Charting Futures Question

I am very new to futures, and would like to start paper trading them for practice. In looking at stocks their is one chart to see trends etc, but futures expire; so there are many charts (ticker symbols).
I use the term ticker symbols since I am planning on importing the futures info AmiBroker for analysis. Is there a overall symbol for each future that compiles all the previous months /contracts?

I am just looking for a simple but complete explanation on understanding future charts and doing technical analysis etc.

 

Look up " continuous contracts".

 

If you're looking for what's free, and why not, look at investing.com. They offer free streaming data, and they provide more symbols than you'll probably know what to do with, plus they take care of the continuity for you.

If you have no idea what you want to explore, you'll be interested at least in index futures and commodity futures. The determining criterion for you may be whether or not the instrument is mean-reverting.

 

Thanks. One more question. I assume the data feed I am using (esignal) has continous charts what is the standard ticker for a continous chart. In other words is it just the instead of XX H5 would it just be XX?

 

Check "Help".

 

What "help"?

 

Every program has a "Help" in the right section of the menu. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Otherwise, call support.

 

So in other words there is no standard symbology for continous contracts?

 

Definitely. not. The futures industry, by design, has made data management as cryptic as possible.

 

That's interesting. Why by design?