Commodities Futures Trading Workbook: Contract Analysis and Trade Planning

Understanding contango and backwardation is one thing; being able to read a live futures term structure curve, calculate the roll cost of holding a contango position, and estimate the dollar value of a one-tick move in a crude oil contract is a different, practical skill. This workbook course builds that skill through structured exercises, calculation templates, and worked trade-planning examples. By the end of this course you will be able to calculate the dollar P&L of a futures position for a given price move using contract tick value, read a futures term structure and identify the roll cost or roll yield for a nearby-to-next-contract roll, build a trade planning worksheet for a commodities futures position including margin requirement, maximum loss estimate, and price target, interpret a current CFTC Commitments of Traders report and assess positioning context, and apply a fundamental checklist to crude oil or gold to identify the dominant price driver in current conditions. What you will learn: - Tick value calculation worksheet: contract size, tick size, and dollar-per-tick for crude oil, gold, corn, and soybean futures - Margin and leverage calculation: initial margin as a percentage of notional value and its implication for position sizing - Term structure reading exercise: identifying contango or backwardation from a multi-month price curve - Roll cost calculation: estimating annualised roll yield for a given term structure shape - Trade planning template: entry price, target price, stop price, maximum loss in dollars, and risk-reward ratio - Crude oil fundamental checklist: EIA inventory report, OPEC meeting calendar, and refinery utilisation as current price context - Gold fundamental checklist: real yield trend, DXY direction, and ETF flow data as current price context - CoT report interpretation: extracting net positioning for commercial hedgers and large speculators and comparing to historical extremes Each section presents a worked example followed by a blank worksheet or checklist. Case studies illustrate common planning errors — entering a crude oil position without accounting for storage cost in a contango market, underestimating margin requirements during a volatility spike, misreading a crop report's impact on corn futures. Reflection prompts ask you to work through each calculation before reviewing the worked version. This course is designed for traders who are new to commodities futures and want to build practical trade-planning skills. Suitable for those who are new to futures but have some familiarity with financial markets. This course is informational and educational and does not constitute financial or investment advice.