Futures Currency questions

Discussion in 'Trading' started by schulzey, Jun 23, 2012.

  1. schulzey

    schulzey

    Hi everyone,
    I've been trading stocks for a few years and I thought I'd start learning as much as I can about Emini futures. I downloaded a demo program called firetip. I don't know much about forex and I've never traded futures or currencies.

    When I talked to the broker they said they don't do forex but on the program there is contracts that you can trade called "Euro Currency (9/12 GLOBEX)" and "EuroDollar (9/12 GLOBEX)". I always thought that currencies had symbols like EUR/USD, etc. Are these something different, some sort of hybrid futures contract/currency or this Forex? One pip was equal to $12.50 (at 1.2576 last quote) so how much leverage is that?

    These are total newbie questions, I don't know much about forex or futures yet. I have a basic understanding of futures and I do understand how E-Minis work.

    Thanks for all the help!
     
  2. hey shulzey, I see you are at it again. That's good, asking questions. If you figure it down to the penny, the futures are cheaper than spot. The problem is you can only move a minimum of 125k at a time in the futures. That can be a high price to learn how the deal works.
     
  3. I like you, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. If you are serious, you should be googling until you are blue in the face. Especially on a Saturday/Sunday. By now you should have read everything on the CME site at least twice, until you understand it.

    you should have already read everything posted on ET about futures vs spot

    I don't know what it is with you kids today, you say you want it, but you don't want it bad enough to work for it
     
  4. I google all weekend, it don't take much to check in with ET, never know when you might learn something, Saturday/Sunday are my work days, when I try to learn something, anything, I don't yet think I know. I have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than to try to learn something new, even if it means reading boring threads about why the USA is screwed. No, I have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon, but when I was young I use to do it with a lot more passion and intensity.

    You use to have to pry info out of oldtimers. Now they have to almost force feed these lazy kids.
     
  5. 6E is the EUR/USD. future.

    What are the differences between Forex and Futures.

    1) Each tick for 1 contract on Futures is $ 12. For Forex, you can actually go smaller with real money. Both you can demo.

    2) Futures gives real volume but you do need to remember it follows the EUR/USD. So if a report says Greece is leaving the European union, and EUR/USD tanks so will 6E.

    3) Be aware of trading hours. What I mean is when futures and/or Forex moves. They move when people are trading them. So if its not moving, then they are not worth trading. I actually trade ES (stocks) and CL (oil) in the late mornings since they are moving while EUR/USD is normally dead.

    The main benefit for futures is that you can use leverage to either win or lose money while stocks require much more capital to trade during the day unless you are at a Prop firm.
     
  6. Oldtime is completely right on this. All this information is available on the cme site itself and probably already been asked on ET. People are insanely lazy when it comes to finding information themselves. If you don't have the initiative to google basic information, I doubt you have what it takes to become the trader you want to be. All you had to do was go to cmegroup.com then go to the Euro and go to contract specifications.
     
  7. schulzey

    schulzey

    I guess I can't disagree with any of you. Point made.

    Thanks.
     
  8. Are you asking the difference between the Euro Currency and Eurodollar futures? The Eurodollar is dollars held in banks outside of America with 3 month hold time on the futures contract. Eurodollar is an interest rate instrument, kind of like LIBOR I believe.Just going off memory so my mistake if I'm wrong. The Euro Currency is the futures contract that is the Euro versus the U.S. Dollar.
     
  9. check out my first forex post, I think it went something like "Anybody trade forex? How do you do it?"
     
    #10     Jun 24, 2012