Trading Futures Like The Turtles

There are many types of financial instruments that traders and investors trade. Futures is one of them just like stocks and bonds. A stock gives you ownership of one part of a company. If you own 10,000 stocks of a company, you own 10,000 parts of that company. On the other hand a bond is an IOU that governments and companies issue to finance their operations.

A futures contract is a legally binding contract between two parties with a set of conditions for the delivery of the underlying asset such as a commodity or a financial instrument at some specific date in the near future.

Futures market is a very important financial market that sets the prices in the retail and wholesale markets of commodities like wheat, corn,heating oil, oil, gasoline, gold, silver, cattle, soybeans, meat, hogs, coffee and many other foodstuff. Futures market was primarily developed for helping farmers hedge their risk while growing agricultural commodities. Agricultural commodities are a very important part of the futures market. Over the decades, futures contracts become popular on a host of other commodities and contracts.

These contracts get regulated through a central clearing hours so the risk of one party backing out of the contract is minimal. This limits the time and risk exposure experienced by hedgers and speculators. Now, futures contracts are by design time bound and expire at a fixed date.

In the last decades, electronic trading has become highly popular among the traders. This includes futures as well. So, now you can easily trade these contracts by opening an account with a FCM brokerage and deposit an amount to start trading these contracts on margin. The minimum amount with most of the brokers is something like $5,000 but it can less too! Brokers allow leverage upto 10:1 when you trade on margin. Compare this to the leverage of 2:1 allowed by stock brokers.

Electronic trading has lowered commissions and other transaction costs for trading these contracts plus price discovery is better and there is a more level playing field for all the players in the market. In old times, futures contracts got traded on Futures Exchanges in open outcry pits. It still takes place on the floor of these exchanges but with the advent of electronic trading most of the trading is now shifting to electronic platforms. GLOBEX is the most important platform for trading different futures contracts.

CME, NYMEX and CBOT are the three most important Futures Exchanges. GLOBEX allows you to trade most of the contracts that get traded on these exchanges. The popular contracts that get traded on GLOBEX are the E-minis like the S&P 500, NASDAQ 100 and Dow. You can also trade E-mini gold futures as well as crude oil futures on GLOBEX.

GLOBEX trading overnight tends to be thin and more volatile than during the official trading hours that are from 8:30 AM EST to 4:15 PM EST. If you trade financial news on Bloomberg or CNBC before the stock market opens officially, you will find quotes on S&P 500 futures and other taken from GLOBEX.

These quotes are real time. There are many contracts that you can trade and the possibilities of making money in futures trading are immense. Imagine the prices of crude oil going up again just like what happened in the summer of 2008! Futures trading can be highly profitable but risky as well. Before you dabble in them, you should paper trade these contracts for at least a month just to get a feel of how to do it.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Know this shocking Dow Futures Secret that can make you rich! Get this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading Report Plus the Profit Button Report that applies no matter what you trade FREE!

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