Why Should You Trade Futures?
At its core, a futures contract is a standardized agreement to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price on a specific date in the future.
As leveraged products, futures contracts allow traders to control larger positions with less capital, enabling flexibility for both speculation and risk management.
Learn the benefits of futures trading and why it’s a superior choice to help day traders achieve their trading goals.
Benefits and Advantages of Futures Trading
No shorting restrictions or day trading rules
Flexible trade sizing
Increased leverage
Virtual 24-hour trading
Diverse and uncorrelated markets
Fair and transparent price discovery
Tax Advantages
Mature and regulated industry
Learn How Futures Trading Measures Up to Other Asset Classes
Whether you are a new trader or a seasoned veteran, you want to participate in a marketplace that provides a level playing field, substantial opportunity potential, and the widest variety of diverse uncorrelated markets to trade. Futures trading provides all this and much more.
Futures vs. Stocks
Key advantages of trading futures over stocks include increased leverage, 24-hour trading, unrestricted shorting, tax advantages and trading on a level playing field just to name a few.
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Futures Vs. Forex and CFDs
Forex and CFD traders are discovering forex futures present a more efficient and effective trading choice featuring a well-regulated marketplace, transparent pricing and volume, and trading on a level playing field.
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Futures vs. Cryptocurrencies
Futures offer a more secure and flexible trading option than cryptocurrencies starting with a highly regulated trading environment where the safety of funds is paramount and transactions are guaranteed by exchanges.
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Futures vs. Stock Options
Compared to trading stock options, futures offer a straight-forward and transparent trading experience. To start, there only two trading options: buy and sell. This allows you to go long or short as needed.
Learn moreTechniques and skills to day trade futures with confidence
Get started on your path to learn how to trade futures
This free multi-video trading course introduces futures trading basics for new futures traders. It also provides a roadmap for all the key learning points along your journey. Topics include:
- What does it mean to be a trader?
- Types of traders in futures
- Futures trading basics to get started
Build your futures trading foundation using technical analysis
This free multi-video trading course introduces the foundational concepts of technical analysis. Learn how you can visually analyze and anticipate market movements using market prices, volume data and more. Topics include:
- What is technical analysis?
- The basics of chart types
- Tool sets available to determine key chart patterns
Learn how to use NinjaTrader's tools and features to target market opportunity
Our video library highlights steps to get started with the platform basics along with quick tips to customize your NinjaTrader platform to fit your trading style. Topics include how to:
- Create your first chart and use Chart Trader
- Open and use the SuperDOM and understand the ladder display
- Save and load personalized workspaces
See why day traders are adding futures to their trading portfolios
Futures trading offers a robust combination of benefits including a marketplace that provides a level playing field and a variety of diverse markets to trade. See how futures vary from other asset classes including:
- Futures vs stocks
- Futures vs forex and CFDs
- Futures vs cryptocurrencies
Day trade futures with the #1 Futures Trading Platform
Access the world's most popular futures markets with a pro-level platform built for active futures traders
Free award-winning platforms
Trade with integrated desktop, web and mobile platforms
Low day trading margins
$50 margins for Micros and $500 for E-Minis
No deposit minimum* and flexible funding
Multiple ways to fund your account, including ACH
*ACH and debit card transfers are subject to a $5.00 minimum.
Discount pricing
Save on trades with commissions as low as $.09 per contract
Powerful & Flexible NinjaTrader Platform Options
Trade how you want, where you want through interfaces designed for fast, informed decision-making.
NinjaTrader Desktop: Flagship Trading Platform Experience
Access NinjaTrader anywhere with our cloud-based futures trading web platform
Take your futures trading with you through a comprehensive mobile experience
Tools & Analysis for Active Futures Traders
Advanced charting
With NinjaTrader's futures trading platform, you can easily create charts that you can access from any device and customize to your preference using a host of styles, timeframes, and more than 100 technical indicators.
Depth of market tools
Designed for speed and ease of use, NinjaTrader’s SuperDOM (depth of market) empowers you to quickly analyze prices, place orders, and manage your positions to trade strategies with precision.
Powerful quotes
NinjaTrader’s modern design quotes allow traders to clearly see the state of the market, rapidly analyze the data, and act quickly to make an informed trading decision.
Advanced trade management
Eliminate emotions from your trading by protecting your positions with automatically submitted stop orders, target orders, and self-tightening trailing stops.
Streaming market replay
Replay historical market data tick by tick, fully synchronized across the platform as if it was happening in real time.
Order flow analysis
Use our order flow visualization to identify buying and selling pressure and confirm market movement in a specific direction as trades unfold.
Experience The Benefit Of Day Trading Futures With NinjaTrader
- Unlimited simulated futures trading
- Unfiltered professional market data
- Extensive historical tick, min and daily data
- Free 24-hour emergency help desk
- Award-winning charting and analysis
- 100+ technical indicators
- 1,000s of third-party trading apps
- Unlimited support and daily training
Paper Trading Futures 100% Risk-Free With Unlimited Simulated Trading
Practice makes perfect - our trading simulator will empower you to join the live futures market with confidence.
- No minimum* funding requirement to open your account
- FREE platform included - 100+ trading tools and professional market data
- High-performance backtesting engine to fine-tune automated trading strategies
- The ability to test new trading ideas in a risk-free trading simulator before putting money at risk
*ACH and debit card transfers are subject to a $5 minimum.
Why Choose NinjaTrader: The Best Futures Brokerage
NinjaTrader is recognized for our unique combination of a high-performance trading platform, discount pricing, and real-time support.
Download NinjaTrader's award-winning software for FREE and see why it's consistently voted an industry leader by the trading community. NinjaTrader is always free to use for advanced charting, backtesting and trade simulation.
Award-Winning Futures Trading Recognition
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2026 #1 Futures Broker
Top Rated Futures Broker - BrokerChooser.com
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2024 Winner Best Trading Software
Stocks & Commodities Readers' Choice Award
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2024 Excellence in Futures Education
Benzinga Global Fintech Awards