Getting started on futures

Fresian · Sep 18, 2006

Hi all,

This is my first post so please go easy! Unfortunately I have only just discovered this site...better late than never I guess.

I have been a medium to long term investor for a number of years in stocks and have decided to spread my wings and begin investigating different systems for trading international indices. I am still in the process of back testing and hope to move towards trading in the next month or two.

With stocks I have used a discount broker and a software charting/data package. I'm not sure what the process is for trading futures contracts and wanted some clarification on how it all fits together. Am I right in saying that typically you could use something such as esignal for data/charting and then have a trading platform such as strategy runner which places your trade through your designated broker? So essentially you end up with your charting/data package, your execution platform and your broker....all taking a piece of the pie???

I would appreciate any feedback, thoughts, reading material, and anything else considered worthwhile to help get me started.

Thanks everyone!

andycan · Sep 20, 2006

I use MAN and interactive Brokers
Man i use for trading contracts via the pit whist IB i use for electronic markets
i trade US Markets
with IB if you were to trade ecbot instruments then you would get the real time charting free that could be a start MAN offers RT data but there is a cost
i prefare to use qcharts it is a cost but it gives me the flexibility that IB charting does not have

regards

dbphoenix · Sep 20, 2006

Fresian said:
Hi all,

This is my first post so please go easy! Unfortunately I have only just discovered this site...better late than never I guess.

I have been a medium to long term investor for a number of years in stocks and have decided to spread my wings and begin investigating different systems for trading international indices. I am still in the process of back testing and hope to move towards trading in the next month or two.

With stocks I have used a discount broker and a software charting/data package. I'm not sure what the process is for trading futures contracts and wanted some clarification on how it all fits together. Am I right in saying that typically you could use something such as esignal for data/charting and then have a trading platform such as strategy runner which places your trade through your designated broker? So essentially you end up with your charting/data package, your execution platform and your broker....all taking a piece of the pie???

I would appreciate any feedback, thoughts, reading material, and anything else considered worthwhile to help get me started.

Thanks everyone!

You needn't go through all of that unless you really want to. You can use SierraCharts as your charting program (which costs around $20/mo) and InteractiveBrokers as your datafeed (free, if you have an IB account) and trading platform (commissions are among the lowest available).

Db

Charlton · Sep 20, 2006

Not expensive to start

Fresian said:
Hi all,

This is my first post so please go easy! Unfortunately I have only just discovered this site...better late than never I guess.

I have been a medium to long term investor for a number of years in stocks and have decided to spread my wings and begin investigating different systems for trading international indices. I am still in the process of back testing and hope to move towards trading in the next month or two.

With stocks I have used a discount broker and a software charting/data package. I'm not sure what the process is for trading futures contracts and wanted some clarification on how it all fits together. Am I right in saying that typically you could use something such as esignal for data/charting and then have a trading platform such as strategy runner which places your trade through your designated broker? So essentially you end up with your charting/data package, your execution platform and your broker....all taking a piece of the pie???

I would appreciate any feedback, thoughts, reading material, and anything else considered worthwhile to help get me started.

Thanks everyone!

Fresian

In addtion to the other comments you can use Interactive Brokers with Amibroker charting (http://www.amibroker.com/). This has a free trial and a one-off purchase price of $149, so you can start or trial fairly cheaply.

Charlton

Fresian · Sep 22, 2006

Charlton said:
Fresian

In addtion to the other comments you can use Interactive Brokers with Amibroker charting (http://www.amibroker.com/). This has a free trial and a one-off purchase price of $149, so you can start or trial fairly cheaply.

Charlton

Thanks heaps for your help guys, I should be up and running a lot sooner than I thought.

Getting started on futures

Fresian

Newbie

andycan

Established member

dbphoenix

Guest Author

Charlton

Experienced member

Fresian

Newbie

Similar threads