Out Of Commission

You may recall that just last week I was complaining about my busted up hands and having difficulties typing. Boohoo – poor me! Well, in return for acting like a winy little bitch the universe over the weekend rewarded me with a lower back injury which pretty much renders me unable to walk straight or lay down without shooting pain. It’s not a full blown sciatica I think but some nerve that got pinched walking up a latter. As you can imagine it’s been nothing but fun and games ever since.

So please forgive me if I take a day or two off as I have basically reached my physical limits and won’t be spending much time watching the tape. Plus despite having splurged on an Aeron chair with lumbar support (they cost a fortune in Europe!) it’s not a good idea for me to sit all day. Instead I will try to stretch and release some of the misalignment that’s pinching the nerve and causing the pain in the first place. With a bit of luck I’ll feel good enough to see my chiro tomorrow who I’m sure will be able to put me back on the path of recovery. And I guess it’s a chance for my hands to heal as well. We’ve got to see the positive in any situation! 😉

Now with the CME launching BTC last night both U.S. Bitcoin futures contracts are now officially active. I’ve posted the specs above and it’s important that you understand the differences. Basically Cboe’s XBT is the smaller one with a tick value of $10 and a tick size of $0.01.

What does that mean? It means that each step (or tick) on your XBT chart will move the value of the contract by $10 cent. But when trading XBT each of those ticks either earns or costs you 10 cents. Which is probably the contract retail traders will be focusing on. Unless of course they are either manic depressive or are freebasing crack, which judging by bitcoin’s swings over the past few weeks a majority of them are. So I guess we’ll be in good company!

CME’s BTC is the larger contract and each change in price represents $25 (the tick value). But when trading XBT each of those ticks either earns or costs you $5 (the tick size). You probably don’t want to touch this contract with a ten foot pole unless you’re this guy:

Obviously volume on both the XBT and the BTC is still miserable and most likely it’ll take a few months to attract enough participants to become sufficiently liquid. But I’m confident that it will happen and once we have accumulated more historical context there’ll be no telling how much fun we’ll have trading those two.

Alright, I’ve got to go and stretch my legs, literally. Once again apologies for my absence – it’s been a lousy Christmas season for the old battered Mole.