Happy New Year!
As we head into a fresh trading year, we wanted to remind our valued subscribers why spread trading remains one of the most powerful, risk-efficient strategies in the futures markets. Whether you’re refining your approach or looking for new edges in 2025, this is the perfect time to revisit the advantages spreads offer.
If you're still trading outright futures the old-school way, you're leaving money and sleep on the table. Spreads can cut your risk in half (sometimes more) because you're long one leg and short the other, so big directional shocks are neutralized while you benefit from the relative move.
Margins are much lower than outright positions, which means you can run the same dollar risk with a fraction of the capital tied up — or scale up your best ideas without stressing your account.
You don’t have to pick tops or bottoms or pray the Fed doesn’t nuke the tape; you just need the spread to behave the way it has in similar seasons or under similar fundamentals. That’s it. Lower volatility, cheaper leverage, cleaner P&L — and the ability to profit whether the outright market is flat, falling, or flying. Once you’ve traded spreads seriously, going back to naked directionals feels like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Every month, MRCI releases a short list of up to 15 seasonal spreads that have historically won more than 80% of the time in their specific seasonal windows (old crop/new crop corn, July/Dec cattle, crush, crack, calendar spreads — you name it). These aren’t guesses; they come with exact win rates, average profits, and the year-by-year results, plus clear charts: seasonal patterns, bull/bear overlays, daily historicals, and correlation studies showing whether this year is tracking the strong years or the rare losing ones.
You also get scenario-based guidance — “if the front month closes higher/lower this month, here’s what usually happens next” — so you’re never flying blind on entries or exits. Instead of hoping your outright directional bet survives the next headline, you’re trading high-probability, low-drawdown spreads that have been repeating for decades, with all the data laid out in front of you.
To a successful 2026,
Your MRCI Team
