forex futures... interactive

many of us have surely thought of the pros/cons of futures vs spot forex..... hopefully some will speak up and offer their insights ..... or perhaps give us some direction.....

have looked into them off and on over the years.... watched hundreds of youtube videos..... lately they have been weighing heavy on my mind .....

the platform is different.... the scope of pairs to trade is limited..... but the dollars and cents per tick/pip is about the same..... the minimum to open an account is higher..... 10k for etrade futures and 3k for infinity futures..... the contracts come in odd sizes and manner in which they 0 out the account every night is confusing at first.... margin required is about the same..... but you are really choked down on number of contracts open at any one time if your accounts are at the minimum like mine....

etrade futures uses the xtrader platform..... infinity futures uses infinity at platform.... overall the platforms are roughly similar....
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until i get a good grip on things, my sights will be on the small micros...... m6a the audusd ..... m6b the gbpusd.... m6e the eurusd..... but open to suggestions if anyone has some....

my preference has always been to attach a live explorer with no restrictions..... such will be the case here as soon as possible....

if anyone has any knowledge in futures or the platforms, please feel welcome to post it.... or questions... my experience is limited to a couple weeks, but someone else might answer......h
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couple videos, one short and one not so, on futures vs spot.... also 2 articles..... carley also has a book....

metatrader indicators/ ea's or marketscope can still be used as the signal provider.....h

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spot is better.....

futures are better.....

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hey l.fib.... thanks..... fibonacci numbers are great guide lines.....h
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I've been looking to try futures through Fastbrokers. I use (and love) their Pathfinder platform on LMAX, and they offer futures through it too. Not sure what company they use for futures as they are only an IB.
My studies so far are that the micro currency contracts are pretty useless as there is very little volume and fills are therefore hard.
I am looking to trade crude oil, but need a pretty large deposit as the contract margin is large. Hope to be set up by the end of this year.
Interested in seeing what information comes from this thread.

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hey mystic.... agree..... that's pretty much what everyone says, including the etrade futures guys themselves..... some micro pairs don't trade at all..... there seems to be enough volume on others though..... i've been makin a couple hundred a day.... my best day was about 400....

the mini size and standard size have plenty volume..... but being so green at futures myself, will stick with the micros a few more weeks at least.... or maybe forever....

i somewhat know were my entrys and exits will be in advance so i use limit orders..... the world will not be able to buy the m6a at .0.7749 till someone buys mine at .7750 first.....

futures look better every day....h
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That's a real good point. I was mainly looking to futures for comodities, but maybe I should not limit myself.

My issue is that the action seems to happen during the US session, and for me that is 10.30pm to dawn. Plan is to at least trade the first few hours of the US session once I can support myself with forex, so I don't need to be up early for a job. just got to keep plodding along. Starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, and really plan on being able to get into futures before the year end.

I trade FX futures its nice using a dom for entries but the volume is all arb bots from the spot market. the biggest advantage of the futures is you can subtly tell whether bulls or bears are being more aggressive on the dom. Also its nice to get in at a set price it pisses me off hitting market on the spot fx and getting a shitty fill - brokers can be such ball breakers

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hey fexitrade...... well now the volume might be all arb bots and 1 hayseed......

i've noticed those odd order schemes on both sides the bid/ask but had no clue as to the reason.... thanks for the hint, i'll look into arb bots today and see what's up.....

i've traded options on futures for many years..... but my true real deal futures trading is limited to the past 10 days.....

most of my time lately has been just studyin them and learning the platform's abilities.... occasionally testing the waters with a few orders a day..... those orders should increase as time goes by....h

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investopedia

beginner guide 1....

beginner guide 2....

beginner guide 3....

beginner guide 4....

beginner guide 5....

conclusion....

at first glance it's hard to see the xtrader platforms charts being anywhere near as good as marketscope, metatrader or metastock.... the latitude is just not there....

the dollars and cents is pretty much the same.... what can be made in futures can be matched in spot..... the positive vs negative swap cases might play a factor......

for the cad, use the mcd, not the micro m6c..... m6c does not appear to trade.....

overnight margin rates are somewhere around 10% more than intraday rates..... for me that is no issue..... there seems to be leeway between sources/brokers.....h

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infinity margin rates.....

tradestation margin rates.....

cme margin rates.....

//----- and again..... what can be made in futures can be made in traditional spot.....h

to see the low futures volume people speak of, try ninjatraders snapshot quote board.... the volume updates live but the standard 10 minutes delayed..... use the down arrows to see all and click on the contract needed.... the individual contracts charts come up with updating volume..... just as so many say, the volume in micro fx futures is low......

the absence of negative swap, such as long term shorting the audusd, is a tremendous advantage for me......h

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ninjatraders quote board....

standad eurusd 6e volume.......

emicro eurusd volume....

several futures move inverse to the common pair..... the mcd mentioned and my short above is the cad-usd, which moves inverse of the usd-cad..... so if you think our traditional usdcad will go up, you buy it.... but you would sell the cadusd, futures symbol mcd....

large specs below.....h

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aud commitment of traders.....

gbp commitment of traders.....

cad commitment of traders.....

eur commitment of traders....

usdx commitment of traders.....

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Another advantage of trading fx futures is you can trade options on those futures contracts, which opens up interesting doors to risk management and market analysis not available to otc product traders. Fx futures options trade volume is decent (well on /6E, anyway), but only a fraction of the options trade volume on instruments like SPX and SPY. Equity and futures options are exchange traded, it's a transparent marketplace where you can see all trades as they fill in realtime....Screenshot below is the largest trades on /6E options today (Thur).

Despite all of the above, I am not trading fx futures options much: I am trying to build up IRA trading accounts and futures options trading is not allowed there. Anyway, good luck.

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yeah the volume is extremely low on many options on futures... i've traded them for years..... very often it's just me against the market makers.... not unusual for my trades to be 100% of the open interest in the ndo, new zealand options.... the aux is rare too.... bpx and cdd have a little more..... but it takes so long for a set up that's tradable given the large spread.... sometimes the spread is more than the contract in the ndo......

there are options i trade on some 3x bear etf funds that trade currencies.....

futures is the place for me now.... i've opened and closed over a dozen contracts today and still have about 600$ in 7 contracts left open.... that will probably fall back some before market closes today.... will leave some open anyway.....

still learning the ropes though.... hard to see me going back to spot......h
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Damn. Your killing it. I like many have tried trading just with the ladder and failed.;-)

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hey phylina.... if i was limited to only the ladder , i'd never got off the ground.... and would have probably lost my ladder in the first week....

i'm using metatrader and then just manually entering limit orders on the ladders.... do the same sort of manual entry with spot forex using etradefx, they only offer marketscope, not metatrader......

decided last friday to close all open orders and not carry any futures contracts over the weekends..... still learning so prefer to limit my weekend risk.... will carry over trades week nights.... my targets can not be hit in a single day......

the severe limit on number of contracts open at a time will keep me with the micros for quite a while.... my limit is now just 15.... which puts me around 20:1 leverage....

opportunity and risk , by big brother himself......

etrade said once i proved myself they would consider bumping up the number.... was too timid to ask them to define 'proving myself'......h

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Lol. That's good to know I didn't miss any hidden messages in the ladder haha.

Futures: regulated. If your in USA, for spot you get 50:1 max leverage, but futures you can get like 100:1. Ninjatrader is the most popular platform.

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hey pbylina.... my error, i was using the wrong term..... mixing up leverage with margin required.....

in spot, with fxcm, there is a 300$ per mini lot margin required on the audusd.... so with a 10k account you might be able to trade a little over 3.5 standard lots.....

in futures, with etrade, the margin required is only 220$ for the m6a.... so with the same sized account, 10k, you'd think i'd could open far more.... but actually i'm limited to only 15 contracts which is essentially 1.5 standard lots.... so less than half as much volume even though margin required is far less.....

the risk parameters limit me to only 15 and they are set by etrade..... 15 is plenty enough but 20 would be better.....

today is shaping up to be best so far, closing in on 1k..... subject to change of course.....h

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little over 1800, closing in on 2k....

it's a habit on mine to let'em buy'em back anytime 20% is made in a day.... might hold on to a few but not many.....h
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Hello,
I also did my research few months ago about futures trading.
For me the big advantage is being centralized we can have access to accurate volume and the DOM.
It is way Superior to Spot Forex if you are a scalper as it is more transparent.

However, its less atractive for beginners and low capital traders as not heavily advertised, lower leverage, higher capital requirement.

Here are a few paying softwares that seems to be really useful:
- SIERRA CHARTS --> Advanced charting
interesting if you are into Market Profile and VWAP (volume weighted average price) VWAP > Moving Average

- BOOKMAP --> Better visual representation of the DOM
Superior to the DOM, it is a MUST

Good luck with futures trading