HU Nymex Unleaded Gas

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AFJ Garner
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HU Nymex Unleaded Gas

Post by AFJ Garner »

Can anyone less patently ignorant than myself (of which there are many) comment on the reasons for the drop off of interest in this market in terms of volume and how far out you can trade along the calendar?

It is not just the drop in energy prices - look at Gas Oil on the IPE or at other energy volumes and contracts.

I have combed through the NYMEX website for any comments (without result). I suppose my ignorance serves me right. I should occasionally open the FT or the Wall Street Journal or look at Bloomberg or Reuters.

Lets just put it this way: if you want to continue to trade HU at all, you no longer have the luxury of being able to trade anything further out than the front month.
sluggo
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Post by sluggo »

Reformulated Gasoline Blendstock for Oxygen Blending has taken over. Have a glance at CSI Commodity Number 975, and/or read about Goldman Sachs' phasing-out of HU from the GSCI: http://www.cme.com/files/gsciupdatejune.pdf

An interesting question is: how did Pinnacle Data handle this? They sell continuous contracts; what did they do / what will they do with HU?
AFJ Garner
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Post by AFJ Garner »

Very much appreciated, thank you.

I have been meaning for some time to comb through all the exchange websites and subscribe to their e-mail news services and this has alerted me to the dangers of my sloth.

Do you find any of the futures and commodities magazines helpful for this sort of news? Again, I must admit I do not currently subscribe to any.

An interesting point on Pinnacle. Another point is that I wish they would increase their coverage - I have still done nothing about a back up for CSI, although I cursorily glance at on-line (rather than download)providers like CQG. And ask (with no joy) how they concatenate their contracts and what choices the user has.

A further point is how people will choose to treat backtesting of this product. I imagine the best idea is to include HU up to November last year and then subsitute it for the new product.
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Post by Old European »

AFJ,

I found out by accident that something was happening with the HU contract a few months ago, when I was looking at the miNY gasoline contract (QU). I discovered that the QU contract was no longer a mini version of the HU contract, but of the Reformulated gasoline contract (RB).

Why did I have to find out in this way and why didn't the exchange or my broker (Man Financial) inform me? I never really liked the NYMEX exchange. They are very slow in informing customers, they are very expensive, they are very slow in switching from pit trading to electronic trading, they have a 30-minute delay on their delayed quotes while other exchanges only have a 10-minute delay, they have a different holiday schedule than the Chicago exchanges ...

Cheers,

Old European
AFJ Garner
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Post by AFJ Garner »

Fortunately, I had no position anyway. Nor have had for some considerable time. But I still feel a prat (don't look it up, its rude Englih slang).

Thinking about it I imagine CSI will eventually decide to treat it like the Euro - splice in the old price history with the new under the new name? Maybe Pinnacle will follow.
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Post by AFJ Garner »

Yes, it would appear that this is exactly the route that CSI have taken; I wonder why Pinnacle have not? I may say that I had to e-mail CSI first and ask whether this was to be done: there was no footnote either for the symbol HU or RB.

I then had to use database/refresh price history in order to get the merged contract.

Again, entirely my fault I suppose but these things can be difficult to pick up. No doubt if I had actually had a position at some stage during the year I would have noticed, nevertheless...................what a plonker!
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