These charts contain four plots:

1. backadjusted continuous contracts,

2. non-adjusted continuous contracts,

3. current rollover,

4. accumulated rollover.

This program creates a price series using all contracts. Each contract is plotted beginning 1 (or 20, depending on your selection) trading days before the previous contract expires until its own expiration. There is no shifting of the contracts.

This program plots every contract of the selected commodity and month. There is no shifting of the contracts. These charts are useful for seeing the effects of carrying charges.

This is the basic seasonal charting program. You choose the commodity, month, and number of past years to include. The program calculates the seasonal index as a simple average.

Notice that the standard deviation curves move closer to the seasonal curve (indicating a greater reliability) during the downtrends but move farther away during uptrends.

With this program you pick the commodity, the months to plot seasonals for and the number of years to use to make them. The chart at the right shows why this is useful. Notice the divergence starting at the beginning of the August seasonal between the June and August seasonals (which are moving downward) and the rest of the seasonals (which are moving upward) with the distance between the two groups increasing. This points to a potential spread opportunity. Though only one cycle is shown here, it is possible to show two cycles of the seasonals so that, for example, the end of the August seasonal could be compared to the beginning of the October seasonal.

With this program you can compare seasonals from any pair of commodities. Notice how the Unleaded Gas seasonal gains on the Heating Oil seasonal starting in January. This divergence in the seasonals points to the profitability of the Apr Unleaded Gas/Apr Heating Oil spread if purchased before January.

This program takes the last 20 years of data (or less if there is not that much data) and divides it into two equal time periods. Then a seasonal is made from each time period and both are plotted. This example shows that while the decrease beginning in October is much smaller in the "New" seasonal, the subsequent sharp rise is still present.

After selecting the commodity and month with the form on the right, the form on the far right is used to select the contracts for making the seasonal chart.

Enter the spread, the open date and close date, and the number of past years to include. Out pops the table at the right.

Finally, some readable, long-term spread charts. Here is what our charts look like. Notice that the spreads for consecutive years are different in color. This makes it easy to see the overlap between the spread for one year and the next. It's clear when each spread begins and ends. Unlike other sites, you are not limited to an incomplete set of spreads. You choose the commodities, the months and the amount of historical data to include (up to twenty years).

Choose the spread and the number of years of past data to include and this program will generate the spread's seasonal. Then the nearest open spread is plotted along with the seasonal so that it can be put in historical context.

In the given example, the open spread (C2005H/C2005K) followed the seasonal quite closely during the circled time period and again as it approaches expiration.

Seasonals are great, but don't use them alone. These charts were developed in order to judge the reliability of a seasonal. The charts are made by simply shifting the contracts of a particular month for a chosen commodity in time so that the expiration dates coincide. Here you can see that all the contracts had a general downward trend until the last six months of the contract when several began to rise.

This is the same idea as Stacked Contracts except it's done with spreads. This spread shows a great opportunity: notice that the upside possibilities were much greater than the downside possibilities.

Know the current costs of owning storable commodities. Use the default values or substitute your own and recalculate.

These charts show the next years' worth of open contracts. I use them to determine which contracts are in backwardation and which are in contango and if any of these relationships have changed. This is helpful for finding spread opportunities as well for determining the best month for an outright position (that is, a long or short position).

These charts show the most recent closes of the commodities so that it's easy to the size of various spreads and which contracts are in backwardation and which are in contango. All the commodities in a group (grains, energies, etc.) are displayed together so one can see whether these relationships are consistent among similar commodities. Notice how Natural Gas doesn't show the market tightness as do the other commodities but does show a strong seasonal effect.

These charts show the front-month contract for each member of the chosen commodity group. This is useful for keeping up with the markets and for spotting divergences among the commodities.

See where prices stand with respect to their historical ranges for the whole market at a glance. The bottom of the white bar represents the low for the chosen time period (20-years, here) as a percentage of the 20-year high. The top of the black bar represents the 20-year high as a percentage of the 20-year high which is 100%. The line where the white bar meets the black bar represents the current price as a percentage of the 20-year high.

For example, using the values for the British Pound on February 25, 2005,

20-year minimum: 105.45

20-year maximum: 200.32

current price: 191.64

we get,

minium percent	= (105.45/200.32) x 100%
	= 52.64%

maximum percent	= (200.32/200.32) x 100%
	= 100.00%

current percent	= (191.64/200.32) x 100%
	= 95.67%.

Don't take a position in the market without knowing who's side you're on. These charts show the open interest of each category of the Commitment of Traders data as a percentage of the total open interest. Most of these charts go back 20 years.

• commercial net long - red line
• non-commercial net long - blue line
• small trader net long - black line

These charts bring together four studies available separately and one new study.

Nearest Futures - Each contract is plotted beginning one trading day before the previous contract expires until its own expiration. There is no shifting of the contracts.

Single-Month Seasonal - A seasonal is made from the last 15 years of contracts of the same month as the current front month using a simple arithmetic average. The seasonal (black line) as well as an envelope (gray lines) one standard deviation wide are plotted.

Commitment of Traders - This plot shows the open interest of each category of the Commitment of Traders data as a percentage of the total open interest.

• commercial net long - red line
  
• non-commercial net long - blue line
  
• small trader net long - black line

Open Contracts - This plot shows the next years' worth of open contracts.

Nearby Spread - This is a plot of the spread: long front month/short the next further out month. When the front month expires both legs get rolled over to their next further out month.