Between 1983 and 1995, my trading business was located on the floor of the Grain Exchange where I met a very successful old-time trader. Other traders would ask this man’s opinion, which was highly regarded because he was known as a successful trader. His response often times was, “Listen to the ‘Voice from the Tomb.” Over the years, I befriended him and asked him what he meant by this statement. He told me that the “Voice from the Tomb” was one of the secrets of his success.
The legend goes something like this.
Years ago, a millionaire grain trader lost his wife and dedicated his life to his three children. But as in many second generations of self-made people, the children were lazy and thought they would inherit all his money. As he aged, he began to look at his children as wasteful, and he believed they took him for granted. When he died, he gave all the money to charity. All he left them in his will were dates of when to buy and sell wheat. The will stated that if they strictly followed his advice, they would have the fortune they had always expected to inherit.
Then my friend shared the VFTT dates for the wheat market (the most recent being Buy December Wheat on July 1).
He told me the dates worked for him most times, but never really shared how he used them. I’ve found the dates pretty good, and those years when they are working, they are working! For example, the May 10 sale this year was pretty close to a top (see Figure 1 below). And the July 1 buy signal came right at the low (the rule is to buy or sell at the close on the date). Wheat proceeded to rally over 30¢/bushel from the July 1 close, or over $1,500 profit per contract. But that really doesn’t help you now.
HOW IT WORKS
The dates are based on seasonal tendencies for the winter wheat market. For example, the July 1 date corresponds to a point when the winter wheat harvest is about half over nationally. The futures market anticipates the harvest selling pressure subsiding and starts to rally again.
NEXT TRADE
What could help you, however, is that now you know the ‘secret’ you might want to pay attention to the next signal— Buy December Wheat on September 10.
Good luck and good trading.
