I have been trading stock for a while now, mainly options, and I have become pretty interested in futures. However, I have no idea where to start. Anybody have any ideas?
get a demo with globalfutures or your broker of choice they might call you though when you open the demo and just watch how the market moves. A lot of traders like to trade the indexes i trade both comodities and the indexes. comodities are great to turn to when your game isnt working in the es, ym, etc.. also go to your local book store and pick up a book on futures read it on your spare time. Best of luck futures are the best productc to trade lets hope they dont invade us with any pdt rule haha.
if u have no idea u shouldn't even be doin anythin.. this is fucking ridiculous.. hi guys i have no fucking idea any ideas? are u an idiot? seriously..
hi guys, i wana drive a car, where do i start? i wana eat food where do i start? i wana job where do i start? seriously people never ask stupid questions like this..
Welcome to the board, Joe! Futures, stocks, they all trend the same direction, just like a school of fish. Oh, by the way, get used to the assholes who frequent this message board. Makes 'em feel better about themselves when they can act like a shithead to a new member.
take it easy on the new guy. i'll welcome him, cuz we need new players to even out the zero-sum game.
How basic do you want to go? Futures contracts are all different sizes. Here's a chart that has the sizes for some of the common ones. Since they are different sizes, a point movement in a futures contract does not correspond to a $1 movement per contract in terms of your money. The chart also gives what a 1 point movement does mean in terms of your money: http://www.oxfordfutures.com/commodity_futures_options_contract_specs.htm Futures also don't all expire on the same date, make sure you know when the expiration date is for what you are trading if you plan on holding it for very long. Some futures don't have a contract that expires every month, it might be every 3 months, but there are usually options that expire monthly, they will just be based on a future that will expire in the future from when they expire. The margin for futures is a bit different, too. You can leverage more than you can for stocks and stock options in most cases. It's based on something called SPAN margin. There are charts that tell you how much margin you'll be eating up for each contract you trade (I don't have a link to one of those handy). Does your brokerage do futures? I've been fairly happy with IB (Interactive Brokers) for all of the trading I've done with them so far, they seem to have good rates for everything.