New to Futures?

Practical reasons why trading futures could provide a better option than common equities, options, forex, and CFDs.

Trade 23 Hours a Day

Futures trading can be conducted nearly around the clock. Markets like the Stock Index Futures, Gold, Crude Oil and Energies are open 23 hours per day from Sunday night through Friday afternoon.

That means a futures trader can react as the event unfolds.

If you are only an equity trader, when a market is closed and an opportunity arises, you cannot take advantage of it. And worse, if you need to exit a position, you have to wait until the market opens.

You are probably familiar with U.S. stock market hours. But political events, natural disasters and after hours earnings reports do not wait for the market to open and in a true global economy, many markets that affect the U.S. market trade outside U.S. market hours.

Account Capitalization Size

In futures trading you do not need to capitalize your futures trading account with $25,000 in order to qualify as a pattern day trader. You can fund your account as low as $3,000. Also, you are not "borrowing" money to go short (sell) a market. You can day trade regardless of the size of your account.

Day Trade Margin

Funds used to establish positions (long or short) are made available immediately upon liquidation of positions. Traders do not have to wait for a random "settlement" in order to free up margin money. Also low day trade margins ($500 per contract on an Emini S&P 500 stock index futures contract) allow traders to create capital efficiencies on their money in the form of leverage.

Trade Any Asset Class

Futures traders have access to most asset classes including but not limited to:

- Stock Index Futures (Eq, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100)
- Energies (eq, Crude Oil and Natural Gas)
- Metals (eq, Silver and Gold)
- Currencies (Euro FX, British Pound)
- Interest Rates (Treasury Bonds, Notes)

Micro Futures

Micro futures are smaller sized contracts that enable traders to fund their account with as little as $1,000. Micro contracts are available in the Stock Index Futures, Gold and Currency Markets.

Regulated Exchange

When trading a futures contract, your trade is sent to ONE exchange. It's not routed to a myriad of ECNs or market places. Your futures broker is not "paid" for order flow. Your trade is processed at the CME Group GLOBEX electronic servers on a first come first serve basis. Totally fair and transparent.