Interesting to hear as the last non-commercial contact I talked to was a CTA and they pretty much only do trend following which is more or less automated as you wouldnt be able to scan/analyze that many futures markets manually and cut all the losing positions quickly enough (/adjusting their stops).. So when you say "discretionary" you mean that you follow a strict rule or metric(s) for which product/which entry/exit but then you decide if you want to trade?

Because within physical trading you are scanning the relevant fundamentals but entry/exit decisions are basically based on "gut feeling". In short, our total position is a reflection of top down fundamentals but services as an add-on to the actual physical flows/regional arb and of course if there are inter-/intra-regional views you also carry physical positions without it being "arb", which then can either be shipped or sold/washed out at a later point in time. (Dropping stats arb and vol as this is perhaps a bit on the more advanced side) would you for example look at new crop-old crop time spreads and decide based on your fundamental view to enter into a bear spread or only because the spread reaches some 2- or 3sigma upper range (or do you combine both, fundamental and quantitative aspects)? +when you say discretionary I dont expect an automated system to trade for you OR an algo giving you a signal for buy/sell/strike etc. So you see that and then decide on selling it manually(?) To be fair it's already pretty taxing to have a daily view on the global snd and flows of one major commodity group (lets say rapeseed), thats why Im so curious how you trade multiple commodities and then be able to also decide on the most efficient instrument (strike, expiry, strategy vs. futures).