Interesting

[cottonpicken]

http://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/speeches.htm

This looks like a whole bunch of interesting stuff and would take a more than a few hours to get through.

Better go for the 24 sack at the liquor store this afternoon.You might be infront of your computer a while.

I was "trolling" through an american chat site and stumbled across an interesting discussion.

Some guys were chatting about this Ag outlook forum(what the link is) and some Taffel guy stood up and said that at the first and last 5 minutes of trading 160-180- billion of computer controlled hedge fund money was moving in the commodity markets AND 160-200 billion of passive index money was also moving.I havent been able to find this particular presentation yet.If somebody does please direct me.

This is the kind of thing that spooks me.

[cottonpicken]

I found it a little over half way down.

I cant believe how much stuff is here.

[AdamSmith]

CP, can you better explain passive index money?

[cottonpicken]

I think hes talking about funds that continually reweight without much technical thinking.

The computer controlled also called black boxes are 100% technical trading.Which makes being able to "technically" read a market so important.Some people scoff when you start talking trend lines,bollingers,head and shoulders,tea cups,french curves,candlesticks,moving averages,etc,etc but their tools like any hammer or wrench.

[TOM4CWB]

C.P.

The technicals are very important as you have pointed out... when this kind of black box trades the market.

The override switch... then really must throw things for a loop... when they manually override!

We really have no possible way to realise how convoluted these markets really are now!

VERY interesting!

[dalek]

Got a friend at BMO Nesbitt Burns.. he's amazed at how much money they're dumping into ag commodities and how bullish their traders are.

[padron]

Yes, back in the good old days we had fundamental traders (S&D guys) and technical traders (the chartists) but these fund guys bring a whole new and very unpredictable element into the marketplace. Take for instance the "long only fund" that has a fixed percentage of barley in it. They come to Winnipeg to buy barley futures and have a huge influence - especially at roll-over time. I wonder what will happen when they decide that barley isn't as important as they thought or ICE Futures Canada's contract doesn't really reflect world values?

Getting the barley market open would be very helpful in making that contract more global and avoiding a big problem with the fund position.

In U.S. markets they influence price swings dramatically and are very driven by the shift in thinking from food to fuel. If/when they leave we should expect some serious price adjustments downward.