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Darkhorse, I don't know if it's all dishonesty. I would imagine a high percentage of long only traders would have bypassed the folder because of the name, and that it would have drawn in the short traders for the same reason. The percentage seems high, but due how the poll was presented...

I don't think your voting results give a true picture of the world. I would guess that 80% of respondents in a poll would be in the category of not having ever gone short and being afraid to do so. I know that by the time people get around to trading futures, most people still take a long...

Dojibear, In general they should, and for larger moves they do, but you can see some significant variances day to day. Personally I watch the soymeal contract for the real clues about this market. I consider it to be the primary market. Soybeans are just the parent product, and bean oil...

If that were the case, no one would accept a German account to trade futures. To answer the original question: When you trade futures or short options you can lose all or more than the money in your account. If your account sustains a debit, you will be responsible for the full amount of the...

Go to the library and get a book called the Commodity Trading Manual published by the Chicago Board of Trade. Many universities use it as the textbook for Futures 101 courses. Read this book 1st

Uptik, I've been a computer geek for a long time and my record for building a computer is 14 minutes. (Is using an electric screwdriver cheating?) Keep what you've got. The only thing worth upgrading for your uses would be adding memory. The systems I use at home and work are much...

For liquidity, you can almost always see 50 up on each side in either of these contracts. Often there are hundreds on the bid or offer, so I think most traders are perfectly safe using market orders in normal market conditions. I don't have the answer your quote symbol question, maybe a yahoo...

The NFA fee is 4 cents.

Travisdu, The five you mentioned currently have four digit quotes. (until they go up or down) silver - dollars, cents, and tenths. gold - dollars and dimes. yen - bazillionths, no extra zeros. wheat - dollars, cents, quarters, (and eighths for options only). cotton - cents per lb. and...

Learning how to daytrade has very bad odds. Most people will fail and lose money. And, if you need to depend on others' picks, you have already lost the game, set, and match. As someone else pointed out, you have to study a small number of stocks and learn their daily characteristics...

Two things. One, the exchanges won't be of much help because the formatting can be specific to the trading platform or the routing software. All they can tell you is how they do it, your platform may be very different. Two, at $55 a pop, why wouldn't he help you? That's what you're paying...

I'll figure out this signature thing one of these days. Matt

Travisdu, Perhaps you could ask your broker to walk you through it. After all, you are paying him to teach you how to place orders. The idea that he's teaching himself out of the high commissions should come under the category of "tough cookies". Another choice is to befriend other traders...

There's a reason why morning trading is different from afternoon trading. I'll use X-mas eve as the extreme example. Some people are required to stick around on X-mas eve to man the phones, desks, and trading pits. The rest are in the market voluntarily and participate at will. 1st thing in...

Commitments of traders. Useful or useless? I've seen arguments on both sides. I think you have to take the data and how it can be used and examine it on a market by market basis. This is definitely not a one size fits all situation. The common simplistic approach to COT numbers is to...

George, I talked to one of my buddies who's a broker at Refco and he says that their old LFG legacy system called LEO can do what you are asking for. Matthew Shelley (broker) Futures and options trading involves substantial risk. Information is obtained from sources believed to be...

George, PATS does have a point to point feature that allows a broker to connect to a pit guy with a terminal, but you'll have to talk to your broker about whether he has this type of connection, and with who. I'm not a Refco broker, but I'll talk to some of my buddies who are and try to...

Sorry about the double signature, I forgot about the automatic one. Matt

George, You won't be able to use PATS to trade the large contract as it's pit traded, and PATS only trades the all electronic markets. You'll need to find another avenue into the market such as another platform or calling the orders in. A comment was made that you shouldn't use market...