How to place your first futures order
There are two order actions in futures trading: a buy order and a sell order. Once you place an order, it is sent to the applicable futures exchange which serves as the centralized electronic market place for futures trading.
Before placing your first order, you need to determine the order price and the type of order you would like to enter in the futures market. Let’s take a look at some futures order entry basics to critical to learning how to trade futures.
The Fundamentals Of How To Trade Futures
For each order you place, you will want to understand the core fundamentals of the market you are trading including the size of the contract, the expiration months and the required margin.
Order Types
Before placing a trade, you have to decide on the order type you would like to submit to the exchange. You can control under what conditions and at what price an order will be filled using one of the three basic order types.
Learn more
Contract Specifications
Contract specifications are the terms and conditions that govern the way a particular futures contract is traded including the size of the contract, the expiration month and more.
Learn more
Margin in Futures
Before placing a trade, you have to decide on the order type you would like to submit to the exchange. You can control under what conditions and at what price an order will be filled using one of the three basic order types.
Learn more
Futures Symbology
Each futures contract traded has a futures symbol which is are comprised of three elements: The symbol root, the expiration month and the expiration year.
Learn moreBuild A Futures Trading Plan To Start Your Journey
As you learn how to trade futures, creating a trading plan including the futures markets you want to trade along with a risk management strategy can help you build a consistent trading approach.
Tips to create your first futures trading plan
A well-defined trading plan can help traders stay focused and disciplined helping reduce the risk of emotional decision-making. Your futures trading plan should include:
- The markets you want to trade
- A trading strategy with clear entry and exit criteria
- A risk management structure
- And more
Find the futures contracts right for you
A futures contract, also known as a “future”, is an agreement to buy or sell an asset or security for a set price at a set date in the future. Futures allow traders to keep a finger on the pulse of various markets and potentially profit from making accurate estimations of how much an asset will be worth in the future.
With a lower initial investment to trade similar markets on Wall Street, futures can be a good fit for traders that want to trade in and out of positions intraday.
Define your risk management strategy to protect your futures account
Effectively managing risk is often the difference between success and failure and can also help reduce stress when trading futures.
Discipline and patience impact your ability to follow a trading plan
Learn how to trade futures with industry pros
Join our free livestreams as we prepare, analyze and target live futures trade setups in real-time.
Watch our industry pros trade the futures market open every weekday at 9:15 am ET and the market close at 3:00pm ET using NinjaTrader’s award-wining charting and analysis tools.
Use NinjaTrader Platform Tools To Target Futures Market Opportunities
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
Best Brokerage for Trading Futures
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.
