HRC Futures Finish a Rough September

Editor’s note: SMU Contributor David Feldstein is president of Rock Trading Advisors. Rock provides customers attached to the steel industry with commodity price risk management services and market intelligence. RTA is registered with the National Futures Association as a Commodity Trade Advisor. David has over 20 years of professional trading experience and has been active in the ferrous derivatives space since 2012.

In the chart below of the rolling 2nd month Midwest HRC future, now November, the red line represents total open interest across the 36 months of HR futures and the yellow dotted line is the 22-day moving average of the open interest. The sharp drops in open interest occur when the front month expires. As you can see, open interest exploded in September.