Sean Pledger

Research! In preparation for Fridays USDA report on World Supply and Demand Estimates I will be reading a fair number of blogs and articles. Leading up to Thursday night I will be placing some price limit orders to capture any volatility created by the report. I will likely be trading in corn and or soy. My strategy will be to place market orders in the direction I expect the price to move then put stop losses in place. I will also attempt to use additional limit orders to reverse my position should a dramatic enough jump take place, assuming that prices will overshoot their new equilibrium level and have to correct back. In applying this strategy for the last WASDE report there are 2 main lessons I learned. The first was that there can be considerable volatility prior to the report release so I will make sure to set my stop losses wide enough to not be triggered prior to significant price movement. The second lesson was one many of us in class have now expirienced, purchase delays in TradeSim. The key will be to set stop losses wide enough that they won’t be prematurely triggered but set price limit reversals narrow enough that they will be triggered well before the price reaches its high or low for the day, anticipating a delay in the transaction.