I just noticed that with my Coinbase account I can trade futures.
It’s limited for non crypto assets, so only gold, silver and oil I think. No regular currencies.
Just wondered if anybody actually trades those through CB Gold could be interesting. I can’t trade that Oanda with the account I have.
I’ve seen the Coinbase futures as well, but I never took the leap. I trade futures elsewhere. I haven’t seen too many good reviews about Coinbase’s futures trading so you might want to do your own due diligence before diving in.
Oh cool. How long have you been trading futures? What do you prefer, futures or spot?
I just started this past summer. Futures are definitely better than Forex for day trading but it can be more expensive. Forex is better for swing trading due to overnight margins in Futures. Forex also has more currencies pairs in general.
The transparency of everyone seeing the exact same chart and price is what won me over, along with knowing that I’m never trading against the broker.
I trust my forex broker, but I rarely trade forex anymore in favor of futures.
Yea I’ve been seeing a lot of futures trading strategies online that revolve around volume which I always thought was close to a holy grail if you could figure out how to use it with spot forex.
Any maybe you still can but without a centralized exchange, I don’t think it would work the same with forex brokers.
Are you trading live or paper? E-minis or micro?
I trade live and I stick with the micros. It’s easier to control risk, scale in, and scale out with incremental position sizing using micros.
Nice! Can I ask what you trade? I’ve been trying to figure out how to paper trade. I think I still need to pay a monthly for the data even if I’m paper trading, right?
Mostly MNQ, MES, and MYM. I’ll also trade M2K, 6E/M6E, 6B/M6B, 6A/M6A, 6C/MCD, 6S/MSF, or anything else that has price on a chart.
I do trade currency e-minis but not indices.
You can paper trade it without a data plan but the data will be delayed by 10 minutes. Depending on your TradingView plan, you can use replay mode and have the same basic experience minus being a live market.
It’s not a huge leap strategy wise from forex to futures, but it is a huge leap in transparency.
Oh man, that’s a great idea. Didn’t even think of that!
I’m not familiar with MYM and M2K. I’ll look those up.
I also have a Ninjatrader account. I’ll play around there, see what’s what.
MYM = Micro YM (Dow/US30)
M2K = Micro RTY (Russell 2000)
Yes and no.
Officially, yes.
Unlike spot/CFDs where you’re not really trading and the only data is the “broker’s” own “data” (i.e. their own prices), with futures data you’re dealing with information relayed from an exchange and it actually costs the broker something to supply it, as CME charges them.
It’s very cheap, for retail traders who self-certify that they’re trading only their own money, but it isn’t free.
Brokers will give you 2 weeks free, usually, if they think you’re a real person who might open a real account with them.
There’s also another way (but you didn’t hear it from me, lol) …
If you go to “Tradeday” (it’s a prop firm, but a good, honest one) you can do their 2-week free trial. Over and over again. As many times as you want. All you need is a new email address, each time around (i.e. every 2 weeks). They know that people do this and they don’t mind. Their support staff even suggest (in emails, not openly on their website!) that people should do it, to practice. So it’s “a bit of a fiddle” but a relatively open and relatively legitimate one. It works. You just need to keep getting additional free email addresses all the time, as you can only use each one once for a freebie (because of exchange regulations, not because of Tradeday’s regulations).
If you want further suggestions, if you’re new to futures, I would trade MES (micro ES, S&P) at $1.25 per tick. Not any of the other indices which are much more difficult and dangerous. Not gold, silver, oil. Don’t fall into the trap of imagining that MNQ/MYM are “safer” because they’re only $0.50 per tick rather than $1.25 - this is emphatically not the case!
If you’re used to forex and want to stick with it, you might also try 6E (that’s “EUR/USD”), but it’s $6.25 per tick.
ALWAYS enter a stop-loss.
ALWAYS cut losses quickly. If you hold on to losers (as I know from reading your posts you sometimes do with forex, lol) the market will at some point disembowel, destroy and murder you. Consider yourself warned, lol. And don’t hesitate to ask more questions, if you have them.
I hope it helps you.
Comment of the year for new futures traders.