Never Traded Futures: Advice?
- Thread starter MacDRider
- Start date
Almost everyone who decide to "become a trader" is going to waste a lot of time and energy. That is the reality.
The few analyses based on evidence of how day traders do is extremely discouraging.
Unfortunately, ET and the web are places where paper traders brag of their success and somehow actually believe they will succeed, someday...
I'd say sports betting has better odds than tarding , think about it.Thats why this fucking government makes it illigal , so guys
like madoff and stanford would fuck you up legally.
like madoff and stanford would fuck you up legally.
it takes yrs of hard work to get anywhere in life
to be one of the worlds best in what you do
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ3F0BxXmKA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f4i0SxNPE0
to be one of the worlds best in what you do
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ3F0BxXmKA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f4i0SxNPE0
Don't let them scare you off. After all, if you don't try you'll never know. That being said;
Liquidity. There's plenty of volume and liquidity. The April contract traded 240,000 contracts Friday. Don't get fancy and try to trade some back month because the price looks out of whack.
Slippage. Most of the volume (80%) is electronic on the CME Group Globex platform. Slippage is no where near what it once was when you were at the whim of a floor broker. Under "normal" conditions, your slippage is very limited and quite reasonable.
Mini Contracts. Half the value, 5% of the volume. Only trade the front month. Cash settled so you dont have to worry about nasty little delveries.
Don't trade the numbers. I've seen API reports wipe out nice size accounts.
The market trades 23 hours and 15 minutes a day. If you like to sleep, day trade.
Current margin is about $8,200 ( day trade is half that). This is about 20% of the contract value. Just a few years ago, the typical margin was about 5%. Volitilty has a lot to do with margin. Don't expect the margin to come down any time soon.
Find a good broker with a decent background and lots of patience. Commision should not be a consideration at this point.
Take your time.
Good luck.
Liquidity. There's plenty of volume and liquidity. The April contract traded 240,000 contracts Friday. Don't get fancy and try to trade some back month because the price looks out of whack.
Slippage. Most of the volume (80%) is electronic on the CME Group Globex platform. Slippage is no where near what it once was when you were at the whim of a floor broker. Under "normal" conditions, your slippage is very limited and quite reasonable.
Mini Contracts. Half the value, 5% of the volume. Only trade the front month. Cash settled so you dont have to worry about nasty little delveries.
Don't trade the numbers. I've seen API reports wipe out nice size accounts.
The market trades 23 hours and 15 minutes a day. If you like to sleep, day trade.
Current margin is about $8,200 ( day trade is half that). This is about 20% of the contract value. Just a few years ago, the typical margin was about 5%. Volitilty has a lot to do with margin. Don't expect the margin to come down any time soon.
Find a good broker with a decent background and lots of patience. Commision should not be a consideration at this point.
Take your time.
Good luck.
Then why don't you recommend that folks trade extra-day?
The number one reason traders fail is
1) bad RISK AND MONEY MANAGEMENT. It's either too tight or too lose. Either way this is the number one reason.
If you don't bet the farm and follow the 2% rule, there is little that can go wrong.
2) they don't have an edge. Trend following is perhaps the easiest edge to obtain. Intra-day edges are a bit trickier to obtain and develop.
i've only looked at the e-mini futures (never live, just demo). but my impression is that they are much more range bound than equities. your stops will probably get taken out much more frequently trading e-minis than equities,
assuming your stop is in the "range"
(just my impression).
with equities, i can usually count on some things ... a short squeeze for instance. i don't know if futures (e-minis, anyway) have the same concept.