Up and down and up again?

So far this year hasn't been exactly amazing trendwise. There has been some smaller trends but they weren't big enough to make money out of them for my system. Maybe I will work on a tighter system with more leverage to capture those, but that will be a summer activity... Anyways, most stock markets are hitting new heights right now, so I'm already in or in the process of getting in long, hoping for some more sustainable trends this time. We shall see. In the meantime I want to look at 3 commodity positions I'm holding:

1st: Cotton long, entered 02/16/2010, add to position 02/22/2010 and 03/01/2010

As you can see there has been a nice little upward trend in the price of cotton. In fact it has been hitting a 52-week high at around 83.5 cents. This trade shows nicely how the system plows back profits by adding to winning trades at certain new heights. The downside is that after the trend has lost its momentum, the percentage gain is marginal after adding to the position twice.


2nd Sugar short, entered 02/12/2010, add to position 02/23/2010

Again, nice downward trend from almost 28 cents to around 21 cents (almost 25%) up until today. The second and final position increase should be done today or tomorrow, if the trend holds. The next few days will be interesting, as it seems that there are quite a few supports around the 20 cent mark. If that level breaks, the sugar trade has the potential to be not only  big but hugely profitable...

3rd Natural Gas short, entered 01/28/2010, add to position 03/04/2010

Now, the Natural Gas trade is very interesting in my opinion because it shows that sometimes it takes time before the trend takes of. The entry signal was on the 28th of January and it seemed like the market was moving against that position but from the 19th of February onwards the downward pressure finally kicked in. So far the trend seems intact (add to position on the 4th of March) but it could be a downturn fuelled by speculation as a COT report suggests. So far there is no sign of an upward trend though, so I happily watch my profits rise...

Lastly a note on the equity of the whole portfolio: February was a bad month with a drawback of 2.2%. This doesn't sound that bad but please keep in mind I cannot trade any leveraged positions yet, due to restrictions from my broker... Anyways, let's see if there are a few more nice trends in March and April to gain back some  of that equity.