[Tams]

Originally Posted by streaming »

I have been looking at the futures markets for some time and can not seem to find a way to make money trading it.

Too erratic with not clear patterns. Is is possible to trade this market successfully?

Re: Futures Market: Possible to trade for a living?

not only it is possible to trade for a living,
it is also possible to provide a living for others as well. (you need deep thinking for this)

[TimRacette]

Originally Posted by Tams »

Re: Futures Market: Possible to trade for a living?

not only it is possible to trade for a living,
it is also possible to provide a living for others as well. (you need deep thinking for this)

Right on Tams, fully agree.

[MightyMouse]

When there is a lot of competition, it is hard to easily make a lot of money. This is a basic law of economics.

What one person calls a living is what another calls starvation. So, to get the output that you need to pay expenses, you'll need to have the right input. If you have the right amount of capital you can make a living trading.

But, given the above, I am not too sure that most people would want to get paid the way they would get paid if they were trading for a living.

MM

[StevenSJC]

Without question it's doable. The best thing about trading and the futures is you can scale up with contract size - without working any harder. Not many businesses you can scale without adding a lot of additional effort.

The flipside is to get to the point of making a living is going to take quite a while since that first move from being able to successfully trade 1 contract, and get to the point where you earn your way to the right to trade two is by far the toughest.

I believe it takes multiple contracts to really make it so just be prepared for that 1 to 2 being the longest road. After that it gets easier.

[TimRacette]

IMO moonlighting is the way to go. That is go ahead and keep your day job, but begin to learn about trading and how the markets works in the evenings and on the weekends. For people completely new to trading I always think it's a good idea to start with a copy of the investors business daily newsletter and pick a few stocks to follow for a month to get a sense of how they react. It's typically easier to go from longer time frames down to smaller ones (day trading being the most difficult) so starting by placing trades off the daily time frame is a good option.

As you begin to develop a system and framework for your methodology and begin to see results it's enticing to want to trade full time. If it's something you really want to try I'd suggest scaling out of your job in a way that allows you to do both, perhaps work two days a week (Mon and Fri) and trade Tues, Weds, and Thurs. The markets will always be there so there's no sense rushing into it.

There's a lot that can be said for traders who have all their expenses covered and don't need their trading accounts to pay the bills, at least at the beginning.

[Tradewinds]

Originally Posted by streaming »

I have been looking at the futures markets for some time and can not seem to find a way to make money trading it.

Too erratic with not clear patterns. Is is possible to trade this market successfully?

• Yes, there many ways to trade successfully
• The very small percentage of people who do make money, may not tell you how they do it.
• Time and Money is needed.
• The odds you will be successful are extremely low.

To expand on those points: Those who do make money trading will tell you that it's possible. They may or may not tell you how difficult it is, how long it will take, or what your chances are of becoming successful. Most of the people who actually make money trading, will probably never tell you all the specifics about how they do it. Even if they did give you all the specifics, you might not execute it correctly. You could get a strategy that could be profitable, and not have the internal discipline to actually implement it.

You might run out of both time and money before you figure it out. Even those people with massive amounts of resources to put into trading may never figure it out. There may be an extremely few amount of very exceptional people who are able to take a small amount of money and make it work. But the odds are very low that will happen. Anyone who is not willing to accept and deal with these realities, is probably doomed right from the start.

[TimRacette]

Master the principles and your methodology on a small account first become increasing your size. If you trade too big to quick, you just end up throwing money down the toilet. As Trump and other millionaires/billionaires of the world always say, you're first million is the hardest.

[evancds]

The thing about futures is the cost to enter is high for someone just starting out. Intraday/Overnight margin requirements, min account size, min position size. Limited demo time on data feeds unless you have a funded account. I suggest you get a forex demo (which last indefinitely) and learn auction market theory/market profile, price action, supply and demand, etc. Then (6months to 3yrs depending on how much time you have) open a futures account and sim trade until you are profitable for 2 or 3 months. Start trading live with 1 or 2 contracts and gradually increase your size. Yea, it's a lot of work, but the journey is the reward.