A single reference built to be read two ways: a guided path for someone placing their first trade, and a deep, ticker-by-ticker desk manual for someone who has traded for twenty years. Every formula is shown with a fully worked example. Every market is sized.
Start at Part 1 and move through sequentially. Each concept is defined before it is used, jargon is unpacked the first time it appears, and the foundations (futures, options, ETFs, the forward curve, margin, sizing) are laid down before any single market is discussed. By Part 4 you will read a contract spec the way a professional does.
Use the Contents below or the Appendix master tables to land directly on an instrument. Practitioner notes [Prac] carry the desk-level nuance — roll behaviour, curve trades, basis, positioning reads — that beginners can safely skip on a first pass and veterans will want to argue with.
These tags recur on every page so you always know what kind of content you are looking at.
A formula with a worked example. Every variable is labelled and real numbers are plugged in, so you can see exactly which price goes where.
A drivers & catalyst-reaction table: what moves the instrument, from the simple/obvious to the second-order and non-obvious.
A practitioner note — desk-level colour on how the thing actually trades, where beginners get hurt, and how pros position.
A market-size / liquidity figure. Sizes and specs drift, so treat live numbers as "verify at time of use".
A contract specification table — exchange, ticker, unit, tick size, tick value, months, settlement.
A calculator tie-in — points to a Lumley Trading calculator that does this maths for you.
How markets work and the full instrument toolkit — spot, futures, options, ETFs/ETNs, swaps — plus margin, the forward curve, roll yield, leverage decay and position sizing. The grammar of everything that follows.
Index weighting maths, the major equity indices and how to trade each (futures, ETFs, options), then the volatility complex in depth: VIX, MOVE, VVIX, SKEW, OVX, GVZ and the dollar index DXY.
Yields vs prices, duration and convexity, the yield curve, the Fed and front-end pricing, Treasury futures and ETFs, global govvies, and credit. Why a hot CPI hits bonds — and when it doesn't.
The mental model that makes every commodity legible: storage and cost of carry, convenience yield, the COT report, the five routes to exposure, and how a commodity market's size is actually measured.
Crude grades and API gravity (WTI, Brent, Dubai, WCS), the WTI–Brent spread, refined products and the crack spread, natural gas across Henry Hub, TTF, NBP and JKM, plus coal, carbon and power.
Precious metals and their real-rate / dollar drivers (gold, silver, platinum, palladium) and the gold–silver ratio; the base-metals complex and the LME system (copper, aluminium, nickel, zinc, lead, tin).
Grains and oilseeds, the soybean crush, the vegetable-oil complex including palm oil (FCPO), the softs — coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton, orange juice, lumber — and livestock. WASDE, weather and seasonality.
Bitcoin and Ether as macro assets: what they are, what moves them, and the full venue stack — CME futures, perpetual swaps and funding, spot and futures ETFs (IBIT, ETHA), staking yield and basis trades.
Spread trading, seasonality, roll mechanics, COT in practice, the macro regime lens (growth/inflation quadrants, USD, real rates), multi-asset risk management and the master catalyst-reaction matrix.
Master contract-spec and ticker tables, the complete formula sheet (every formula with its worked example in one place), a full glossary, and the key data-release calendar with sources.