Additional reasons: + You can day trade without needing $25,000+ in the account! Setup two accounts with about 10K in them and gain access to hedging techniques + commissions are decent $4/round turn trip on the e-mini futures + Tax Reasons + You don't have to list every sale on your return! (for people in the USA) + It's liquid enough. Market orders are instant. No weird fills + The spreads are never going to be huge like they can get on stocks + Focusing on one instrument day in and day out is less complicated and more productive + You can sleep in! Don't bother with waking up at 6am to scan for stocks to trade + Share size allocation is easier. You can trade from 3-8 contracts instead of thousands of shares that get filled at different prices + We've all held a stock that plunged due to random company event. While econ reports move the futures. It's never been -that- bad and you know when these reports will be released in advance. + There are always shorts available! + No uptick rule + The $5/tick range of the YM makes for lower slippage(ES, ER too volatile=bad slippage) + Bang for the buck. You make 1+ 3 trades a day and can make as much as the multiple stock juggling stock traders do. + Don't have to follow the indices and sectors, eminis ARE the indices. stock traders constantly have to follow the cues from the indices to track their positions. That means more eyes to follow all these charts. + Less investment in hardware and software cost. I used to have 3 PCs with 3 monitors, now only 1. Used for have 4 charting services, now 1, another as backup and it's free. + NO gaps to deal with, market always open. Terrorists attacked London underground early hours of the morning, if you wanted to, could be out in minutes and not wait until open and dump the stocks along with panicking crowd. + NO market makers, no games. + NO routing decisions to make: "ECN? ARCA? REDBOOK????? Oh man, could have gotten a better fill with ARCA!" Geez, Louise.
Spot on. I am aslo surprised why stock day trades do not understand these concepts and day trade indexes. Most of my trades get executed in 300 mili seconds and rarely with slipage. If one needs huge market exposure than equities should be used, but nothing is better for intra day trading than futures.
The difference in stocks and futures...??? Owning stocks is just that.... you own a share of a company...can go to annual meetings....receive dividends etc etc... Futures, options, ETF etc are all artificial methods of trading...set up by Wall Street firms to allow a hedge to the owning of stocks.. But, make no mistake about it, it is pure gambling.....not trading, and certainly not investing..... I know people who buy stocks are not as smart as futures traders....they were so silly....some bought that GOOG company at the IPO and just decided to hold on....dumb asses.... SteveD
I prefer getting rich "gambling in an artificial market" above having stocks. And if you believe that holding stocks means making each time a profit as in Google you are really an amateur (not to say an idiot). If you are good in investing in stocks, you should invest in stocks. If you are good in trading futures, you should trade futures. The potential return in futures is much bigger thanks to the possibilities of higher leverage. But only very few a good enough to trade futures successfully. Trading futures is far more difficult than trading stocks. What's the difference between gambling and investing? I know people who invested in LHSP and lost everything. And i know gamblers that made huge money. It all depends one the examples you choose. You can proof anything. It all depends on the abilities of the person that is trading or gambling.