Available only with a Premier Membership, 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.
If the contract has started a new trade for the current trading session, the start date and entry price is Bolded on the page.
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 sh ows 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.
Note: The Currencies category has deliberatley been eliminated from the Futures Trading Guide, as historical back-testing has shown the 9-18 Day Moving Average Crossover to produce inconsistent results. Currencies, by nature, are not a typical commodities instrument and do not show the same trading patterns that other commodites do (long-term, their prices tend not to fluctuate.)
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.)
Barchart does offer real-time futures trading through our cmdtyView application. Barchart's cmdtyView includes global futures coverage, broad physical pricing, and economic data available across Ag, Energy, and Metals. Request a free trial here.
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.
For reference, we include the date and timestamp of when the list was last updated at the top right of the page.
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.
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, %Change, High, Low, Volume, and Time of Last Trade.
- Technical View: Symbol, Name, Last Price, Today's Opinion, 14-Day Relative Strength, 20-Day Average Volume, 52-Week High, 52-Week % From High, 52-Week Low, and 52-Week % From Low.
- Performance View: Symbol, Name, Last Price, Weighted Alpha, 5-Day %Change, 1-Month %Change, 3-Month %Change, 52-Week %Change, YTD %Change.
- Moving Averages View: Symbol, Name, Last Price, 20-Day Moving Average, % From 20-Day Moving Average, 50-Day Moving Average, % From 50-Day Moving Average, 100-Day Moving Average, % From 100-Day Moving Average, 200-Day Moving Average, % From 200-Day Moving Average.
- Fundamental View: Available only on equity pages, this view shows Symbol, Name, Market Cap, P/E Ratio (trailing 12 months). Earnings Per Share (trailing 12 months), Net Income (Annual), Beta, Dividend Forward (Annual), Dividend Yield Forward (Annual), and Latest Earnings Date.
Note: For all markets except U.S. equities, fundamental data is not licensed for downloading. Your .csv file will show "N/L" for "not licensed" when downloading from a Canadian, UK, Australian, or European stocks page. - Mini-Chart View: Available for Barchart Plus and Premier Members, this view displays 12 small charts per page for the symbols shown in the data table. You may change the bar type and time frame for the Mini-Charts as you scroll through the page. The default settings for Mini-Charts are found in your Site Preferences, under "Overview Charts".
- Pre-Post Market View: Available for Barchart Plus and Premier Members, this view will show any pre- or post-market price activity for U.S. equities only.
Learn more about Custom Views here.
View Symbol More Data (+)
Unique to Barchart.com, data tables contain an option that allows you to see more data for the symbol without leaving the page. Click the "+" icon in the first column (on the left) to view more data 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. The "More Data" widgets are also available from the Links column of the right side of the data table.
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. Learn more about it here.
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 5000 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 1 site download per day. Barchart Plus Members have 10 downloads per day, while Barchart Premier Members may download up to 250 .csv files per day.
Note: Due to licensing restrictions, Canadian fundamental data cannot be downloaded from Barchart.com. You will see "N/L" in a downloaded column when this is the case. Fundamental data for US equities is also limited to 15 fields per download request.
Should you require more than 250 downloads per day, you would be best suited with our Barchart for Excel add-in. Free Trial Barchart for Excel
