Resource

[seancass]

Good morning,

I wonder whether anyone can assist please?

I want to trade commodities futures and already have an IB account. I have experience trading forex and want to diversify. Is there a source/web site that I can refer to that will provide me with a list of commodities and their symbols, exchanges, and tick contract sizes and the value of each contract please? In other words, if I feel coffee is good for a long position, I'm ashamed to say that I wouldn't have a clue how to enter a trade because (a) I wouldn't know the symbol for coffee futures (b) I wouldn't know the pip value of one lot ( when trading Euro/dollar for example with one lot we know that one pip is $10 and one lot represents 100,000 trade size) and (c) how to enter the trade on IB's TWS.

Any assistance would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Sean

 

[ERA]

Hi seancass,

Go to Google, type 'commodity contract specifications', and see what comes up.

You could also make your self familiar with the actual exhange sites, there you can get things from the horses mouth so to say, particularly contract margins, these do change from time to time with market volitility. But they will provide all contract specs and hours of trading , these can vary quite a bit between different trading pits.I'd suggest :

www.cme.com
www.cbot.com
www.nymex.com
www.csce.com

and for european :www.liffe.com

You should also request a trading calendar from your broker, this is an invaluable booklet, giving all contract spec as well as highlighting all the dates for first notice day and expiry.
Which keep you aware of when to close out your position so that you don't enter delivery period.

Hope this helps

cheers

 

[seancass]

Thank you ERA. Most kind.

Sean

 

[Moneycat]

You can;t trade commodities with IB, excepted gold, silver, oil and natural gaz.

 

[sidinuk]

Here's some basic details for the most liquid online futures markets.

 

[seancass]

Thank you, Sidinuk. That is helpful.

Sean