Spread Charts

Finally, some readable, long-term spread charts. 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. Note that the plots of the underlying contracts for the further out member of the spread have been cut off at the expirations of the underlying contracts for the nearer member of the spread.

Pick the commodities and the months. The contracts are aligned so that Commodity 1 expires before Commodity 2. For example, if Dec corn versus Mar corn are selected, the following alignment results:

Dec Corn_1994 / Mar Corn_1995

Dec Corn_1995 / Mar Corn_1996

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Dec Corn_2003 / Mar Corn_2004

If the months are switched, a different alignment results:

Mar Corn_1995 / Dec Corn_1995

Mar Corn_1996 / Dec Corn_1996

Mar Corn_2003 / Dec Corn_2003

Select the position. If Commodity 1 is long, then Commodity 2 is short, and vice-versa.
Select the numbers of contracts.
Enter the unit moves if these are different than the contracts you are trading (these inputs display only for intercommodity spreads.
Select the type and amount of data to download. Using weekly closes rather than daily closes increases the download speed considerably.
Select the chart type. The jpegs are faster; the applets are interactive (zooming in is possible and there are data popups).
Press "Get Chart". There's a lot of data to download, so be patient.