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Would like to ask. I want to open an futures trading account through Ninja Trader. They have 2 options,Philips, Dorrman and FXCM form Forex.
I had a look through the forum on selecting the broker and there is kind a lot of staff there to consider, which i had no idea of.
I have spoken to NT guys, and they have recommended Dorrman.
Would like to ask what is your opinion on each of those, if you have an experience with them.
I am only starting so will be trading very little to start off and possibly only mini (micro) lots and my initial deposit will be low.Mainly trading Crude intraday, but occasional might hold position overnight.
NT told me i will be paying $5.02 commissions (all in rate) on full contracts, with deposit margins of $1000 per contract.
On mini or micro lots paying $4.52 commisions (all in rate) with deposit margin of $500 per mini-micro contract.
They told me when i open an account that is all i will be paying. Now i do not know if i have understood this properly so if somebody could please explain that to me.
Thank you for any advice.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Don't know about the brokers but the volume on the crude mini contract is very low. Yesterday the main Crude Oil contract (CL) had a volume of 1,582,871. The E-mini Crude Oil contract (QM) only traded 23,000 contracts. See Energy Products
Most of that will have been during the US former pit hours. It would be very thin overnight. What I said above is futures contracts. I don't think they do a micro contract. A full size contract is $10 a tick or $100 for a ten cent move which it can do in a blink of an eye. The mini contract has an equivalent value of half that, $50 for a ten cent move if I recall correctly. Still a lot.
Another option as you live in the UK is spreadbetting which can be done with a small account as you can trade small, such as £1 a contract. IGindex have a good reputation in the UK.
What will your trading be based on ? (Entry / Exit / Target / Stop )
Do you have a method ?
Did you test it before ? Manual / automatic ?
What is the success rate ?
Do you know the maximum draw-down of your method ?
Worst case of successive series of loosers ?
2. My advice :
A kind of rule of thumb is not to risk more than 2% of your capital.
at every single trade.
With one contract, 10 ticks stop = > 10 x 10 = 100$ = 2% => you would need a capital of 5.000$
Maybe this would help you, to answer your questions.
Thanks for a reply. I do understand to concept with ticks, but did not realize that volume traded is so low on E-mini, so thank you for that, so i guess i wont be trying to trade that.
I just spoken to FXCM and they said if i open an forex account, i will be able to trade CFDs on crude oil. What is your opinion on this, to trade CFDs rather then futures?
I been messing about with technical analysis, but didnt really have a look on difference between Futures,FX, and CFDs until yesterday properly.
Thank you for your reply.
I have tested the method on demo little, but there are still staff that i need to test much more. Dont have any stats as for some reason my demo account does not hold any data in regards demo trades, need to fix this on NT.
There is still much work to be done to be fair.
Can i ask you as well, what is your opinion on trading Crude oil CFDs instead of futures.
Personally I prefer looking & trading CL futures.
If you analyse the data correctly (Bid, Ask, Trade, Volume and Level 2), it will give you the best information.
I had a spreadbetting account a few years ago which is why I mentioned it. I have never had a CFD account and am unclear about their benefits or disadvantages. Most people try to trade futures under capitalised so being able to trade the lowest amount possible while getting a feel for things seems like a good idea. Ooanda is another company one can trade small with. People tend to gravitate to scalping because they start with or want to lose very little so they think they will just risk a few ticks to make a few and scalp all day and make a load which isn't realistic except for the very few with that sort of aptitude, and a professional fee structure. Risking less per tick allows you to step back and user more realistic stops and hold for more practical targets.
For 'proper' trading though futures have the benefit of trading through an exchange so everybody can see the price and you aren't reliant on your broker making the price themselves, while taking the other side of your trade. Also with futures you have the order book information showing what people want to do, and the actual volume showing what did happen. A person interested in forex for example could look at the Euro futures contract data but execute in a micro spot forex account until they had confidence in what they were doing before moving to futures. The trouble is you then need to pay monthly fees for the futures data while trading another account. There are pluses and minuses only you can really fully consider but you do have an advantage in the UK of at least having those different options available to consider.
Just my somewhat rambling 2 cents.
I think i know what you mean with regards scalping. I am doing this now sort of, as i am still lacking knowledge and experience.
I would prefer to have both accounts - forex and futures, but i would not be able to cover both accounts at the moment, so that is the main reason.
"For 'proper' trading though futures have the benefit of trading through an exchange so everybody can see the price and you aren't reliant on your broker making the price themselves, while taking the other side of your trade."
Now i did ask them at FXCM, where will the price come from, and to my surprise they said it will be fed from Ninja Trader futures data and that apparently it will be exactly same price as futures have, but adding spread to it. Does this make sense?