Let me begin by telling you of my system for isolating trades with odds 10 to 1 in my favor. Those are million dollar odds. Unfortunately, I still haven’t developed a method for calling all the big moves all the time. What I have done is develop a set of criteria that will, when they coincide, tell you the odds are heavily in favor of either an up or down move.

This method seldom speaks, but when it does, you have as close to a sure thing as you’ll ever get. As you will see, this method will not call all the swings, but that’s not its purpose. Its function is to segregate the super trades from trades that are questionable.

Trading in this manner is much easier because it allows you to take a longer term view of the market. I have found there is no need to monitor the market on a trade-by-trade basis, or, at times, even a daily basis. The signals are so strong that you don’t need to concern yourself with a microscopic view.

I use two major tools for selecting “bankable trades”. They are: 1) premium relationships, and 2) open interest. When these two click, the odds are 75% in your favor. To further substantiate the 75% probability, I also check contrary opinion, the market’s reaction to news, trend direction, and a few chart formations.

by Larry Williams, excerpt from his book, How I Made $1,000,000 Trading Commodities Last Year.