The Futures Trading Guide is a complete guide of today's open trades for major commodity futures contracts.
The Futures Trading Guide is a hypothetical trading system based on the 9-18 Day Moving Average Crossover strategy which takes a Buy position when the shorter term 9-Day Moving Average closes above the longer term 18-Day Moving Average, and takes a Sell position when the 9-Day closes below the 18-Day. The hypothetical profit is based on the point value of one futures contract from the Last price compared to the settlement price on the start date of the signal.
The 9-18 Day Moving Average Crossover is the featured strategy for futures contracts on Barchart.com. The hypothetical trade entries and exits for the Futures Trading Guide are calculated at end-of-day, based on the settlement price of the contract. The strategy is then updated every 20 minutes throughout the day on this page, using delayed data from the exchanges. Trades are only closed at end-of-day if the signal reverses, using the settlement price for the day.
The Full List tab shows you a breakdown of major commodity contracts across different categories. There are also separate tabs for each category, highlighting additional futures contracts.
Columns on the page include:
- Symbol - the futures symbol that triggered the trade position
- Contract Name - the futures contract name
- Last - the last price (delayed) for the symbol
- Change - latest (delayed) change for the symbol
- Signal - either a Buy or Sell, based on the common interpretation of the strategy.
- Strength - the signal strength is a long-term measurement of the strength of the signal compared to the strength of the signal over the past 100-trading sessions. The stronger a signal strength, the less volatile the signal. For example, a maximum buy signal is less likely to change than a weak buy signal. Strength can be one of the following readings:
- Maximum
- Strong
- Average
- Soft
- Weak
- Start Date - the date on which the current trade position was entered. Contracts entering a new Buy or Sell signal for the current session have the Start Date bolded on the page for easy reference, and also will show $0.00 as the Current Profit until the strategy is recalculated again using the contract's settlement price at end-of-day.
- Entry Price - the closing (settlement) price of the futures contract on the date the trade was entered. If a new trade was entered today (the Start Date is bolded) the Entry price will show the last price from when the strategy was calculated during the open session. Once "Days in Trade" switches from "0" to "1" the Entry Price will reflect the closing price on the date the trade was entered.
- Current Profit - the profit or loss, based on trading ONE contract since trade entry.
- Trade Details - this link will take you to the symbols' Trading Guide page, which shows the Current Trade Position details along with a chart showing the 9-18 Day Moving Average Crossover. The link also provides supporting Trade Performance History of all trades generated by the Buy/Sell signals.
On the Full List tab, you may optionally check the "Show New Trades" checkbox to see only the new trades triggered at the last end-of-day.
What's Included
To be included in the Futures Trading Guide page, a contract requires more than 100 active trading days to run the prices through the 9-18 Day Moving Average Crossover.
Flipcharts
The Flipcharts icon at the top of the Futures Trading Guide table allows you to view charts for every symbol included on the page. The Flipchart uses your templates and general Flipchart configuration settings; it is not designed to show the specific trading strategy/indicator for each symbol. Use the "View Details" option on the page instead.
Download
The Download link at the top of the page allows Site Members to download the data table contents to a .csv file. (This does not download the individual trade details for each symbol.)
Data Updates
For pages showing Intraday views, we use the current session's data, with new price data appear on the page as indicated by a "flash". Stocks: 15 minute delay (Cboe BZX data for U.S. equities is real-time), ET. Volume reflects consolidated markets. Futures and Forex: 10 or 15 minute delay, CT.
The list of symbols included on the page is updated every 10 minutes throughout the trading day. However, new stocks are not automatically added to or re-ranked on the page until the site performs its 10-minute update.
Page Sort
Pages are initially sorted in a specific order (depending on the data presented). You can re-sort the page by clicking on any of the column headings in the table.
Views
Most data tables can be analyzed using "Views." A View simply presents the symbols on the page with a different set of columns. Site members can also display the page using Custom Views. (Simply create a free account, log in, then create and save Custom Views to be used on any data table.)
Each View has a "Links" column on the far right to access a symbol's Quote Overview, Chart, Options Quotes (when available), Barchart Opinion, and Technical Analysis page. Standard Views found throughout the site include:
- Main View: Symbol, Name, Last Price, Change, Percent Change, High, Low, Volume, and Time of Last Trade.
- Technical View: Symbol, Name, Last Price, Today's Opinion, 20-Day Relative Strength, 20-Day Historic Volatility, 20-Day Average Volume, 52-Week High and 52-Week Low.
- Performance View: Symbol, Name, Last Price, Weighted Alpha, YTD Percent Change, 1-Month, 3-Month and 1-Year Percent Change.
- Fundamental View: Available only on equity pages, shows Symbol, Name, Weighted Alpha, Market Cap, P/E Ratio. Earnings Per Share, Beta, Return on Equity, and Price/Sales
Data Table Expand
Unique to Barchart.com, data tables contain an "expand" option. Click the "+" icon in the first column (on the left) to "expand" the table for the selected symbol. Scroll through widgets of the different content available for the symbol. Click on any of the widgets to go to the full page.
Horizontal Scroll on Wide Tables
Especially when using a custom view, you may find that the number of columns chosen exceeds the available space to show all the data. In this case, the table must be horizontally scrolled (left to right) to view all of the information. To do this, you can either scroll to the bottom of the table and use the table's scrollbar, or you can scroll the table using your browser's built-in scroll:
- Left-click with your mouse anywhere on the table.
- Use your keyboard's left and right arrows to scroll the table.
- Repeat this anywhere as you move through the table to enable horizontal scrolling.
FlipCharts
Also unique to Barchart, FlipCharts allow you to scroll through all the symbols on the table in a chart view. While viewing FlipCharts, you can apply a custom Chart Template, further customizing the way you can analyze the symbols. FlipCharts are a free tool available to Site Members.
Download
Download is a free tool available to Site Members. This tool will download a .csv file for the View being displayed. For dynamically-generated tables (such as a Stock or ETF Screener) where you see more than 1000 rows of data, the download will be limited to only the first 1000 records on the table. For other static pages (such as the Russell 3000 Components list) all rows will be downloaded.
Free members are limited to 5 downloads per day, while Barchart Premier Members may download up to 100 .csv files per day.
Should you require more than 100 downloads per day, please contact Barchart Sales at 866-333-7587 or email solutions@barchart.com for more information or additional options about historical market data.
