Hi guys!

I read and studied on my own bonds and stock tradings 20 years ago. I opened an account with e-trade when they were relatively new but lost all my hard earned money in a few days. I got so mad at myself that I quit never to deal with that temptation again. A friend of mine got into cryptocurrency trading and told me great things about it. To make the long story short I got curious and did some research only to bump into some videos about futures trading. I read a bit here, watched a bit more over there and that old enthusiasm came back to me. I said to myself, I can do this but I need more help, more info. What would be a good and concise book for a beginner like me? Platform? Something better than e-trade? Videos/ webinars? Classes? Anything can help.

Thank you all!!

I suggest reading through and watching the videos for free here:
https://www.jigsawtrading.com/learn-to-trade/free-order-flow-analysis-lessons/

Even if you reject this methodology it is a good foundation in understanding price movement. (P.S.- Not affiliated with Jigsaw other than being a satisfied customer)

There are many great webinars right here on NexusFi for general learning.

Other sources of education I suggest all available for free on You-tube. The most useful that I have seen are from the following:

Axia futures - [yt]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFA5mCxXHSCCGxsDBSuRRw[/yt]

FT71 - [yt]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvG6WEPWwfx8ZDr52_hdVFA[/yt]

Jigsaw - [yt]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEHjJdrOFvgPbmKLECrTqiw[/yt]

Market delta - [yt]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdZZPcnxZLB_G7bzG8ZM7A[/yt]

NoBS - [yt]https://www.youtube.com/user/NoBSDayTrading/videos[/yt]

Please note - The links I provided are all related to order flow trading. You may or may not find it a good fit for you. Take some time and read through the posts here on Futures.io and look at other methods as well.

I suggest you download Ninja trader 7 for free and purchase a live data feed. Practice on sim until you "get it". If you are not profitable in sim mode there is no reason to trade live. You could read books and watch videos for years; experience is the only useful education.

On edit - I noticed you listed Gold as your favorite futures contract. I suggest you look at other markets as well. Find a market you are comfortable trading. It may very well be that gold is the market for you or maybe the much slower moving bonds?

I think you should examine your psychology and why you lost the first time because it indicates conflict. For example, you use the term "hard earned money" and the phrase "temptation". I would, also, like to know what happened after you lost all your money. Did you continue to study markets? If not then why not ?

Futures trading is one of the most difficult types of trading to engage in. Why? Because, futures contracts represent large notional amounts of stock or other goods and that means that unless you have a very large account you will be highly leveraged. Leverage can be likened to speed in racing. The faster you go the more likely you are to blow out (crash). Because futures contracts are fixed multiplier, if you trade futures the only way to slow down is to trade a larger account.

Most futures traders are at a professional or semi-professional level. While it is possible to trade futures with a small account (say 7k or less), the entire account is typically viewed as risk capital and expendable.

If you are motivated though to pursue the path, you should do an assessment of your strengths and think about the sort of relative advantages you can bring to the table. Examples of relative advantages would be high level of market cognition from studying markets over many years, programming ability, statistical or mathematical advantage, large amounts of capital, economic theory, etc. Once you identify your unique strengths you will need to try to come up with a plan that best maximizes your advantages.

I would suggest to look at the webinars here. Read a lot of books and look for newer books that might be more relevant for current markets. More importantly, I would suggest you sim trade using the exact same specifications as to which you plan to live trade. Your sim trading should be focused with specific goals and end points for going live. Also, do not underestimate the amount of capital you will need. It is no use to become a great sim trader and discover you don't have enough money to actually trade.