Wednesday, July 28, 2010

IPhone apps for Futures Traders

Please check out our E Mini Futures Day Trading Course at www.Easy-Emini.com


As we all know, smart phones rule the world and in my opinion, the IPhone stands at or near the top. If you are a futures trader, you want to be as connected as possible. I assembled a list to help you stay on top of your futures trading no matter where you are.

iFutures - Mobile Commodities Tracking
Description: Track Commodities Futures from your IPhone or iPod Touch.

Works great on iPad too!
$2.99

FuturesLive: Commodities / Gold / Oil Prices
Description: *** Five screenshots do not do this product justice. Please check our web site for a 40 screenshot tour ***

"Finally ... a futures app worth having" (danthoma Oct 29)
$3.99

StockWatch - Portfolio Tracking & Stock Market Quotes
Description: Keep track of the Stock Market and your Portfolio in an intuitive and feature-rich environment. With over 50 exchanges supported, StockWatch gives you the best overview of your investments, period. Tracks futures too!
$2.99

BlackGold - Oil, Gas, Gold, and Silver Tracking
Description: Mobile Price-Watching for Crude Oil, Gold, Gas, Natural Gas, and Heating Oil on your iPhone or iPod!

Works great on iPad too!
FREE

Trading in Options & Futures
Description: Basic information about options and futures
$1.99

Candice Japanese Candlesticks Index
Description: Japanese candlesticks provide a visual insight into Market psychology as one of many tools in technical analysis of the financial markets for trading success. This app provides 1) quick identification and interpretation of current market trading direction, 2) a complete reference on 100+ Japanese Candlestick patterns, and 3) two training games to build your knowledge of charting patterns.

Candice helps you quickly find the possible Japanese candlestick patterns in a chart from input of the trading situation. No more looking through numerous graphic images to match or memorizing what each pattern means. Enter specific values to find possible matches and then see the trade action. Patterns can also be found by name, prior trend, signal type (bearish/bullish), number of candles, or marked favorites. Each candle pattern provides image, name, signal, reliability, rating, trend, colors, how to recognize, recommended trade actions, and your own custom notes.

Candice employs a visual table of contents as well as a full index dictionary name reference. Caveat notes are provided as a separate extendable database on chart patterns as well as other references.
$3.99

Oil & Gas
Description
The FREE LOGA Oil & Gas App for the iPhone brings you total coverage of the oil & gas industry from a local & national perspective.

Finally, a working app for the oil & gas industry is available for the iPhone.
FREE

QuoTrek
Description: QuoTrek is a service of eSignal, a division of Interactive Data Corporation (NYSE: IDC).

QuoTrek is the only free app that provides the same, award-winning market data used by tens of thousands of eSignal users and professional traders worldwide to monitor all major U.S. and international markets.

QuoTrek offers reliable stock, futures and Forex quotes, market-moving news, charts, watch lists, portfolio monitors and more.

Market Data
Receive free stocks, futures, Forex, market indices and all major instruments from U.S. and world markets.

Energy Markets
QuoTrek offers data from the energy markets, including Natural Gas, Crude, Heating Oil, Unleaded, Propane, Brent…

News
Get market-moving news from the U.S. and abroad, including top stories, economic news and more. Display news by category (includes PR Newswire and Business Wire news).

Charts
Track trends with charts. Rotate the screen horizontally to change time periods and chart types and expand or contract the chart to show more or less history.

Hot Lists
Use this powerful tool to scan the markets automatically and immediately identify trading opportunities from top gainers, losers and volume leaders.

Watch Lists
Customize up to 5 portfolios, each containing up to 40 symbols.

Detailed Quotes

View a detailed quote screen showing open, last, volume, previous, bid, ask, high, low and more.

Special Note
QuoTrek was first introduced as a wireless hand-held device offering streaming quotes and news back in 1983. The original QuoTrek was used by more than 50,000 traders and executives. QuoTrek became available for iPhone users in 2010.
FREE

CME Group Mobile – LITE
Description: CME Group Mobile gives you a 10 min delayed snapshot of the most popular products traded across all asset classes. Quote detail provides a variety of market data including, settle, prior settle, last and net change.

Recently added:
- 10 minute delayed charts
- CMEGroup twitter feed
FREE

Please check out our E Mini Futures Day Trading Course at www.Easy-Emini.com

Futures and options trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Which Index Follows the EMini's?

Please visit our E Mini Futures Day Trading Course at www.Easy-Emini.com

One of the most requested topics we see over the web regarding E Mini futures (E Mini FAQ)trading is: Which Index Follows the Emini's?

I think, the more correctly the question is: Which index has an E Mini contract that follows it? I say this because the E Mini futures contract follows an index, not the other way around. Indexes such as the S&P 500 is a futures contract in and of itself and the E Mini mirrors or follows that underlying index.

As a guide, I will list the most popular E Mini futures contracts. While there are mini futures contracts available on almost any futures market, the CME Group's stock index E Mini's are the most popular.

E Mini S&P 500
E Mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index
E Mini S&P Mid-Cap 400
E Mini S&P Mid-Cap 600
E Mini Nasdaq 100
E Mini Russell 2000

Please visit our E Mini Futures Day Trading Course at www.Easy-Emini.com

Futures trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors

Friday, July 23, 2010

Contract Specifications for E Mini S&P 500 Futures

Please visit us at www.Easy-Emini.com to see our E Mini Futures Day Trading Course

Opening Date 9/9/1997
Ticker Symbol ES
ES= Clearing
View product and vendor codes
Contract Size $50 x E-mini S&P 500 futures price
Tick Size (minimum fluctuation) OUTRIGHT 0.25 index points=$12.50
CALENDAR SPREAD 0.05 index points=$2.50
Trading Hours
All time listed are Central Time CME Globex
(ETH) MON-THURS: 5:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. & 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.
(Daily maintenance shutdown 4:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m.)
SUN: 5:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m.
Contract Months Five months in the March Quarterly Cycle (Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec)
Last Trade Date/Time
View Calendar CME Globex
Trading can occur up to 8:30 a.m. on the 3rd Friday of the contract month
Final Settlement Procedure Cash Settlement. All open positions at close of last day of trading are settled in cash to the Special Opening Quotation (SOQ) on Friday a.m. of the S&P 500 Index.
See SOQ FAQ..
Daily Price Limits RTH: Successive 10%, 20%, 30% limits (downside only)
ETH (overnight): 5% up or down
View price limits details.
Position Limits Work in conjunction with existing S&P 500 position limits
Block Trade Eligibility No. View more on block-trade eligibile contracts.
Block Minimum N/A
Rulebook Chapter 358
Exchange Rule These contracts are listed with, and subject to, the rules and regulations of CME.


Please visit us at www.Easy-Emini.com to see our E Mini Futures Day Trading Course

Futures trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors

Monday, July 19, 2010

E Mini Futures Trading Tip – Becomming a Better Trader

Please visit our E Mini Futures Trading Course at www.Easy-Emini.com




I may have touched on this topic before here on the Easy-Emini blog, but I believe it is worth repeating, but I think one of the most valuable lessons that can be learned about treading is to not only plan each trade but to keep a log or journal about your progress.



Planning – So often I see traders use the markets like it was the latest X Box game. They do tens if not hundreds of trades in a day. This is fine for a high-end algorithmic trader but for a futures trader just starting out, in my opinion it is a recipe for disaster. What did you learn from either your victories or your defeats? How can you replicate anything if you were doing too many transactions to count? If you planned out what you want to do and executed that plan, even if takes time to develop that plan, do you agree that you at least have a shot at a better result?



Journal – Planning is only half of the battle. Create a simple spread sheet with the basic components of what each trade was about. Dates, times of day, markets, results and brief notes concerning what your plan was and your thoughts about the results.

At the end of each trading day, or week depending upon your volume analyze your data. What worked and want didn’t work? Write down at least one learned thing. Over the course of time these “Learned Things” will help shape the future of your trading and hopefully success.

Please visit our E Mini Futures Trading Course at www.Easy-Emini.com



Futures trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors

Friday, July 16, 2010

Commodity Trading Advisor Investing

Please visit our web site, http://www.easy-emini.com/ to learn more about the Easy Emini Futures Trading Course

From our futures brokerage partner site, http://www.tradecenterinc.com/ here is a free report on managed futures:

What if we could take the fear out of futures investing? Get our report on the Commodity Trading Advisor, FCI with a ROR over the last five years of over 25% and last year up over 45%. We can't eliminate the risk but perhaps the fear in investing in a program that lacks the history you seek.




Get the Free CTA Report



Our commitment is to educate our investors on what we believe are unique commodity futures investments. Our report covers the last 3 and 5 year ROR plus last year.



Minimum Investment $50,000



There is no obligation and the report is free.



http://www.tradecenterinc.com/content/the_news/latest_news/invest_without_fear%3f/
 
Please visit our web site, www.easy-emini.com to learn more about the Easy Emini Futures Trading Course
 
Futures and options trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors

Monday, July 12, 2010

Futures Jargon Definitions

Please visit http://www.easy-emini.com/ and see our E Mini Trading Course

Like any industry, futurues and E Mini's in particular can be overrun with technical jargon.  While this is not exhaustive, here is a list of frequantly used futures trading terms and their definitions.

Arbitrage: The simultaneous purchase and sale of similar commodities in different exchanges or in different contracts of the same commodity in one exchange to take advantage of a price discrepancy.




Carry forward position: The situation in which a client does not square off his open positions on that day and carries it to the next day is known as the Carry Forward Position.



Cash commodity: The actual physical commodity as distinguished from the futures contract based on the physical commodity.



Cash settlement: A method of settling future contracts whereby the seller pays the buyer the cash value of the commodity traded according to a procedure specified in the contract.



Clearing: The procedure through which the clearing house or association becomes the buyer to each seller of a futures contract and the seller to each buyer, and assumes responsibility for protecting buyers and sellers from financial loss by assuring performance on each contract.



Clearing house: An agency or separate corporation of a futures exchange that is responsible for settling trading accounts, collecting and maintaining margin monies, regulating delivery, and reporting trade data.



Clearing member: A member of an exchange clearinghouse. All trades of a non-clearing member must be registered and eventually settled through a clearing member.



Convergence: The tendency for prices of physical commodities and futures to approach one another, usually during the delivery month.



Day trader: A speculator who will normally initiate and offset a position within a single trading session.



Default: The failure to perform on a futures contract as required by exchange rules, such as a failure to meet a margin call or to make or take delivery.



Delivery: The tender and receipt of an actual commodity or warehouse receipt or other negotiable instrument covering such commodity, in settlement of a futures contract.



Delivery period: The interval between the time when the warehouse receipt is given to the exchange by the seller and the time incurred by the buyer in getting this warehouse receipt is known as delivery period.



Derivative: A financial instrument, traded on or off the exchange, the price of which is directly dependent upon the value of one or more underlying securities, equity indices, debt instruments, or any agreed upon pricing index or arrangement.



Hedging: The practice of offsetting the price risk inherent in any cash market position by taking the opposite position in the futures market. Hedgers use the market to protect their businesses from adverse price changes.



Long: One who has bought futures contracts or owns a cash commodity.



Mark-to-market: To debit or credit on a daily basis a margin account based on the close of that day's trading session.



Open interest: The sum of all long or short futures contracts in one delivery month or one market that have been entered into and not yet liquidated by an offsetting transaction or fulfilled by delivery.



Position: A commitment, either long or short, in the market.



Price discovery: The process of determining the price level of a commodity based on supply and demand factors.



Price limit: The maximum advance or decline from the previous day's settlement price permitted for a futures contract in one trading session.



Settlement price: The daily price at which the clearing house settles all accounts between clearing members for each contract month. Settlement prices are used to determine both margin calls and invoice prices for deliveries. The term also refers to a price established by the clearing organization to calculate account values and determine margins for those positions still held and not yet liquidated.



Short: One who has sold futures contracts or the cash commodity.



Speculator: One who tries to profit from buying and selling future contracts by anticipating future price movements.



Spot: Usually refers to a cash market price for a physical commodity that is available for immediate delivery.



Squaring: The practice by which the goods sold in the market are bought back before the term ends to meet the cycle or the practice that the bought goods are sold before the term ends to settle the deal is called squaring. Here price or commodity is not exchanged, but only profit or loss.

Tick: The smallest allowable increment of price movement for a contract. Also referred to as Minimum Price Fluctuation.



Trade account: To trade in the Futures market the client has to register himself and open an account with the broking organization known as trading account.



Trading lot: Each commodity should be sold and bought in the Futures market at a specific quantity. These quantities are called trading lots fixed by the exchanges. For rubber and pepper it is 1 ton, while it is 1 quintal for cardamom.



Volatility: A measurement of the change in price over a given time period.



Warehouse receipt: When the commodity sold in the Futures market is taken to the warehouse, the client receives a legal document from the warehouse known as warehouse receipt. This document has a trade value.
 
Please visit www.Easy-Emini.com and see our E Mini Trading Course
 
Futures trading invcolves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

E Mini Futures FAQ

Please see our E Mini Trading Course at http://www.easy-emini.com/

From the CME Group

E-mini Equity Index FAQContract Specifications and Overview




How are the E-mini contracts similar to their larger counterpart contracts?

The E-mini and the larger contracts are based on the same underlying index (e.g., S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, NASDAQ-100 and S&P SmallCap 600).



The E-mini and the larger contracts are cash-settled to the same index values on quarterly expirations (the Special Opening Quotation).

The E-mini S&P 500 and E-mini NASDAQ-100 settle daily to their larger contracts' counterpart settlement price, while the E-mini S&P MidCap 400 and E-mini S&P SmallCap 600 daily settlement prices will be used to settle their larger counterpart contracts.

The E-mini and the larger contracts have the same tick size for calendar spread trades of .05 index points.

How are E-mini contracts different from the larger contracts?



The E-mini contract values are one-fifth the size of the larger contracts.

The E-mini tick sizes are different:

E-mini S&P 500 tick size is .25, or $12.50 per tick (.05 for calendar spreads = to $2.50 per tick) versus a tick size of .10, or $25 per tick (.05 for calendar spreads = $12.50 per tick) for the big S&P 500 futures contract.

E-mini S&P MidCap 400 tick size is .10, or $10 per tick (.05 for calendar spreads = to $5 per tick) versus a tick size of .05, or $25 per tick (.05 for calendar spreads = to $25 per tick) for the big S&P MidCap 400 futures contract.

E-mini S&P SmallCap 600 tick size is .10, or $10 per tick (.05 for calendar spreads = to $5 per tick) versus a tick size of .05, or $25 per tick (.05 for calendar spreads = to $25 per tick) for the big S&P SmallCap 600 futures contract.

E-mini NASDAQ-100 has the same tick size of .25 as the big NASDAQ futures. The dollar value of the E-mini NASDAQ-100 tick is $5, while the larger NASDAQ-100 futures is $25. Calendar spread trades for both the E-mini NASDAQ-100 and big NASDAQ-100 futures is .05. the dollar value of the E-mini NASDAQ-100 calendar spread tick is $1, while the larger NASDAQ-100 futures is $5.

E-mini futures have only five quarterly contracts listed for trading.

An order for any quantity may be accepted for E-mini outright futures.

However, orders exceeding a specified number of contracts as indicated below must be entered on the CME Globex system as multiple entries, each of which must not exceed the specified number of contracts.

E-mini S&P 500: 2,000 for outrights and 5,000 for calendar spreads.

E-mini NASDAQ-100: 1,500 for outrights & 5,000 for calendar spreads.

All other CME stock index futures – 500 for outrights & 5,000 for calendar spreads.

An order for any quantity may be accepted for E-mini calendar spreads. However, calendar spread orders for E-minis exceeding 5,000 contracts per contract month must be entered on the CME Globex trading system as multiple entries each of which must not exceed 5,000 contracts.

How do the quarterly E-mini futures settle and when is the last time to trade before expiration?

E-mini quarterly contracts expire at the same time and to the same price as their larger counterpart contracts. For quarterly futures contracts, trading can occur up to 8:30 a.m., Chicago time, on the third Friday of the month.



Is there a post-settlement session for futures in the E-minis?

No.



Are E-mini futures calendar spreads available on CME Globex?

Calendar spread orders for E-minis of any quantity may be accepted for entry on CME Globex.



However, calendar spread orders exceeding 5,000 contracts per contract month must be entered on CME Globex as multiple entries, each of which must not exceed 5,000 contracts.

Trading in the calendar spread may occur at .05-point intervals for the E-mini S&P 500, E-mini NASDAQ-100, E-mini S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600.

Are E-mini options spreads available on CME Globex?

Yes. CME Group updated the electronic equity options functionality available on CME Globex to enable trading of standard listed and user-defined spreads (including covered) for E-mini options. Check with your CME Globex access provider to see if they offer this functionality on your trading platform of choice. This functionality is also available through CME EOS Trader.



Are E-mini FLEX options available?

E-mini FLEX options are not currently available.



Is a position of five E-mini futures contracts financially equivalent to a position of one regular-sized larger futures contract on the same side of the market in the same contract month?

Yes. The daily settlement prices for the E-mini futures contracts are the same as the settlement prices for the corresponding contracts months of the regular-size contracts. Accordingly, a customer who has a long position of five E-mini futures contracts and a short position of one regular-sized futures contract in the same contract month is perfectly hedged. CME Group will impose no initial margin (performance bond) requirements on such a hedged position.



May a customer liquidate E-mini futures positions against offsetting positions in the regular-sized futures contract without making additional trades in the market?

Yes. With the customer's consent, a clearing member may offset and liquidate E-mini futures positions against offsetting regular-sized futures positions held in the same account in a 5:1 ratio of E-mini to regular-sized futures contracts. The positions shall be offset at the previous day's settlement price. The clearing member shall notify CME Clearing of offsetting positions by submitting reports to the clearing house through a special online entry screen designed for that purpose



What are the position limits for the E-minis?

Position limits work in conjunction with the existing position limits for the regular-sized contracts. For example, with the E-mini at one-fifth the size of the S&P 500 futures contract, an entity or an account controller could have 100,000 net E-mini S&P 500 futures equivalents, if no other S&P 500 positions were held open.



What is the reportable position limit for the E-mini contracts?

25 contracts.

Please see our E Mini Trading Course at www.Easy-Emini.com








Futures trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors

Friday, July 2, 2010

Futures Data (Real-time, Delayed, End-of-Day, and Historical)

Visit our web site and learn about the Easy Emini Futures Tradng Course at http://www.easy-emini.com/

We have assembled a list for you of E Mini futures data providers for your use. 

Equis International      http://www.metastock.com/
eSignal                       http://www.esignal.com/
ForexTV.tv                http://www.forextv.tv/
Gecko Software, Inc. http://www.geckosoftware.com/
INDEXARB.COM    http://www.indexarb.com/
INO.com                   http://www.marketclub.com/
Institute for Financial Markets   http://www.theifm.org/
Interactive Data 7ticks   http://www.7ticks.com/
Livevol, Inc.               http://www.livevol.com/
Market Technologies  http://www.tradertech.com/
MetaStock                 http://www.equis.com/
Mikula Forecasting     http://www.mikulaforecasting.com/
OptionVue Systems    http://www.optionvue.com/
Quantum Trading        http://www.quantumcharts.com/
RTS Realtime             http://www.rtsgroup.net/
Scalper Software        http://www.scalpersoftware.com/
SpryWare, LLC         http://www.spryware.com/
Strategy Runner          http://www.strategyrunner.com/
StreamBase Systems  http://www.streambase.com/
Symphono Analytics   http://www.symphanoanalytics.com/
The Conners Group   http://www.cg3.com/
The Wizard.com        http://www.thewizard.com/
Think or Swim           http://www.thinkorswim.com/
Townsend Analytics   http://www.realtick.com/
Traders Audio           http://www.tradersaudio.cm/
Trading Advantage    http://www.tradingadvantage.com/
Trading Charts, Inc.   http://www.tradingcharts.com/
Trendsetter Software  http://www.trendsoft.com/
Turtle Talk                 http://www.turtletrading.com/
Updata                     http://www.updata.co.uk/
Wave59 Technologies   http://www.wave59.com/

Visit our web site and learn about the Easy Emini Futures Tradng Course at http://www.easy-emini.com/

Futures trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors

Thursday, July 1, 2010

E Mini Futures Trading Tip for the Day

Please visit our website and get the E Mini Futures Trading Course   http://www.easy-emini.com/

E Mini futures are typically traded intra-day.  Meaning, traders seek to scalp out a few points but not take the position home at night.  What if you did something different? What about the big picture?  What about stepping back and looking at the market as a whole for say, the last six months?  I included a  short video looking at the last year for the euro currency futures.  I think that best illustrates the point of taking a step back and evaluating the big picture and making an opinion about the market. 



Please visit us at http://www.easy-emini.com/

Futures trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for all investors