Whether it’s grain or cattle, FOREX or domestic stock Indices, cocoa, coffee and sugar, currencies or petroleum products, trading commodities can be an exhilarating and intoxicating activity. Day traders in particular get a rush from staying on the bleeding edge of futures transactions.

Since I was trained to be a technical trader, the emotional high of day trading has no place in my strategy. My charts are my manuals and they tell me everything I want and need to know. That’s not to say I don’t need to study up on options techniques or particular strategies that people have successfully utilized in the futures marketplace.

The beauty of technical trading is that we don’t initiate transactions based panic, fear, optimism or hope. Emotions don’t come into it at all. Decisions are based on conclusions we draw from analyzing chart trends. And by utilizing smart options-buying strategies to hedge “our bets.”