Where To Start With Futures Trading?

Quote from chicagodon:

Is there a good resource to learn more about trading futures? Where does one start to research the different markets? Not strategies, but more the nuts and bolts on how they trade. When contracts expire; how to roll them over; what the 'front month' contract is and when does it start trading; what each contracts multiplier is; what their tick size is; how much a dollar move equals per contract; what the margin is as far as overnight; what the average volume is (I know chart packages will show me this); what hours each contract trades; If you are holding a position overnight and have a stop in since it trades 24hours a day, how likey you are to get stopped out on 0 volume ect... I have read 'A Traders First Book On Commodities' by Carley Garner, and was a little disappointed in it to be honest. I think the CBOT and CME used to offer classes, but I don't think they do anymore. I've watch a few of the webinars online and they are ok.
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You are familiar with the CME website, well a lot of what you want to know is there.

http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/crude-oil/light-sweet-crude_contract_specifications.html

These give you all the contract specs and links to margins, expiration calendar etc . Click on Quotes->Settlements from this page and you can see which is the most active month. In the case of Gold for example, the front month is not always the most active, ie April is front month but June is most active.

On the same page Products & Trading gives the full list that you can drill down to the instrument you want.

All there and up to date.

As for books, I have not read this because much of what it covers I know from other sources, but it does seem to be better than Garner's book, which I read as well. It may be a bit outdated in the age of QE but the mechanics would still be the same.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Futures-G...d=1364978346&sr=8-1&keywords=the+futures+game

Good luck.
 
Quote from justrading:

You are familiar with the CME website, well a lot of what you want to know is there.

http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/crude-oil/light-sweet-crude_contract_specifications.html

These give you all the contract specs and links to margins, expiration calendar etc . Click on Quotes->Settlements from this page and you can see which is the most active month. In the case of Gold for example, the front month is not always the most active, ie April is front month but June is most active.

On the same page Products & Trading gives the full list that you can drill down to the instrument you want.

All there and up to date.

As for books, I have not read this because much of what it covers I know from other sources, but it does seem to be better than Garner's book, which I read as well. It may be a bit outdated in the age of QE but the mechanics would still be the same.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Futures-G...d=1364978346&sr=8-1&keywords=the+futures+game

Good luck.
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Thank you for this
 
Quote from chicagodon:

I ordered this book on your suggestion, thanks
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I'm actually tempted to order it myself. I'm one of those who always likes a fresh perspective on anything, gets the mind working and all that.

Trading options now, but will probably get this later when I've finished a few of the (options) books I have on order from Amazon.
 
Quote from justrading:

I'm actually tempted to order it myself. I'm one of those who always likes a fresh perspective on anything, gets the mind working and all that.

Trading options now, but will probably get this later when I've finished a few of the (options) books I have on order from Amazon.
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I ordered it used for pretty cheap, I will post here what I think of it. Thanks again
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carley_Garner

Some of these business publishing companies do not have the highest standards for their authors. I have no idea if Ms. Garner is a good writer, but it seems odd that she's published four books after only eight years as an introducing broker (one of her employers went bust - Peregrine - and another - Alaron - had some problems and I believe was sold for a song).

Who knows, maybe she'll be the next Jack Schwager, but he had a few more years of experience under the belt, and with better firms, before he turned into a writing machine.

After all the complaints about Al Brooks' mumbo-jumbo and my own dismay at finding dozens of "its" and "their" errors in the Cordier book about options selling, I wonder if these books are even edited, regardless of the supposed prestige of the publisher (Cordier wrote for Wiley & Sons and Garner writes for Pearson/FT Press).

That's all. Better stop before I to turn into this guy:
http://www.hark.com/clips/ygcvdcyjsj-here-with-a-commentary-is-a-grumpy-old-man
 
I know you mentioned you wanted to swing trade so why bother with futures at all?

I can understand if you were intraday trading and wanted high leverage and perhaps wanted to avoid the PDT rule with equities if you had a smaller budget but if you want to swing trade then i cant think of any good reason to even bother with futures.

I srongly urge you to swing trade equities where you have thousands of setups to choose from. You can go out and find any behavior you are looking for on any given day, break outs, reversals, ranges, news plays, you name it.

why futures?
 
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