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I am new to this board, I also hope that I'm postng this question to the correct Board; if not Please excuse me.
I am a Novice at Live Futures Trading. I am a Senior Computer Engineer by trade. I have been practicing in simulation mode for over 2yrs on NT7; I have also developed 3 automated strategies and confident they can be profitable. I have generated expendable capital and I'm now ready to enter the Live market. I am humbly seeking guidance to accomplish going live.
- How much total $USD will i need to successfully be able to trademy first contract under the CME or CBOT exchanges for example?
- What are/is the best exchange and what instruments to start off trading (i had technology stocks in mind). what would be the best start off contract?
- what accounts should I open?
-what are reasonable priced brokers to approach?
- best pre-market news feeds / blog/ forums..etc to focus on for a best productive and results based trading days
- Best days / times of day to trade futures?
Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter
Kind Regards,
New Guy
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Wow from reading your post it looks like we should be the ones seeking your advice, at least on Ninja Trader (NT7) strategies that is. My hat is off to you if you have any ES strategies written for Ninja Trader (NT7) that make money trading your account, and hopefully after you switch from SIM to LIVE. I noticed that you said you have computer senior programming experience, so I am betting that you know what you are doing. If you are working a strategy for Renko Bars I am fairly certain that they can not be backtested with NT7; Not sure if I saw it here, but I have experienced it first hand and also after rereading NT7 manual between the lines. (That is unless you figured out a way already. )
- How much money is a debatable question and best answered by how your NT7 Strategy trades. At a minimum you should have enough money so that you can endure losses right from the start. CME and CBOT have their own rules per contract and brokers may or may not add on a bit of extra cushion to that amount.
- What Products or Markets to trade: I have been working at learning the ES trade for over a year now, but then again at some things I am stubborn, which can work for or against a new trader. For me it worked against. Since you said you have NT7 strategies that you know will make $$$ I would trade them with the products you tested them with.
- What Broker to use: Opening your trading account can be anywhere that you feel you are not getting ripped off. Be sure to negotiate a lower brokerage rate if you are trading with one of the bigger names that charge more per round turn. I made the mistake of chewing up 20K in broker fees only to find out later that I could have negotiated a lower rate due to being a high volume trader. Not a good mistake to make. Also since you use NT7 you want to be sure that NT7 will work with whatever broker you select, so in answer to that question you need to check the NT7 Support site. There are six main brokers, although with NT7 I am sure you could program an ATI for another, but why waste your time programming? NinjaTrader stock, futures and forex charting software and online trading platform. [AUTOLINK]NinjaTrader[/AUTOLINK] Partners.
- NEWS FEED: I can't really answer your question about news feeds, rarely use them, however you may want to check to see what announcements are coming up that my impact the markets. One source is Forex Factory But there are many more.
- Days and TIMES: Best days and times to trade futures depend on you.
I see that you are taking a calculated approach to trading the market and that is good. You have found an excellent source of information by joining Big Mike's Site. He will probably weigh in on this one as well.
Yes many of your questions are being pointed back at you in this answer and that is because the truth is you are the one that has to live with the answers.
Wish you the best with your future trades. Every time I think I have it figured out, I am reminded about just how little I really do know.
Depends on strategy -- does you hold positions through the close? If so, you will need the amount listed for the contract as "initial margin" -- if not, you can refer to the "day trading margin" which is usually about 1/5 or even less per contract to trade. Look up the contracts you trade at the appropriate web sites for this information.
I would think your strategies you have developed would best dictate this for you.
You will likely be opening a regular brokerage account. Again, not quite sure how to answer this because so much of the answer depends on what you are doing.
There are many broker reviews on this forum.
I look at seeking alpha, marketwatch, zerohedge, and a couple others for where markets are before the open. I use talking-forex.com for live news, it's pretty decent for the cost.
Again, doesn't your strategy dictate this for you?
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