The soybean market is very quiet tonight on the night session trading lower by 4 cents with very little activity recorded. It seems to me that almost every single night the soybeans are lower and then rally to new highs later in the day, that is the sign of a bull market and vise versa in the opposite direction when commodities hit contract lows.

Milk futures rallied sharply in early trading higher by more than 20 points to trade at 15.50 before profit taking hit the market and ended up settling at 15.20 lower by 5 points near the lows of the day. I think milk prices are bottoming and 4 days ago could have formed a spike low for milk prices in the short term.

Lumber prices have been in a general grinding bear market over the last several years, however it might be time to get bullish with the economy improving so maybe lumber prices might start a new bull market. The May contract is right near its contract high of around 280 and the current price is around 272 per board feet so any break out over contract highs could propel lumber prices near the 350 range.

The biggest question that I have been asked is when do I exit a winning trade and when do I exit a losing trade? The rule of thumb that I use is placing my stop loss at the ten day high if I am short or a 10 day low if I am long.The other rule of thumb is to place your stop loss at the 2% maximun loss allowed in your account for any given trade. If you have any questions please call me at 800-615-7649 and I will review many basic trading rules with you.