Hello So, 2 years ago I started trading (rather, self-educating about) global currencies in the spot (or cash) market. I was able to progress due to free demo accounts I downloaded to learn the whole process. I advanced and now can trade forex live in my sleep. I do well. With forex you can start out trading for under $25 of your own money due to certain brokers enabling you to trade just a few dollars at a time (one dollar actually) with 50:1 margin. But now I'd like to access the corn and soybean futures market, and also trade gold and oil. This is the forum for futures traders, right? Can someone(s) please tell me how to access the futures market? Specifically, where can I get a demo(s) to trade futures and learn how things work? Also, I'd like to know about the money required. How much does it take (bare minimum) of my money to trade futures? Lastly, as in forex we have a number of brokers that suck, only one, really, I'd recommend, so I hope to find their twin in the futures world. Could you please recommend the best broker to hook up with? Any help/direction/answer/suggestion is really appreciated. Thanks a million! Sam
Let me post a follow-up issue, specifically focusing on corn futures.... This is what I (think I) know... Corn is traded by the bushel? There is a current price for each bushel. That price fluctuates as with all other (hopefully) instruments. Can you buy/sell just one bushel at a time? If so, corn must have a symbol (duh) - what is it? So, I suppose I could download a demo, enter the symbol for corn, then watch the price fluctuations? heh. How much money does it take to buy/sell the minimum amount of a corn bushel? This has to do with an "e-mini" right? How much is the broker's fee/commission? In forex there is no commission but we have to give the spread to the broker, typically 1 to 2 points wide. How does it work with corn futures? Any input is appreciated.
You are all over the place with questions: How do you access futures markets - you need to select a broker, I recommend an online one, many traders here use IB (interactive brokers), globalfutures is another one to look at. You will need to open an account and learn how to place orders, I am sure you can do it - probably similar to FOREX, though I don't know forex. As far as the amount of money needed, it depends on your broker. You will need a small fortune to make a bigger one. I've seen some brokers let you open an account with 2K, but for the size of the contracts that you want to trade, trading one lots I'd say 5-10K would be much more preferable. Its a tricky tricky thing the futures markets, you will need to practice trade and see how it goes. Soybeans are all over the place, you might want to start with the mini size bean contract, with that 2K is fine. Gold is sluggish - electronic CBOT gold is the only way to go, forget the stupid COMEX. Best of luck. COntact me if you want more info or have more questions.
For corn the price is quoted per bushel but the contract is 5000 bushels (you cant trade by the bushel, only by 5000 bushels) , so multiply the price by 5000 to get the value of the contract. To hold a contact you need to put a margin up front - its a certain amount of $ for Corn I think its 500 or so. Corn symbol is C , followed by a month code, the the last digit of the year, this 2005 Sept Corn is CU5. 2005 Dec Corn is CZ5. Corn is different in that the day time trading is done non electronic, night time is electronic. Big difference in brokers comm. Non electronic with all fees 18$ or so, electronic is about 8$. Also the CBOT has a smaller corn contract - the mini corn is 1000 Bushels. This might be the place to start, since the contract is so small, the smallest of all futures contracts I believe. But youwill have to decide that.
Oh yeah, here is something else I need to know... In forex you can get into a "drawdown." So, let's say you buy 10,000 units (a standard "mini-lot") of EUR/USD . Each point/pip/tic is worth (or valued at) $1.00. You opened a long trade at 1.2158. The price drops to 1.2100. You are now down 58 points/tics/pips. Your Unrealized P/L indicator on your trading platform reads -$58. So, with corn futures, how would the same drawdown scenario work? I am just hoping to somehow be shown or taught the trading lingo in terms that I can transfer or transpose to futures trading. Thanks again!
Skalpz -- this is a pretty easy question that can all be figured out at www.cbot.com The corn contract is quoted in bushels and trades in 1/4 cent incriments. If you were to go long 1 bushel of corn at 2.15/bushel and the market were to go to 2.14 -- you would be out $50.
May I suggest you wait a few years, learn "how to access the futures markets" first , read a few books on the subject before even thinking about diving into soybean and oil trading. Good luck
easy to understand and low-costs to trade it. Great for beginners. And yes, a trader CAN daytrade Corn futures with success!