discounted online brokers could have been much less.

For his new trades or updates he has plenty of them with it being some time since he has followed up.

For corn his updates are buying back all of his cheap call options sold for nice profits and selling other options to pay for them as well as some more deferred options that fit his market ideas so he did the following basis Friday's close

Bought 70 CN 700 calls
Bought 120 CN 750 calls
Sold 50 CN 600 puts
Sold 50 CU 600 calls
Sold 50 CZ 600 calls

For soybeans he sold 100 of each of the following

July 1500 calls, 1450 puts
Nov 1600 calls, 1200 puts

For wheat he bought back 40 of the July 8.00 calls that he had sold and then sold 50 of each of the following

Sept 7.00 calls
Sept 6.00 puts
Dec 6.00 puts
Dec 7.50 calls

Overall the one thing you notice is he tried to take away some gamma risk and tried to sell more deferred options; his preference is out of the money with about 5 months left.  He also bought back and placed trades that follow his bias


Below are his P L Graphs; this doesn't include the nearly 200k winner he booked above; also keep in mind that he has risk between commodities and between different months.

Following that are each commodity broke down per contract month as he is looking to book consistent winners every time an option expires via continuing to sell time and volatility and that is what the above trades are trying to accomplish.


Keep in mind that he does have plenty of risk in in strategy

Neutral Nick Update 3-11-12

Neutral Nick updated today; first time in nearly a month.

I hope to post more screen shots of his present positions later in the week; one thing he is trying to do is not trade as much as last year and watch his gamma exposure a little closer. He also isn't getting caught up in selling just one certain month of options.  I.E. last year he was mainly selling July options and didn't sell any later then that; towards the end of his run his gamma exposure was just too much; that is part of the reason you see him in options that are near term all the way to some that are out in Dec.

MWC Marketing Hour Round Table

I put up an interesting trade this week in our weekly mock trading session.

It was a hedge trade......well kind of

the trade was buying 2 May 6.00 Corn puts and sell 1 8.00 Dec wheat call

below is some of the thinking i had on in the agweb.com marketing old and new crop discussion thread


http://discussions.agweb.com/showthread.php?14346-Marketing-Old-Crop-and-New-Crop-2012&p=225650#post225650

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one strategy that we looked at in our marketing meetings this week was selling dec wheat calls to buy may and july corn puts

based on theory that dec-dec corn-wheat spread has corn well under valued versus wheat.....so selling a call in wheat instead of corn in hopes that if it turns into a HTA corn has gained some of the 1.20 or so discount that it presently is

i think the level we used was buying 2 6.00 may corn puts and selling 1 dec 8.00 wheat call for a small credit

the reason we used may instead of july or dec is protection cost of only 14-15 cents or so; plus if market breaks i don;t think new crop breaks nearlly as hard; i think breaks or rallies will be lead by old crop corn.........so if i want to protect a price break i want to protect the area that has the most risk......in this case old crop corn

it is much more risky and tricky to manage then using the same month and same commodity but it does have some reasoning behind it

any thoughts on the trade

selling 1 dec 8.00 to 8.50 cbot wheat call to buy 2 6.00 ish may corn puts......as protection against corn.....and a sale on top side for corn

Neutral Nick Update

Well it's been a couple week's since Neutral Nick jumped back on the scene; so it is about time for an update.

Below you will see some screen shots showing Nick's updates and projections; keep in mind this time nick is much more diversified into the months he has options sold and purchased.  Generally he has purchased a few nearby options and sold deferred options. He also has used his idea's on where spreads go to decide how to position himself.  His goal is no longer to stay 100,000 delta short.  His system this time is trying to make about a million dollars in each of the grains; without huge margin exposure; watching his gamma risk and not building such a huge and unrealistic mountain if you will.

Check out his info below.

The above graph on his delta position is really one thing that needs to be managed.  A couple of reasons.  A) so he doesn't swing too direction bias and stays "neutral" so to speak  B) So he can help control his margin cost.  What is his plan to do that; take a little off the top side via near term closer to the money options that have a big gamma advantage over other options he has sold or is selling.

Mock Trading Update

last week we did add a few trades during our Mock Trading session;

I adjusted my long 6.00 march puts via selling a 6.40 march corn put

I also adjusted my short July put via the sale of a 7.00 July corn call

Other new trades that where placed include Kevin with a long soybean contract versus 2 short wheat contracts

Scott went short some CBOT wheat at 674 with a stop of 6.85 and an objective of 6.50

Duane went long 2 March Wheat with a stop at 6.55 while going short 3 March corn

Please stop in Onida this Wed if you would like to join in on the fun; as it is great for learning.

Neutral Nick is back

Neutral Nick our mock trading character is back; this time with a little different rules and different game plan.  Not just focused on his delta position; nor does he no longer have an unlimited checkbook.  Plus he is planing on rolling things out this time; so no real end date.

Here are his trades to start off; many off of July futures; but some off of the Dec futures too.

Farm Direction Forward - Opening Grain Market Comments soft outside markets

Below are opening comments as well as a forward from Kevin Van Trump who will be one of the speakers for next week’s grain marketing workshop that we are sponsoring in Pierre on Feb 2^nd at the Ramkota at 10:00 a.m.; Ed Usset will be the other presenter.  Please give us a call or shoot us an email to RSVP for what should be a great time.

Markets are called mixed to supportive this a.m. behind a firmer overnight session; outside markets are a little weak and most calls are slightly below where we left off the overnight session at.

In the overnight session we saw corn up 3 on the old crop while new crop was off 2, beans unchanged to down a couple,  MPLS wheat was 4 higher, KC wheat was up 3, and CBOT wheat was up 5.  At 9:00 outside markets have crude down a little over a dollar a barrel, equities are weaker with the DOW down 82 points, and the US dollar is firmer up 379 on the cash index at 80.247.

Not much for new news out this a.m.  The rumors

Nick's Margin Requirement's - WOW!!!!! Good? Bad? Lot of Cash either way!

I asked Country Hedging for the margin requirements that they would have for the mock marketing character Neutral Nick; so I sent them (Joel the main contact for MWC) all of Nick's trades and prices of his trades.

Here is the response I received

"Here is what I got from the back office:

Corn:

Initial margin $6.796298 million

Cash $5.351587 million (incoming cash from the sales of options)

Margin Deficiency $1.444710 million

Soybeans:

Initial Margin $5.201993 million

Cash $5.201993 million

Margin Deficiency $1.518638 million

Wheat:

Initial Margin $6.420553 million

Cash $4.781843 million

Margin Deficiency $1.638710 million"

Now when I first look at it my response is ouch that is alot of money; but then I look back at Nick's projections and look at a rate of return.  Just for rounding previous posts indicate that Nick has a chance to be up 14 million; let's say we take off slippage and fees and come up with a 13.5 million number.  Which it could be alot worse or better when things are done depending on his actions and more importantly the market movement and volcity of that said movement.  But if we take 4.5 million roughly out of pocket margin requirment and use the 13.5 million as an target for profits; that is a 300 % return.  Nick started this program or plan about the last week of Dec; his options expire the last week of June.  So if I look at it under those terms Nick has a chance (assuming the risk associated with futures and options doesn't break him first, his banker held in there, and his wife didn't pack up in leave because of all the stress) a chance to have an annualized return of about 600 percent. 

This blog and the works therein are hypethetically and don't mean results will be similiar.  But so far if he can beat the things working against him he has a good chance that both in dollar terms as well as percentage terms things good go rather well for them.