Back!

It's a pleasure to be back in after a fantastic summer break. The trouble is, after too much fun, getting back into the market is tough. It is even tougher when market seems to be surprising many fellow bloggers consistently. For eg, the GBP, q3 earnings from the banks to Amazon.com. Therefore, as one might have expected, SFOT is treading this treacherous water very slowly and carefully. Any views he might have formed and has transformed into a trade of some sort in the past month is only being tried out rather than being a committed involvement. He shall attempt to write about his humble views in the coming days and weeks and again invites readers to share theirs, although it might be a slower process than he initially thought as he gets settled into his new role.
One of the the most amazing developement he has seen over the summer(other than the painful equity and GBP trade), has been the return of liquidity in the commodities market, in particular the oil sector. Readers will know SFOT indeed deals in this market by trade, and other markets by pure interest. However, he is in awe at how liquid the market in crude oil futures has become. Bid-ask spreads has come in to levels not seen since very early 2008 or 2007. This is clearly inviting speculators and it has indeed done so, with front month open interests back to the speculative height in 2008. This may not mean anything to most people in terms of p/l, however this would mean to potential specs in commodities, notably the CTA type funds to lever up again to participate in this market. Which leads to his first thoughts, should volatility in the low 30s be bought? Hopefully all had a great year, and better things to come ahead.