Lumen Futures Blog
Trading Strategies
How common futures trading approaches work, what each one assumes, and what published testing found.
Trading StrategiesOctober 12, 2026What Is Scalping in Futures Trading?
Scalping means many short trades for a tick or two each. In the CFTC glossary a scalper typically quotes under the last traded price and over it to capture the difference, which is the opposite side of the trade from paying that spread on every entry and exit.
- Trading StrategiesOctober 5, 2026
What Is Curve Fitting in Trading, and Why Do Backtests Stop Working?
Curve fitting is tuning a strategy until it matches the particular history it was tested on, and the research on it puts numbers to how fast that happens: ten variants of an idea with no edge are expected to hand you one with an in-sample Sharpe ratio of 1.57 and nothing out of sample.
- Trading StrategiesSeptember 24, 2026
What Is a Moving Average Crossover Strategy, and Does It Work?
A moving average crossover takes a position when a short average of price passes a longer one, and in Park and Irwin's test of twelve US futures markets the returns trend-following systems earned over 1978 to 1984 had turned negative over 1985 to 2003.
- Trading StrategiesSeptember 14, 2026
Does the Opening Range Breakout Actually Work? Two Studies, Opposite Answers
One study found significant returns trading it on crude oil futures over 28 years. Another tested five versions on Nasdaq micros and not one cleared the bar. The rule itself takes a sentence to state, so the useful part is which assumptions it carries.
- Trading StrategiesSeptember 9, 2026
How to Read the COT Report (Commitments of Traders)
The COT report shows who holds each futures market, released Fridays with Tuesday's positions. What commercial, non-commercial and spreading mean, and what it can't tell you.