Best Momentum Trading Course

Traders who trade for a living are generally swing traders or day traders. If you are planning to day trade in commodities, then you need to get hold of a reliable trading system that gives good results consistently. Despite having such a system, there are a few things you may want to know about day trading in the commodity and commodity options markets.

Day Trading Defined

Those who trade and complete all their trades within the period of a day’s trading session are known as day traders. Day traders have to square off all their trades by the end of the 24-hour period. That is their time limit. If they hold their positions for any longer, they can then be called position traders, and not day traders. They are the most common form of traders to be found in commodity markets.

Day traders like to churn their capital on a day to day basis to maximize its return. They prefer not to lock in capital for extended periods of time. More often than not, they have very limited capital to leverage, and cannot afford to block it all. Speed is the name of the game where day trading in commodity futures is concerned.

Facts About Day Trading

It has been observed that you stand a better chance of earning money in day trading commodity markets if you are prepared to invest a bigger amount of money. This is because more money gives you the option to diversify your investment and manage the risks better.

An important component of commodity futures trading and futures options trading, is using charts that allow you to decide what you want to do. Secondly, those who follow trends taste success.

As in all things, there are limitations that day traders face. The most important being that they only trade in a single day’s session. Hence, they cannot let their profits run any longer even if they want to – they are limited by time. They prefer by choice to take the money and run. Time is money, and time is limited. Another issue that crops up at some time or another for day traders is their stops. They cannot have too large a stop for fear of losing a lot of money. Therefore, they have to keep narrow stops, and thus increase their chances of being whipsawed out of a trade early. Ask any old hand about being whipsawed, and they will tell you that it is a part of the game. Daily ranges also limit targets, as the luxury of hanging on is not available. Quick profits are targeted, and many a time commodity day traders have to get out of a trade at the end of the day having made very little or no money from it.

However, day traders are not to be under estimated in any way. They truly form the volume numbers in the commodities market. Many intraday movements are because of day traders. They cause sudden spurts in commodity prices with heavy buying or selling. An integral part of the commodity market, they form the backbone of the commodity market.

How It All Began

Commodity futures trading, as we know it today, came about for the first time in Japan in the 17th century, where rice was being traded in future contracts. It was a period when farmers and buyers came together and decided to commit to each other future prices negotiated on suitable terms in exchange of grain for money. For example, a dealer would agree to buy a ton of rice at the end of the next month for a certain price from a farmer. This would be ideal for both parties, as the farmer would know how much he would get for his rice in advance, and the buyer could plan to raise the money he needed for the purchase. Contracts such as these became more and more popular and common, and were even used as collateral for taking loans. If the buyer could not take delivery of the rice, he could sell the contract to someone else. On the other hand, if the farmer could not deliver the goods, then he could hand over the contract to another farmer. Thus began commodity futures trading, as we know it today. 

What Are Commodity Futures?

Today, most of the futures commodity trading exchange are set up in a similar way.  Members of the exchange do the actual trading on the floor.  Stock stands for equity in a public company, and can be held as long as you want whereas commodity futures trading contracts have a specified life. In the past, generally people used commodity futures trading methods to hedge risks and fluctuation in prices, or to take advantage of them, and not for actually buying into the commodity. The idea is that a contract requires delivery of a commodity within a certain predefined time period unless it becomes null and void. The person buying the commodity futures trading contract agrees to buy the specified commodity at a fixed price on a certain date. The person selling the commodity futures trading contract agrees to sell the commodity at a certain price on a certain date. As time goes on, the contract price fluctuates, and this brings about profit and loss in the trade. It is to be noted, however that, the delivery generally doesn’t take place. The contract is usually liquidated before its expiry. The entire trade is based on the idea that there will be no delivery, but we can speculate on the price of the underlying commodity at a future time to make money. Commodity futures trading and futures options trading is done all over the world now.

Different Types Of Commodities

There are many types of commodities that are traded in the international market.These can be broadly categorized into the following:

•    Precious metals like Gold, Platinum, Silver, etc.,
•    Metals such as Aluminum, Copper, Steel, etc.,
•    Agricultural products like Rice, Corn, Oils, Cotton, Wheat, etc.,
•    Soft commodities such as Cocoa, Coffee, Tea, Sugar, etc.,
•    Livestock like potbellies, cattle, etc.,
•    Energy commodities like Crude oil, Gasoline, Gas, etc.

If we include forex markets, it has been noted that volumes for futures
trading is far more (or many times over) than those of equity markets in
the US. This goes to show us the amount of interest that futures trading generates worldwide.

The best way to learn how to trade in the commodity markets is to take lessons directly from a successful trader. However, even if you found the right persons, and they taught you all they know, this in itself does not guarantee that you will make money the way they do. For this, you need to keep a good trading strategy yourself, if you are to succeed in doing commodity futures trading.

Trade Correctly Or Not At All

A lot of people don’t realize it, but they end up learning through trial and error. However, you are unlikely to become a good trader if you use this method. The first thing you need to do to trade the right way is to read as much as possible about commodity trading. This may not give you the best trading plan, but it will definitely prepare you for the trades you might want to take in the future. You will gain more knowledge about the risks you are about to take, and how to limit them. You will also have the benefit of learning from the mistakes made by the experts, rather than having to go through them yourself.

Essentials Of A Sound Trading Strategy

The first decision you need to take while formulating a trading strategy is to decide how much capital you want to invest, as this will greatly determine how much you will end up making as profit. The more you invest, the better your chances of making money. It provides more lasting power in the markets if you have more ‘risk capital’. Risk Capital is the amount of money you are willing to lose without it affecting your way of life. The next step is to decide what your average trade investment will be – as in the value of each trade taken.

The four essentials of any good trading strategy are as follows. Firstly, always remember to trade in the direction of the market trend. Remember, the market trend is your only friend. Secondly, always keep stops in place. They will determine how much capital you will lose. Thirdly, let your profits run as deep as you can. Don’t be in a hurry to exit a trade if you are making only a little money. This sounds like it is easy to do, but is perhaps the most difficult of all the four principals. Lastly, manage your risk wisely and carefully. Make sure that the risk reward ratio is always leaning in your favor when you are taking a trade.

Use Of Technical Analysis

Most traders use technical analysis as part of their trading strategy. Technical analysis provides many vital tools that allow you to be more informed about the trades you are taking, and help to decide which ones to ignore. Among other things, indicators that are used in technical analysis allow you to determine trends, entry points, stops, target prices, supports, resistances, possible breakouts and breakdowns. It would be wise to use these indicators when you are formulating a strategy to trade in the commodity markets and also with commodity options.

Remember, it is wise to always trade a commodity that you are knowledgeable about. Try to master one commodity and know the factors that affect its movements. Know what you are trading, and you will find your self on the winning side more often.

A lot of people have made a lot of money trading commodity futures and commodity options. It offers a person scope to earn a huge sum of money with a very limited trading capital investment. How have these people done it? Well, I don’t know if I can answer that question just yet, but here are your beginner’s guidelines to commodity trading.

The Basics

When you trade in the commodity futures markets, you are not actually buying something. Instead you buy its future contract purely on the assumption that the price of the commodity is likely to move upward in the immediate future before the expiry of the contract. You buy to gain profit from this increase in price. For example, if you buy gold futures at $650 now, and the price at the expiry of the contract is $660, you would have made $10 on the commodity futures contract without actually trading in or buying any gold.

People choose to trade in commodity futures and futures options because it offers them an opportunity to get very large leverage on their invested capital. If, for example, you had about $20,000 you would be able to buy an S & P 500 stock future of the index. The same in actual equity stock could cost you $350,000. So, you get leverage of 17 times on your $20,000 if you invest in futures. This has huge ramifications where return on investment is concerned. If you make $20,000 dollars on an upward trend on this contract, you would have ended up with a 100% profit on your investment! This is as opposed to investing in actual stock worth $350,000 and getting $20,000 as return on investment. Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

What Are The Risks Involved?

However it’s not all roses out there or everyone would be trading and doing nothing else. The truth is that there are many inherent risks in doing commodity futures trading too. The key is the risk to reward ratio. A lot of people are not as concerned about the return on their money as they are of their invested money returning. Greater the risk, the greater is the return. Of course, if you’re wrong, you lose just a few thousand dollars trading carefully over a long period of time, but if you don’t have the luxury of patience, you may lose a fortune quickly in just a few large trades.

Hence, one must remember that there is a huge risk of loss in commodity futures trading. To limit this loss, people use what is known as a ‘stop’ or a ‘stoploss’. These are orders placed to square off your position if it turns against you in any trade to limit your loss. These are considered an essential part of commodity futures trading, as you never know what unforeseen event lurks ahead that has the potential to wipe out a large chunk of your invested capital. To make money, one has to accept that you will lose money also. If you have a good trading system, and use stops in your trades, you are sure to succeed over time.

Sometimes markets move so fast that your stop loss will not be hit. This is due to the broker not being able to trade the market for you because of these limit moves. It is for this reason, many only choose futures options. 

Commodity futures hold immense potential in making for you huge amounts of money. However, one needs to be careful, and invest funds wisely and with patience.

When people speak of future option or commodity option trading, they think of the risks involved. There are risks involved when buying and selling options. When buying an option, the risk is how much you paid for the options. There is limited risk involved in buying an option. In selling futures options, there is unlimited risk involved because if the option goes “in the money” you have the potential for unlimited loss.

For example, if the underlying futures market was trading at 3.00 and I sold a 3.50 call option, this option is not yet in the money. It is “out of the money”. If the futures hits 3.50, then the option is “at the money”. Once it goes beyond 3.50, it is in the money. If I sold the commodity option and the futures eventually goes to 5.50, then it has 2.00 worth of “real value” or intrinsic value. So we can lose more than we expected. Some people only buy options for this reason.

When buying futures options though, you are paying premium and this is risk as well. The chance that you will be in the money and recover your premium payment is the risk involved. There is unlimited profit potential with limited risk. But the disadvantage is that the options usually expire worthless. Leverage is the reason people buy futures options. You can control  the underlying futures with a smaller investment and less risk than by buying or selling the futures contract. I am paying a premium to put this on and I am trading time as well. Meaning, I only have until the option expires to be correct, so time is a factor in futures options trading also.

Futures options sellers are trading the fact the an option will not be profitable for the option buyer before a certain time frame. Hopefully the futures option will expire worthless or lose value before the expiration of the option.

I will write about other techniques in a different article. There are many ways to trade futures options. You can buy an option or sell an option or you can put on a credit spread where you do both.