What's better forex or futures??

Quote from pcdunham:

I primarily trade currency futures on CME. I decided on futures rather than spot forex because I wanted to trade options in the same account, because you aren't dealing with bucket shop brokers, you can trade any other futures asset classes in the same account and last, tthose forex commercials on CNBC and Blomberg really annoy me.
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This is what I'm interested in doing.

Can you tell me, are the normal trading hours the 9-4 of the US? Do europeans trade this? I don't understand how this works. It's weird to have people stop trading the futures at 4 while the rest of the world keeps trading forex.

Also, how do you find it compares to YM or ES? Is it more or less volatile? More or less liquid?

Thanks for sharing your experience here.
JFYI I'm trading stocks at the moment, but learning on YM & ES (simulator @ IB). I live in Europe and would like to trade futures that are active during european hours but I don't think that's possible with my US account.
 
Quote from cunparis:

This is what I'm interested in doing.

Can you tell me, are the normal trading hours the 9-4 of the US? Do europeans trade this? I don't understand how this works. It's weird to have people stop trading the futures at 4 while the rest of the world keeps trading forex.

Also, how do you find it compares to YM or ES? Is it more or less volatile? More or less liquid?

Thanks for sharing your experience here.
JFYI I'm trading stocks at the moment, but learning on YM & ES (simulator @ IB). I live in Europe and would like to trade futures that are active during european hours but I don't think that's possible with my US account.
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Futures open at 5PM and close at 4PM so GLOBEX is open 23 hours a day. Currency future are less liquid than ES & YM, but you wont have a problem getting filled and spreads are narrow. EC is most liquid, then JY, BP, CD and SF then all the other contracts in that order. Options are less liquid than the futures but still tradeable but spreads are pretty wide. However I will say, I don't day trade futures. Not sure what your typical time horizon is, but I usually hold positions for a week or more. As far as volume, you will see it increase during the Asian trading day, then Europe, then early morning U.S. is most active.
 
Quote from commoditiestrdr:

Alright I think I understand now. So you are watching the currency rate of the pairs. Is that where your profit lies?

How does it work though. Trading commodities is simple. You think gold will go up you buy. I'm assuming everything for the most part is paired against the dollar???

If the euro, pound, can. dollar etc... goes up then the dollar goes down?

I'm also assuming there is a lot less capital that needs to be invested than in commodities.
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When the value of a currency goes up, it is always relative to another currency - that is, for one to go up, another must go down relative to the first one.

So if you were following EUR/USD, AUD/USD and USD/JPY, and the market decided that the USD is now worth less, perhaps following an economic announcement, then it would be likely that EUR/USD would increase, as Euro now considered more valuable compared to US dollar, AUD/USD would also increase for the same reason, and USD/JPY would decrease - it is quoted the other way around, because the numbers are more convenient.

On the other hand, if the 'value' of the EUR was suddenly considered to be less, the EUR/USD would decrease, but the AUD/USD and USD/JPY would more likely probably stay the same, as the sentiment on the Euro may not affect them.

So the exchange rates of the different pairs more independently of each other, but the movements of many pairs are often correlated due to the relative movements of the major currencies USD and EUR.
 
When you go long a currency pair, you buy the base currency and sell the quote currency (simultaniously).

Some more basics you can find here:
http://www.fxtrade.com/learn/basics/index.shtml

I've never traded futures, but from what I understand these are some of the forex advantages:

*lower overall cost (spread including commissions).
*Liquidity on all offered pairs, not just EUR/USD and GBP/USD.
*Flexible lot size (not forced to trade a certain amount).
*real 24 hour market.

The risk with forex is your broker going down, but that can be avoided if you choose one of better capitalized brokers:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1832789#post1832789
 
*lower overall cost (spread including commissions).


In each case it would more cost with forex . All SEC broker ,all
future broker demanded commission .

Integration commission in quote is source of manipulation .

Lot of future brokers offer some 5 $ per R/T for one contract no minimum

spread for ec is 1 -2 = 12.5-25$ (contract is more 125000 euro)

You can calculate ...

without manipulation of the quote(secondary market
with fractional liquidity against full liquidity by CME)
most of forex broker would not to be at life ...
 
Pippi436


Registered: Jun 2006
Posts: 175


03-09-08 04:57 PM

Lets just compare commissions and for a 1 mio. Eur/Usd transaction and assume a rate of 1.5300 and a 1 pip spread for everything (even tho on spot its often < 1 pip):

IB Spot: $30.6 (20x1.5300)
IB Future, bundled: $22.80 (8x2,85)
OEC retail: 27.70 (8x3,46)
OEC pro: $22.90 (8x2,86) (account>100k)
MB spot: $76.60 (50x1.5300)
MB future: $20 (2.50x8)
Hotspot, retail, USA division: $30 (per BCU)
Hotspot, retail, EU: $45.90 (1.5300x30)
Oanda: free ;)

On spot, you can often trade on spreads < 1 pip, that alone skews the above comparison in favour of futures. They also only trade 23 hours a day, while the underlying spot market trades 24 hours. Besides, the only liquid contracts are 6E and 6J (pound and swissy to a lesser extent), that alone makes futures for me a nogo.
 
Quote from ssss:

*lower overall cost (spread including commissions).


In each case it would more cost with forex . All SEC broker ,all
future broker demanded commission .

Integration commission in quote is source of manipulation .

Lot of future brokers offer some 5 $ per R/T for one contract no minimum

spread for ec is 1 -2 = 12.5-25$ (contract is more 125000 euro)

You can calculate ...

without manipulation of the quote(secondary market
with fractional liquidity against full liquidity by CME)
most of forex broker would not to be at life ...
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Your replies are very unclear, why don't you use the 'quote' button in the bottom right corner of the post you want to quote? And please write full sentences.

The point is that there is no commission integrated into the spread. Forex brokers are market makers, i.e. they make a market by publishing a bid and ask price. It's the same thing as with the ECN platform, the only difference is that 1. there is now only one market maker and 2. there is no traditional broker that charges commission on top of the spread.

As for liquidity, my broker accepts orders up to 10m, that should be enough for anybody trading here. Talking about liquidity, maybe someone who trades futures can elaborate about the liquidity on certain futures pairs. Are pairs besides the major 4 even tradable (i.e. enough liquidity) at the CME?
 
As for liquidity, my broker accepts orders up to 10m, that should be enough for anybody trading here. Talking about liquidity, maybe someone who trades futures can elaborate about the liquidity on certain futures pairs. Are pairs besides the major 4 even tradable (i.e. enough liquidity) at the CME?
########################

If liquidity is fractional as by forex ,than

broker can buy by another market and
sell to clients . ..

CME give full liquidity ECN

In forex to date only one broker ,which
is pure agent -have not proprietary account,desk and no income from proprietary trading
hotspotfx ,but
1. Account minimum is 7500$
OXPS offer 0 minimum with level 2
and direct routing
lot of future brokers as globalamp
offer 2000 $

2. Hotspotfx under 20 mln $ capital
Congress and CFTC hard press this time forex scene

3. ask ET memmber commandotore
he received from refcofx some 40%
of funds after years.


4. As for liquidity, my broker accepts orders up to 10m, that should be enough for anybody trading here. Talking about liquidity, maybe someone who trades futures can elaborate about the liquidity on certain futures pairs. Are pairs besides the major 4 even tradable (i.e. enough liquidity) at the CME?

average life expectancy by forex retail
account 45-60 days.

Better to have 3 accounts with 2000$
each ,as one with 6000$


It is rare case ,that retail operator
for 10 years would make some 2-5 mln$ .Only one from 50000 -100000
90-95% would loose

See from this perspective ,not from perspective order with 10 mln $
 
Your replies are very unclear, why don't you use the 'quote' button in the bottom right corner of the post you want to quote? And please write full sentences.

---------------------

Answer is simple

TRy real time demo with DOME and CME FIFO order by

www.openecry.com

www.ampfutures.com

http://www.openecry.com/software/softwarehighlights_DOM.cfm

globalamp it is oec

is is without charge

shut down confiramtion and notification

that would true single click on bar -order sended
or multiple click -serie of order's sended
 
well after reading this post I decided to give the CME futures a go. I usually trade the usd.jpy - so why not try the j7 contract (mini-yen). Well, the actuall forex just had a 100pip move and the cme futures had a 15 tick move - am I missing something?

also - liquidity sucks on this contract!
 
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