Choose your broker carefully. I trade everything you mentioned and depending on the contract the fills can be reported very late. Recent experience - lumber 1 hour delayed confirmation, nymex crude - end of the day confirmation, oj - 1 hour delay. meats were quick. I trade long term (at least few weeks) and even I find these delays to be a pain in the ass. Many times I dont even know if I've had a fill and so dont know if I can modify the order. Check out the broker before you deposit the money. This site is great for stock and related stuff, but for other commodities you may want to look at other sites for more information.
that 1.5 pip spread gets quite large when your dealing in any size and if you're into small position sizes don't look at futures also, pit traded contracts are not the best to start out with
cant be arsed to read all through the thread in the middle of market hours, but... the best way to trade these imo is via spreads. if it aint been mentioned before all you need is: a subscription to www.mrci.com for seasonal research and timings understanding of gold traders threads - hes the et spread guru and has done loads under misc futures forum on spreads. hes one helpful person. a good look at joe ross stuff. his book spreads and seasonals is very good i am told. good luck coinz ps - just so you get off on the right foot, corn and soy has nothing to do with the indices!! (or was that an axident?)
sKaLpZ: Please take none of this personally, but this message will be critical of some of the comments that you have made that seem to lend an even greater irony to your chosen handle, "sKaLpZ," and any success you may have had trading with the style you present. I do not doubt any talent you may or may not have, but I am almost curious how successful one can be in the futures markets with the sort of averaging of losing positions - and a desire to hold on to them - that you have described. While traders' time frames can vary significantly, there is generally some basic strategy, or at least a compelling reason, to enter a trade rather than relying on any loser to eventually come back. Extended time-frame traders generally find compelling reasons through true fundamentals (i.e. supply/demand equations), or empirically verifiable technical patterns. While deep liquidity, an absence of volatility, and range-bound trading have qualified many mean reverting strategies typically reserved for spread-trading for outright trading, the idea of holding onto a loser "just because" will not be successful over the long haul, and particularly in such a highly leveraged market as the futures market. The leverage of futures markets will very likely wipe you out on many of these sorts of position trades. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that you are careful in the futures markets.
Come Back, Lil' Loser, Come Back! sKaLpZ: Please take none of this personally, but this message will be critical of some of the comments that you have made that seem to lend an even greater irony to your chosen handle, "sKaLpZ," and any success you may have had trading with the style you present. I do not doubt any talent you may or may not have, but I am almost curious how successful one can be in the futures markets with the sort of averaging of losing positions - and a desire to hold on to them - that you have described. While traders' time frames can vary significantly, there is generally some basic strategy, or at least a compelling reason, to enter a trade rather than relying on any loser to eventually come back. Extended time-frame traders generally find compelling reasons through true fundamentals (i.e. supply/demand equations), or empirically verifiable technical patterns. :eek: While deep liquidity, an absence of volatility, and range-bound trading have qualified many mean reverting strategies typically reserved for spread-trading for outright trading, the idea of holding onto a loser "just because" will not be successful over the long haul, :-( and particularly in such a highly leveraged market as the futures market. The leverage of futures markets will very likely wipe you out on many of these sorts of position trades. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that you are careful in the futures markets.