heres my situation: I'm fresh out of college and would like to get into futures trading. Currently no job, but I do have some cash and networth in the form of property in asia. I've been market depth trading stocks / stock indices for the last few months but dont have the required 25k $ to qualify for pattern day trading. I feel like its been hindering me to constantly have to wait for settled cash, or just worrying about tying up my cash on break-even trades. I believe I can day trade futures with much less than 25k? is this true? If futures is the right choice for me, could anyone recommend a "beginner" futures platform? I will be attempting to move a little bit of volume, but probably wont be paying any crazy 1000$ monthly fees for a superb trading program (or should I?). I took a look at IB and transact futures (suggestions while I was browsing). THANKS! help me get started!!
There is no restrictions for trading futures like 25K rule for day trading stocks. If you have enough margin,you are good to go. Take a look @ Mirus futures and AMP futures and consider ninjatrader with zenfire datafeed.Personally I have tried couple of futures brokers and platforms and I can say that ninja/zenfire is the best option today for a futures trading platform . Make sure to get a good clearing firm . Velocity Futures offers X-Trader for reasonable commission rates. Good luck !
IMHO save up more cash and take your time with futs. Not having enough capital for stocks is not a reason to trade futs. Best wishes...
i traded futures and lost my shirt. I am having more success with stocks...the big reason is that unless you have a huge account, you cant control your risk with futures. As example, if you wish to only loose (1% or $100 per trade-as example), with stocks, you can control the amount of shares based on how far away your stop loss is from your entry. With futures, you cant really control the risk level unless you are trading multiple contracts. You can open a margin account with 5k. you are allowed 3 day trades in a 5 day period. I would highly recommend do that first.
just make sure you're trading with money you can afford to lose. You really have an uphill battle just to be profitable. As far as the platform goes, I think you've made as good a choice as anything out there. Costs are reasonable and you should have all the features you need. Do as much simulated trading as you can and try to treat it as actual trading.
I somewhat disagree. You can change the size of contract you trade. (You can trade something as small as cocoa or other small instruments all the way up) You can freely short, whereas with stocks, that can be a pain. You can choose to go in/out based on things like volatility, etc.