Futures Trading

[AnesthesiaMD]

Originally Posted by sittingduck41

No offense to anyone here, but it's clear that no one that has replied is a professional trader. If I'm wrong, I apologize in advance.

I would absolutely steer you away from getting into this game. If you are doing it to prove people wrong, that is a horrible reason to do so. It is the most competitive business on the planet. You will be directly competing with very experienced traders who are either very smart, very well educated, or both.

Even if you are as genetically suited to this business as possible, it will still probably take you years to become consistently profitable.

If you decide to go through with it, DO NOT start with futures unless you have about 50k you can lose without it affecting your life style. Seriously. I'd open an account that allows you to trade mini contracts (forex comes to mind) and just be prepared to work your ass off, day in, day out, probably for about 5-10 years. That's just how it is.

Thanks for giving me a little more than the usual "Commodities are bad. Dont do it." I am not "doing it to prove people wrong." I am considering it because I find it interesting. Proving people wrong is just the icing on the cake. And I certainly know what it is like to "work my ass off for 10 years."

I have always been under the impression that forex was strictly for currency trading. Is this correct?

[sittingduck41]

Originally Posted by AnesthesiaMD

Thanks for giving me a little more than the usual "Commodities are bad. Dont do it." I am not "doing it to prove people wrong." I am considering it because I find it interesting. Proving people wrong is just the icing on the cake. And I certainly know what it is like to "work my ass off for 10 years."

I have always been under the impression that forex was strictly for currency trading. Is this correct?

NP, just telling you what I believe to be the truth. Trading is very interesting and challenging in my opinion. Once you become proficient at it, it is like playing the greatest game on the planet.

Forex is strictly for currency trading. I know you mentioned futures trading, but consider this: the spot currencies (forex) are 99%+ correlated with the currency futures (traded at CME). However with forex you can trade "mini contracts" that have 1/10 of the tick value of regular sized contracts. CME also offers minis but they are not very liquid and I would not recommend them. I would strongly recommend trading minis to start. You really want to be in a position to be as patient as possible without losing a lot of money.

Work ethic is very important so if you have that, great. I'd say it takes about 10,000 hours of screen time to become proficient. I mean, a lot of your competition will have that or more.

One last thing I forgot: if you are planning on day-trading, then forex is not the way to go because brokers charge a spread that will essentially be death by a thousand cuts. But trading that a bit longer term (and thus lessening the impact of the bid/ask spread) is a good way to learn how to trade I think.