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From what I have observed, the difference is in how you select markets to trade. Most (daytrading) futures traders pick 1-3 markets that fit their strategy and stick with them. A lot of them gravitate towards markets with high volatility and high liquidity, like Crude Oil, Nasdaq, Dax, etc...

I'm guessing 60. Only basing this on my experience at a credit card company, which needed a minimum of 30 credit approvals per risk bucket to adequately calibrate the model. That was the bare minimum though.

The only reason I mentioned notional is that the OP is a forex trader. Forex is traded in notional, not contracts. He wanted to be able to move "$5 million" without a lot of slippage.

Actually that dawned on me as soon as a finished the post, lol. I was thinking more conceptually - $1 million USD notional is roughly 10 FX futures contracts (yes, I know, it's higher or lower depending on the other currency). Ergo, 10 Crude contracts. Plus, the volatility of crude relative to...

Crude Oil. Might be a little tight on liquidity though. More than 10 contracts at a time (equivalent to $1 million EUR/USD) will incur slippage. Have you tried the more volatile FX pairs, like EURJPY or GBPJPY. EURAUD has been pretty perky lately too.

I've been messing around with spreads on Seasonalgo, and I noticed that Live Cattle is really backwardated (lej17-lem17). Is supply really tight? Seasonal pattern implies higher from here but a swing from +9.5 to 0 (which is historical range for this time of year) would be a pretty steep drop.

It looks like you just buy/short the high/low of the previous 30 minute range, add to the long/short if it continues to break 30 min highs/lows and reverse if it breaks the low/high of the next 30 minute range. Not a criticism, just an observation. Sometimes simpler is better.

Interactive Brokers is out of retail forex trading in the U.S. I think Gain and OANDA are still in though.

@bone built a analytics platform, but he charges $5000-$6000 for it (along with general training on spreads). He also can recommend you more "spread friendly" brokers and trading platforms. EDIT: From my research, CTS T4 is a reasonably-priced spread-friendly trading platform (with a new...

Echo everything that was said here, especially by @Xela. ;) One other thing I noticed - it looks like your demo only charges you $1.84 per round turn in commissions and fees. I could be wrong - maybe that spreadsheet counts a "contract" as a "side," not a "round turn." (i.e. Is 100 contracts...

Can't answer most of your question, but, regarding the last paragraph, you multiply the option premium by 100 to get the per contract $ outlay. U.S. stock option contracts are 100 shares apiece.

Both barchart.com and tradingview can chart spreads on their free versions. If you want to pay $30/month for tradingview's premium service, you can also chart them intraday. HOWEVER...these are "indicative" spreads that just subtract one contract from another, which becomes inaccurate on...

I think he means "of the ETFs which use futures contracts to replicate an index, which currently buy/roll underlying futures that currently have the steepest contango - I want to short the ETF and harvest the negative carry." VXX is a popular short, but the borrow costs to short may negate the...

I've been looking at Sparkgift for mine. Not sure about options though. It may not work for me due to my job (broker has to be on an approved list), but it looks pretty clean and simple for most people's needs.

Thanks for the link. Never heard of this guy before. He sounds a little more thoughtful than the garden variety newsletter pusher. Is he legit? Do you pay for his service?

The excerpt is correct, although not clearly written. Corn contracts are 5000 bushels, so $0.07 x 5000 = $350. Said another way, every 1 cent = $50 of value. 7 cents x $50 = $350.

Usually that falls into the "strategist" category at the big banks. Very few jobs available - you need a degree from a top school (with top grades) just to get into an entry-level position working for the "chief strategist." It would also help to get your CMT certification. It is debatable how...

Euan Sinclair wrote an excellent book about trading options called Volatility Trading. The central premise of the book is - don't trade options unless you have a view on volatility. Otherwise you get the risk-free rate over time, minus transactions costs (and with a lot of volatility).

There's no particular indicator that works especially well compared to "normal" charts. I use them more as a visual aid to confirm the trend. (They are good for keeping you in trends, because it takes a lot to flip from red to green and vice-versa).

Yes and yes.