Trade Commodity Futures » futures trading education

Here Are The Key Reasons For Trading The Futures Market

Barbara Cohen — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:12:53 +0000

My name is Barbara Cohen and I am the CIO of Shadowtraders.com. But more than that…I am a Futures Trader, a Futures day-trader. When I first began trading over 10 years ago, at the time I was a computer programmer and I wrote software for automated black boxes. My clients were avid professional Futures traders and this is where I learned about trading Futures. Writing software gave me the understanding of why so many professional day traders, no longer trade the stock market. At Shadowtraders, we write Futures Market software with built in Futures trading strategies, offer an online self paced Futures trading course, deliver Futures Market Seminars, and offer a daily Chatroom where we watch the Futures Market real time. We have even delivered seminars inside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) where they trade Futures.

For those of you unfamiliar with trading Futures, we’ll start at the beginning. For those of you well versed in trading Futures, hang tight … you may just hear something new. The first question I get asked over and over is, “So what’s the Futures Market and why would I want to trade it?”

Wikipedia states that “A Futures Market is a financial exchange where people can trade Futures Contracts.” And a Futures Contract is “a legally binding agreement to buy specified quantities of commodities or financial instruments at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future.”

Let’s look at the word “Contract”. That is the most critical differentiation between the Stock Market and the Futures. The Stock Market trades shares but the Futures Market trades contracts. When trading Futures, you are not actually purchasing a “small part of a company”. A Futures Contract is an agreement between a buyer and seller to trade a commodity, a currency, or an equity financial instrument, such as bushels of wheat or corn.

It is easy to understand how commodities Futures Contracts work. An airline, for example, contracts for 100,000 gallons of fuel for their planes at a certain price today, but does not take delivery until sometime next year.

Southwest Airlines was able to survive well when crude oil was trading at $140/barrel, while the other airlines were having difficulty. They purchased crude oil Futures Contracts with the oil companies years earlier when the oil was cheap, but delayed delivery until 2007-2008. When the price of oil is cheap again, they will arrange for new Futures Contracts to be delivered in future years.

Making Futures Contracts for crude oil is not trading, so you say.

In every Futures Contract transaction, there is a degree of risk. Futures Contracts are all about leveraging risk against the value of the underlying asset you want to buy.

Southwest accepted risk. They knew that the price of crude oil could potentially fall below the price they were paying. In this case they would have paid over and above what they would have needed to). Yet Southwest was able to reduce their risk because they expected oil to go higher than their contract price. Southwest was right and the leverage worked.

For the oil companies, they reduced the risk, believing that the price of oil would fall below the contract price they negotiated with Southwest. But they acquired risk because the price of oil could rise higher than the contract (thus losing additional revenue they could have earned). In this case, the leverage was not as good as it could have been.

Hey, “I am not Southwest Airlines. I am just an individual investor. I don’t want 100,000 gallons of oil. How do I benefit from trading Futures?”

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), where most Futures contracts are traded, understands that individual investors want to trade Futures just like major corporations; individual traders want to leverage their risk. They also understand that small investors are not going to risk millions of dollars on gallons of gas contracts or bushels of wheat. So the CME decided to create a trading environment that would entice individual investors to trade Futures.

Remember, as an individual investor, you have so many exchanges available to you for trading. You can trade large cap stocks on the NYSE, tech stocks on the NASDAQ, ETFs on the AMEX, and options on the CBOT. So in order to entice individual traders to trade Futures, the CME had to create an exchange that made other exchanges pale in comparison.

The CME developed “E-mini Futures Contracts” specifically tailored to professional investors. The “e” in E-mini meant they could be traded electronically. The CME developed a trading platform for your desktop where your trades can go straight to the CME. The “mini” means that the contract is a smaller version of the Futures contract that the larger institutions now trade.

The most heavily traded CME is the S&P 500 E-mini Futures Contract. This contract trades upwards of 3million contracts daily. This E-mini is valued upon the underlying S&P 500 index, the index that represents the top 500 stocks in the NYSE. The S&P 500 index is a price-weighted index. This means that the larger companies have more “weight” or “pull” than the smaller companies and are able to move the value of the index higher or lower. However…you cannot trade an index.

But you believed that Futures Contracts were limited to commodities like wheat, rice, crude, soy.

Imagine for a moment that you could trade all the top 500 stocks simultaneously. Now that would leverage risk. Should one or two stocks not do well that afternoon, you would still have 498 other stocks to trade. You wouldn’t have to pick any specific stock, nor would you have to spend hours and hours doing research on stocks either. Why? Because you would be trading all of them. Mind you, it would cost a small fortune to be able to trade 500 stocks at one time. Well, buying and selling S&P 500 E-mini Futures Contracts is just like trading all 500 stocks at the same time, for a fraction of the cost.

So how did the CME entice traders to trade E-mini’s? Check out the advantages of trading E-mini Futures Contracts. You’ll quickly see why many professional day traders gave up trading anywhere but the CME …

S&P 500 E-mini contracts are heavily traded with extreme liquidity. That means lots of volume and for you…lots of action. Lots of volume means you’ll be filled quickly often in as little as 1 second. When the S&P 500 was first traded in 1997, the average trading volume was barely 7,000 contracts / day. Now, the average is more like 2 million contracts daily with upwards of 3million not unheard of.

E-minis are electronically traded. There are no Market Makers, unlike the NYSE, who might refuse to fill your trade. The CME book is strictly first in first out (FIFO), helping make trading the CME a level playing field for all traders, institutions and individuals alike, even if you are only trading 1 contract.

Commissions for E-mini Futures is based upon “Round Trip” instead of in-and-out.

The difference between the Bid price (the highest price that a buyer is willing to pay for a contract) and the Ask price (the lowest price that a seller is willing to sell a contract for) is just one “Tick” on the CME.

(The minimum price movement between the Bid and Ask is known as a Tick. The S&P 500 trades in 25 cent increments. 1 Tick = 25 cents. 4 ticks = 1 point. If you gain 1 tick in your trade, the reward is $12.50, with 4 ticks = $50.)

A 1 tick — Bid / Ask spread can be very different than the Stock Market. With Market Makers on the NYSE, often the Bid/Ask spread can be more than 1 penny, especially if the Market Maker makes his living on the spread alone.

With trading E-mini Futures, you’ll only need to watch 1 chart, 1 instrument, the same chart, day in and day out. Could you become a truly successful trader if you monitored the same chart every day?

Stock traders usually have to watch several stocks at the same time. Watching multiple charts means flipping the charts back and forth for in case you miss something.

There is no need to do nightly research. You’re trading all 500 stocks at the same time. You won’t be researching this or that stock, worrying about whisper numbers, quarterly reporting, pre-announcements, or accounting minefields.

Traders who trade options must handle 4 conditions to be successful: underlying price, strike price, volatility, and time decay. These traders might be right but lose on their trade because they were wrong about time, the option expiring worthless before they could profit. Futures traders need only worry about 2 conditions: an advancing or a declining market. Time decay is not something Futures traders need have any concern with.

Margins are very attractive for Futures traders. 1 S&P 500 E-mini contract can be traded for as little as $400 on margin. To trade stocks, minimumly you would need to buy a 100 share lot. The average stock is $25/share, or $2500 just to get in the door.

Here’s a huge difference. The SEC defines a day trade as a transaction that opened and closed within the same trading day. A “pattern day trader” is anyone who executes 4 or more day trades within a 5 day period. To day trade, you must have in your brokerage account at least $25,000 (or your account will be frozen for 90 days if you are caught day trading).

Day trading Futures does not have such rules. Your brokerage account requires much less capital. You can open your Futures brokerage account with just $2,500. This enables even small investors to trade Futures.

You can trade the E-mini futures long (where you expect the contracts to appreciate) but you can also trade the futures short (where you expect the contracts to depreciate). In the past, bans have been placed on short selling financial stocks, on naked short selling the 1,000 top stocks, on short selling stocks that are less than $5, etc. No bans are placed on short selling Futures contracts.

No restrictions on short selling e-mini Futures Contracts? Because Futures are contracts, not shares of a particular company. As traders, taking full advantage of the Market’s volatility is essential. Not being able to short means that half of trading is lost. Always trading long means a long wait for the Market to swing up in order to enter a trade. Those days when the Market is down 200 or more points……that may be a long wait.

Trading short is especially important with the current Bear Market. There are sharp up and down moves in the S&P, DOW, and NASDAQ, perhaps more so than ever before, giving traders ample opportunities throughout the day to profit. Now is not the time to be stopped by Short selling restrictions.

When Futures trading with an IRA or 401k account, you won’t need to wait for the trade to settle 3 or 4 days before you can use that same money for the next trade. One second after you exit your trade, that same money is now available for another trade. When trading stocks, exit a trade and you may wait as long as 3 days for your money to settle prior to using that money to trade with again.

Tax rules originally intended for commodity trades also apply to E-mini Futures traders. There is a 60/40 split on taxes: 60% of your trade is long term (15% tax bracket) and 40% of your trade is short term (28% tax bracket). Let’s compare to trading stocks. Hold a stock for under 1 year, it is a short term trade. Only if the stock is held for over a year does the trade qualify for long term capital gains. With Futures, all your trading is divided by the 60/40 rule, even when your average trade is 1 minute long.

At year end, you’ll receive a 1099-B statement from your Futures broker, with only 1 figure, a net number of all your trading, not each individual trade. If you profited by $50,000, the 1099-b only shows $50,000. You can now claim $30,000 as long term capital gains and $20,000 as short term, the 60/40 split.

Doing your taxes is much easier. Since your broker gives you the net entry, you will make just 1 entry on your tax return. If you trade stocks, you are required to identify every trade you made. If you are a day trader and trade multiple stocks, it can take hours to enter all those transactions. With Futures trading, you are done in a jiffy.

You’ll find that trading Futures is nearly a 24 hour a day activity, 5 1/2 days a week. Saturday is the only day “bad” trading day for Futures — you can’t trade at all. Many stocks can’t trade pre-Market, and those that do tend to be traded very lightly. Conversely, the S&P 500 E-mini is traded world-wide and depending upon the time of day, quite heavy even pre-Market. At 2:00am EST, the Japanese begin trading the S&P 500 E-mini. At 4:00am EST, the Europeans start trading. Should you have insomnia that get you up at night, E-mini trading is definitely something for you to look into.

There is only 1 exchange/1 book for E-mini Futures….the CME. That is unlike stocks that can trade on different exchanges and have different Bid/Ask prices on each exchange. For E-mini Futures contracts, there is just one price – the CME price. Large cap stocks may trade on multiple exchanges, each exchange posting a different price.

Fills are guaranteed. If the E-mini price goes through your offer, you get filled…no questions asked. This can be a major problem for individual Forex traders. You could be in a trade waiting to exit with an offer to sell. The Forex contract goes right by your price but you do not get filled. Read the fine print in your Forex Brokerage contract that says they do not guarantee fills.

The CME Clearing House is the guarantor for Futures trades to each of its clearing members, ensuring trade integrity.

Futures Contractsdo not do expire worthless, with your money rolling to the new contract. That is very different than Options that expire worthless.

Let’s say you are an individual investor. You have been monitoring the Stock Market and now you’re bullish. You want to be part of the action because you see the Market is going up.

You only have $5,000 to invest. You’ve traded shares of stocks before and you know that with just $5,000, you would be limited to trading just one or two stocks and not daytrading. You’re looking at a lot of nightly research to identify which stock to trade.

Buying a mutual fund so you could be part of more than one or two stock moves would work. Unfortunately, given upfront load fees, your $5000 investment wouldn’t go far. Instead you can trade S&P 500 E-mini Futures Contracts. With $5,000, this could give you 5 contracts to trade ($2,000 – Note — never put all the money in your portfolio in 1 trade). Make 4 ticks a day, that will give you about $170-180/day after commissions, or $3,500 per month, $42,000 for the year. After adjusting for losses, you net $30,000….on your $2,000 investment! That equates to a gain of 1700% annually. Put the $5,000 in the bank and earn 3%, you’d make $150/year. In one day you would have gotten more than the amount the bank would give you in interest for the entire year.

The S&P 500 E-mini is not the only future you can trade once you figure out how to trade Futures. The CME’s trading platform is called Globex and there are literally dozens of Futures Contracts that can be traded on Globex now. You can trade commodities, currency futures, treasury bonds. You’ll find Futures Contracts for all of those. There are E-mini’s for the DOW, the NASDAQ, and the Midcaps.

We’ve just touched upon trading Futures Contracts…there is so much more information to be covered. This is just an introduction.

Before buying any trading education online, make sure you attend Shadowtraders’ excellent free Webinar on trading the Futures Market with Self Paced Futures Trading Course, and Futures Trading Strategies

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A Significant Rule to be Applied in E-Mini Futures Trading

Barbara Cohen, CIO, Shadowtraders — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 14:37:51 +0000

To understand the significance of trading with pivots, understand first of all, that the market is controlled. Perhaps best to say that the Market is completely controlled. If the market were not entirely controlled, millions of shares of stock and millions of Futures contracts could not change hands every day so reliably.

You don’t believe that the market is controlled? Let’s see an example of how control works. At the end of May 2009, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner went to China and met with Chinese government officials. The Chinese handed Geithner a kind of warning, the conversation most likely went like this…their telling him that they have invested in the U.S. stock market and in Treasury bonds. They are willing to sell their holdings if the stock market does not rise soon.

Geithner realizes that Chinese withdrawal from the Market could crash the U.S. economy, an economy only being held together with rubber bands.

Geithner comes back to the US and figures out what he and his Treasury friends can do to fix the problem. Geithner’s meeting with the Chinese officials took place at the END of May. Right after he came back, the Dow appreciates to 8,800 from 8,200 in 2 weeks, a 600-point run up. Note…the DOW that had not moved up for over two months, remaining around 8,000. How could the DOW move up 600 points in just 2 weeks given that it hadn’t moved in over 2 months? Between the months of July and August, the market went up almost 1,000 points. Strange…examine an old Dow chart for the past five years. You’ll realize that May through August are normally thought to be what has come to be known as the summer doldrums. So explain how the DOW could go up over 1,000 points in just over one month? Now that is control.

The point of the story? How does that help you to become a 12-minute trader? Simple. The point is the market is controlled. The market’s “insiders” know where the market is going and how fast it will get there. They follow specific trading rules, one of which is pivots. Here’s a trick to help you become a 12-minute trader: Just learn the insider rules. Buy when they buy and sell when they sell. Be the market’s shadow. Follow the markets’ rules.

What are the pivots used by movers and shakers in a controlled market? Pivots are support and resistance price levels that allow the movers and shakers to control daily highs and lows during the trading day. There are a total of 17 Futures trading pivots — eight intraday (occurring during 1 trading day) and nine inter-day (occurring over more than 1 trading day). Futures Market movers and shakers use Futures Pivots and stock market movers and shakers use Stock Market pivots. To be a dependable 12-minute trader, pivots need to appear on your technical analysis charts. Without pivots it is difficult to trade because you won’t know where the market may reach for highs and lows.

Want to learn more about becoming a 12-minute trader? Attend a Monday night webinar on trading Futures sponsored by http://www.shadowtrader.com. You will be able to see the pivots in action on the current day’s chart. Shadowtraders always shows the current day, not some chart from weeks or months earlier.

Before you buy another trading seminar, make sure you attend one of Barbara Cohen’s excellent free Monday night Webinars

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Day Trade Forex

Ahmad Hassam — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:23:55 +0000

by Ahmad Hassam

Forex day trading is a great way to make money and build your saving account. You should learn to day trade forex. But before you embark on your journey of currency trading, a few facts should be very clear. These facts should be the foundation of any forex trading system that you will use daily for day trading.

The first most important fact that you need to understand is that forex is not a get rich quick scheme. Skilled traders can and in fact do make money in forex trading however like any other occupation or career, success just doesnt happen overnight. Use this great formula for success: Practice+Patience+Persistence=Profits.

You should know that there is no substitute for hard work and diligence. Practice trading on a demo account. Pretend that virtual money is your own real money when you trade on the demo account. Do not open a live trading account until you become profitable on your demo account. Double you account first demo trading. You can only be successful if you stick to a system and a plan.

When you start trading forex, just choose two major currency pairs that you will trade in the start. It will become very difficult to keep tab on the all major currency pairs in the beginning. You should start with a major currency pair. The spread on the major pairs is the best and they are the most liquid. EURUSD pair is the most commonly traded pair in the currency markets and usually has the best spread because of its liquidity.

USDCHF is the most volatile pair among the major currency pairs. It is highly volatile and moves the most during the trading week. However, USDJPY moves a lot only on the news out of Japan. GBPUSD is the most stable and least volatile among the major currency pairs.

Follow and understand the daily forex news and analysis of the professional currency analyst. It is important to get a birds eye view of the currency markets and the news that affects the prices. It is also important that you know and understand what the key technical support and resistance levels are in the currency pair that you want to trade.

Support is the predicted level to buy. It is where the currency pair moves up on the charts. Resistance is the predicted level to sell. It is where the currency pair should move down on the charts.

Fortunately all the best forex news and analysis is available freely online. While you are reading the technical news and analysis, write down on a piece of paper what direction the analyst are saying about the currency pair that you are trading and the key support and resistance level.

Learn how to use technical indicators and always trade with stop losses. It is worth your time to be patient and learn how to use technical indicators on the charts that you will be reading shortly.

It is important when you are trading to be disciplined. Stick to a plan. Dont just trade your gut feeling. Depending on your risk capital and strategy, set your stop losses accordingly.

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Know These Forex Broker Games. Learn Forex Trading!

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Give me your opinion insights and summary or how you understand this..?

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:10:43 +0000

Reality check.

The philippines has good sound laws but corrupt political influences always delay the implementation of these laws.

By the time these laws are enforced, they become so obsolete that another law must be passed (just like the politicians who regularly pass gas – i.e. fart through their mouth).

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woried about my educational future I feel deprived,what can I do?

admin — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:54:49 +0000

I am a junior in high school and I want to go to collage. I have been a special education student since I was in the first grade. I took a test and scored just high enough that they could exit me from special education. The problem is they didn't teach me any advanced math or English they just taught me how to function as an adult. Like how to balance a checkbook find the square foot of something, and how to fill out job application things like that. My teachers say I’m not strong in math and reading comprehension. They tell me that I’m probably not going to do well on the act/sat test. I am really good at computers and that is what I want to study the only thing that is going to hold me back is if I fail that test. I don’t think a tutor or learning program will help. I’ve thought about going to trade school but I don’t know if you need an act/sat test to get into trade school.
To me it’s not right to judge by whats on paper when they never taught me how to answer the question.

If you wrote your question and comments yourself, I'd say you have some pretty good skills! You sound as if you are able to put some serious thought into this and able to consider what might be the best thing to do. If you have not already done so, have a serious discussion about this with your parents and your guidance counselor if your school has one.

You have to take control of your own destiny. You still have some time to work on skills. Check out the possibilities of getting some tutoring. Many communities have options for free tutoring through volunteers. Your high school may have a program where students tutor other students. If not, maybe this can be your opportunity to see if you can get one started. Does your high school offer an option where you could take an extra year to complete high school? This is an excellent option for many students. Also, I bellieve there are study guides available for those tests? Get a study guide and start working on it. Get help with it, and see what happens.

I would suggest you try to really figure out what it is you want to do in college. Based upon your level of ability, and if you truly "test just high enough to exit special education" then you have to figure out if your first choice is a reasonable option for you. If your first choice turns out to not be a reasonable option (as happens with lots of students), then see if there is some related field or career that would be of interest to you that is a reasonable choice. Remember that today people change jobs frequently, often try many things before they get to the one that is best for them. Keep your mind and options open.

I would suggest you not permit yourself to put energy into feeling deprived or blaming anyone. The past happened, and is past – it can't come back. Take control of your life and begin to work toward what you want. That's where you need to put your energy. Make the most of each day and move forward in samll steps. Face life and your future positively and assertively.

The past is history, tomorrow's a mystery. Today is a gift – that's why we call it the present. Do and be your best today. Work toward your goals. Tomorrow will come, and if you do your best today, tomorrow will take care of itself.

Good luck with the days ahead. I wish you all the best in you future.

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I'm 21, Male. Living with parents, felony record. No car, 937.00 Credit debt. No education. start suggestions

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:34:47 +0000

I earn 780$ a month from work Im a hs graduate .my crime was committing statutory rape. I have become very self-motivated upon being released 3 years ago . No kids, focusing on myself and my direction. When thinking of a step to take, I consider Taking on a trade, Electrician ect. But I know in my gut Its not what I really want for myself. Sure being able to wire your house would be nice in future but my passion lies in educating myself and competing, Muay Thai. Boxing. But Im not confident in pursuing school because of my felon. the chances of getting my felon expunged are good but im not 100%. Should i invest in school ( staying with parents ), student loan etc or work on car, moving out, independence. Advice is greatly and genuwinly apprecia

An education is the best thing you can do for yourself. It doesn't garuntee you a job, but it puts you a step ahead of the game. I say go for it.

I'm assuming the stat. rape situation happened when you were 18 with a younger girl. I'm sure you've learned from that situation. I would try to get it taken off, but if not, be upfront with an employer.

I would say to start out, maybe try a few general education classes and get a feel for what make you tick. Good luck in pursuing a degree!

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S&P 500 Emini Futures coach Oct 1 trading education

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:56:53 +0000

S&P 500 emini futures support and resistance for oct 1. Open gap is not filled yet and there is plenty of stimulus to get it back up there.

Duration : 0:2:9

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S&P 500 Emini futures coach Oct 1 trading education levels

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:46:32 +0000

S&P 500 emini futures trading coach shows intra day trading levels for the S&P 500 emini futures contract ES.

Duration : 2 min 8 sec

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How do I get my boyfriend to get an education? Or, how do I deal?

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:45:02 +0000

I am almost done my masters degree. My live in boy friend never graduated high school, but I convinced him to enroll in univesity as a mature student. In his second semester, he has completely stopped going to class, playing world of warcraft and online poker instead. He says university isn’t for him but has no other plans. He says I try too hard to control the future, but I just want him to get a trade or something stable. Something other than fast food. I know our relationship won’t work if I am making 65K a year and he is serving burgers. We would get in fights over bills and all that, plus he wouldnt be happy. I don’t know what to do.

Leave him, if he obviously doesnt want to be better educated, and your smart, obviously, you deserve someone better and im sure you will find the guy that makes you happy and wont be serving burgers =)

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Why are so many of our future skilled tradesmen and women expected to spend three years at University?

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:47:06 +0000

Should the UK Government now revert back to an education system that strongly encourages apprenticeships in engineering, design and the utility services eg plumbing, rather than encouraging everyone to study for a degree at Uni.?
Many graduates are now discovering that an academic qualification is no longer a key to a successful career. Instead, trade qualifications can provide life long career development, and often big earnings as well as positions on the Board of Directors.
Perhaps it might be the start of a new Industrial Revolution here, with far less service industry, and much more engineering development and production.
What do you think in the UK? Does this situation exist in the USA?

Apologies for the big question!!

More or less cosmic

I totally agree with you. Forcing all kids down the academic route is part of the problem we currently have in schools. Those who are not very academic have no outlet for any other skills they may have, so become bored and disrupt the rest of the class. They end up leaving school at 16 with very few qualifications, no skills and become disillusioned with the whole system.

Kids should be able to choose at an earlier age which route they would prefer to take. Those who enjoy the more vocational courses could go down that pathway leaving the classrooms quiet for the bookworms. So long as all kids receive a basic education in the important subjects I don't see what the problem is.

As for Beans/UK above – you need to change your reading material. Cancel your subscription to the Daily Mail or BNP Weekly, wake up and smell the coffee! A few years ago you couldn't find a plumber, and when you did you had to pay them around £85 a hour. Luckily a load of Eastern Europeans came across so that is no longer the case. Everyone has had to become more competitive, but the general public have benefitted from this.

Free trade and free movement across all continents! Bring it on!

Good luck!

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