Has anyone here actually mastered any scalping techniques on futures contracts? I have just discovered a broker that allows you to trade the e-mini with $500 deposit
Also general futures thread, have you had experience? Or heard they were a bad idea? enlighten me!
Futures are pretty based because they're open like twice as long as the stock market, they're exchange-traded (there's a true price, unlike forex), there's no "pattern day trader" rule in the US, there's clearing houses on both sides of the transaction to mitigate counterparty risk... pretty baller shit desu senpai
Traded them for about a year now.
Equities are like walking, whereas futures are like taking the train.
In other words, you can win or lose very quickly.
I'm paper trading some options on futures.
I'm still mastering options and slowly learning futures. They quite a bit bigger and have more intricacies than options. Slowly getting there though.
This is true.
And in addition to that, in futures you get access to real volume information including volume at the bid and offer. And futures has the best platforms, way better than the platforms you get access to in the equities space. And futures has the best trading DOM, Jigsaw, is packed full of features for the futures scalper, and is a full head and shoulders(no pun intended) above all the competition.
Anyone want to enter an Ethereum Contract For Difference with me?
not "mastered". i do aim for a couple handles a day for survival. like
aluded to you need stop losses or you're gonna get REKT.
>Futures have more intricacies than options
Obvious bullshit is obvious
What on earth are you talking about?
Futures have varying expirations, different notional values and different tick rates etc. You need to know exactly what you're doing and understand the intricacies of each contract or you'll hurt yourself.
Options are easier as they're basically all quite similar, unlike futures contracts.
But you don't have to listen to me, do what you want, makes no difference to me.
Futures trading is great!!!! It's very risky/rewarding & u need to be educated tho. Many many resources so if u want to learn, the. U can & will.
I hate stocks & love futures based my experience.
My current live cattle spread trade. (Pic related)
Definitely look into "spread trading" or "arbitrage trading". Works well for me.
Really takes at least 5-10k to trade just few contracts due to margin requirements & price swings. Having a 6 fig account can really allow u to get some great margin but that will only leave u broke fast if u don't know what ur doing. Def practice with paper trading accounts.
I tend to stay in livestock & grains & I usually stay away from energy & forex but everybody has their own opinions on the different markets. I also trade metals but they r very dangerous if ur a novice as is all futures trading tho..
Where to learn, my black friend?
What do you think about soybeans and corn right now? USDA says there's too much supply but prices aren't reflecting that, in fact we're near the $3.4 top for corn they projected for 2016-2017 in the last WASDE.
usually controlling one emini contract has a day trading margin of $500. youd want to at least deposit $1k. also, make sure that you know of the day trading hours. it varies by broker. ie td ameritrade has 8AM-4PM ET day trading hours for lower margin, which makes overnight margin 16 hours long. tradefutures4less and others have 4PM ET- 345PM ET, making the overnight margin just 15 minutes long.
Wouldn't recommend it to anyone that doesn't have much experience or hasn't mastered other market instruments yet. But if you do decide to go into futures make sure to get some kind of "insurance" with some options. And always go hard. You must be mentally very strong. Good lock and always do your homework.
look up futurestrader71 on twitter
a guy that actually does it for a living and isnt trying to sell you anything
I'm showing both as short plays for the next 3-4 weeks based on the seasonal trends. See pic for soybean seasonal.
I only trade spreads but if would go short on those if I was trying to trade those ags. The soybeans look slightly more appealing to short based on 15 yr history that I just glanced over
Here's same 15 yr seasonal on corn.
Also I'm talking about November soybeans & December corn for the contact months
I learned a lot from somebody who has successfully traded for most his life.
Beyond that, I think Larry Williams books are great for learning futures spreads but also any of the major brokers have tons of great webinars. Thinking interactive brokers, think or swim, tradestation, etc..
There is tons of information many places so really depends on how bad u want it, what ur willing to sacrifice & how much time u can dedicate to it.
Lots say they want to learn but very few willing to dedicate themselves & keep trying even after it gets tough...
>futurestrader71
I also second this recommendation. Watching FT71's videos has really helped me.
You trade futures with optionsXpress /Charles Schwab? Why did you pick them as a broker?
When you are trading "cattle", what exactly are you trading based on? What kind of data sources do you look at?
I know how to do fundamental analysis for both currencies and companies, but I have no idea how it'd work for cattle, metals, etc.
Schwab is pretty consistently rated as one of the best brokers.
They also have the best normie checking account attached to their investor account... no fees, no minimum balance, unlimited free checks, all ATM fees anywhere in the world refunded at end of month, if you call you get a white person picking up the phone on the third ring, and so on.
Only bad part is you can't deposit/withdraw money at their locations. Pay $1 for a money order at the USPS if you need to deposit cash for some reason. If you need to withdraw mad dosh, just go to an ATM, call their support, they'll raise your daily withdrawal limit, they'll wait on the line with you until you've successfully withdrawn it all, then they'll put the daily limit back. I've withdrawn $10,000 from a Chase ATM with a Schwab rep on the phone before (was buying a motorcycle in a private sale).
Damn (((googler))) turn us on to some knowledge links!
What data feeds and platforms does Schwab support in the futures?
user above stated many reasons plus was with optionsxpress before they got bought by Schwab. Also got some easy spread position trading stuff but not as great as the bigger platforms if I'm trading a lot, which right now I'm not
I use historical data from mrci.com & my own indicators (macd, parabolic sar, 7day ma, etc..) & mostly pay attention to currency as that tends to move markets crazy these days.
(((Google))), if u can't combine the info above with ur own knowledge & the Internet to find the info u need, futures trading is probably not for u...
>fundamental analysis for currencies
I've been learning technicals and market structure stuff, but I'm curious to learn more about fundamental analysis of currencies.
>trading futures with $500
Kill yourself
-NFA regulator
Those reasons sound nice for banking, but why choose Schwab as your futures broker? I'm still wondering about this I've never really considered Schwab because it looks like other brokers offer really good platforms such as Jigsaw, Sierra, MarketDelta and really good data and execution such as Rithmic and CQG.
NFA, why are you guys working so hard to cut the legs out from underneath your main competition, making the US brokers much worse and preventing US citizens from trading with the better brokers? I'm talking about Forex being regulated by the Futures guys. The only brokers that accept US citizens as clients are a joke. They do not provide you with access to the real market with real volume data so its like trying to drive with an eyepatch covering one eye. There are foreign brokers that offer real volume data feeds with big liquidity providers much closer to the interbank level, but they arent allowed to accept US citizens as clients. If you're not a US citizen you get a huge leg up advantage and much closer access to institutional level data and US citizens are at a huge disadvantage.
Here is my think or swim account. Fees r much cheaper & but my lazy ass hasn't learned how to place overnight stop orders on futures spreads, but I know how on optionsxpress/schwab. I'm a lazy ass albino (((Google))), what can I say
How is TOS platform for volume data analysis and studies? I've heard that its inaccurate and they filter ticks to higher than second resolution and the platform doesnt even offer good volume studies like MarketDelta's footprint or Sierra's numberbars.
>deposit money
>enter trade
Annnnnd, it's gone.
It's not great at all but I get free data feeds. I'm only position trading so my current setup is fine but when I trade heavy I use interactive broker/tradestation combo. But don't park anything there unless I'm using it
Here's some examples of stuff you get for not being a US citizen.
>Direct inter-bank liquidity is a key component to CQG FX. The CQG FX depth of market and provides 5 prices deep on both the bid and ask.
>Trade on institutional pricing with no dealing desk, no re-quotes and no restrictions, average spread from 0,1 pips.
>two industry leaders, KCG Hotspot & CQG Inc., we are making the FX trading more professional, more flexible and more successful.
>brings the institutional FX trading to the level of retails traders. will give CQG traders low-cost access to the Hotspot FX ECN. Users will be able to apply the full range of CQG functionality to the Hotspot ECN platform and to the widest range of FX instruments
>brings the powerful benefits of an independent, transparent Hotspot FX ECN marketplace structure to professional foreign exchange trading
>Full depth-of-book view.
>Centralized price discovery.
>wide range of liquidity providers in Hotspot ECN; just such as Credit Suisse International, HSBC, UBS, Velocity, JPML. Combined with highly professional CQG terminals this solution is ideal for speculative trading as well as for long term trading.
>Deep Liquidity from HOTSPOT ECN.
>True ECN with Competitive Pricing and Depth of Book Transparency.
>Diverse market participant of Banks, Institutions, Hedge Funds, High Frequency Traders, Corporations.
>The best trading conditions for scalping and high frequency trading globally; no restrictions for your trading.
>Level II Pricing – Market Depth.
>CQG DOM shows the full range of executable prices coming directly from liquidity providers of HOTSPOT ECN.
NFA says if you're a US citizen you dont get to see what's going on in the real makretplace in the Level II orderbook. All you're allowed to access is the bucketshop who takes the the other side of your trade and forces you to fly blind.
What does TOS's Monkey Bars with Volume Profile study look like? And does it show the different volume at the bid and offer?
I'm mainly wondering if the TOS platform offers charts that look like pic related. so many platforms call it by different names but basically what it represents is the difference between the volume of contracts traded at the bid versus the volume of contracts traded at the ask.
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I'm not in the forex department. Can't chime in much about that Senpai. I do tell you that our presence is growing in the U.K. and we are expanding our presence internationally. Do what you guys want abroad, but our job is to protect the US citizen and thus not having those nice non-us benefits
Last time I checked, we are slowly leaving forex. New regulation going to take us to a new industry to regulate: algo traders
Side note- I've seen what the experts in futures make. Last guy I audited was clearing 80k a month in management fees and commissions.
Buddy had 25 years of experience.
My advice: stick to one type of commodity and master it like you know your dick. Trade cattle, and just cattle. Trade corn and just corn. Trade soybeans and just soybeans. Trade cotton and just cotton. Etc etc
Thank me later
Never messed with monkey bars or volume profiles. Looks very interesting tho...
>Senpai. I do tell you that our presence is growing in the U.K. and we are expanding our presence internationally. Do what you guys want abroad, but our job is to protect the US citizen and thus not having those nice non-us benefits
Cant you tell I'm in the US and a US citizen and because NFA restrictions I'm not allowed access to a broker that offers forex ECN, or orderook / Level II data. I'm only left with like three options FXCM, Gain's Forex.com, and Oanda. all three of them dont offer data closer to the interbank level they only offer you access to the data inside their bucketshop where the only volume you see is from their customers trading with hteir market maker dealer desk.
>protect the US citizen
This is so false. NFA regulations do nothing but hurt the US citizens and put us at a huge disadvantage.
The Last decent forex broker in the US was just shut down due to regulators. Im talking about Interactive Brokers was the last broker who offered US citizens access to a true forex ECN.
I've heard advise like this before, to become a world class expert in one specific market nich, and I think there is a lot of truth to it. I've been studying the currencies futures contracts, mainly 6A, 6B, 6E, but it sounds like you're suggesting focusing on the foreign exchange contracts is not narrow enough and to narrow it down even more and pick only one.
It really bothers me the most that I'm not given the option to opt-out by moving. Something I think that you're missing is that all regulated foreign brokers dont accept US Citizens (its not just a matter of being resident in the US). So lets say I try to get access to the world's best forex brokers bymoving abroad and become a resident in another country. But they would not be allowed to take me on as a customer because I'm a US citizen even though I'd no longer be resident in the US. For contrasting example, Belgium recently banned residents in its country from all forex trading. But if a Belgian citizen made their income by trading forex and still wanted to trade forex they could move to another country. It seems US citizens are only in the world that cannot escape from under the boot of the US regulators no matter where in the world we try to run we're still shackled and bound by the US regulations that put us at a disadvantage to other citizens.
Crypto now.
I'd rather trade currencies in the Futures and cash market.
And in futures there is the COT data which is a goldmine, and crypto currencies doesnt have anything like that. And I haven even seen a platform for cryptocurrencies that is anywhere near as good as the futures platforms.