Futures trading liquidity and other futures trading questions

#1

  1. Are there liquidity issues in trading the NQ e mini futures? What about CL futures? There is a guy at my gym who works for a market maker in Chicago. He told me there isn’t that much liquidity anymore because there are less market makers. He also said that there really isn’t as much trading volume as you would think because it’s not real volume just institutions moving in and out of positions for tax purposes. I found this hard to believe. I first got interested in trading back in the late 90’s. Trading seems to be much more popular today plus there are many more large funds involved. I would’ve thought volume would be greater than ever. Back to my question. Would I have trouble buying a futures and then exiting almost instantaneously with a small profit or loss?

  2. What online broker is the best? I know that Ninja Trader is mentioned a lot on APEX. Is Ninja the broker of choice? I have to fill out an account application. Do I need a certain net worth? I have an account with Option Express. In order to trade futures with OPX I need to have a minimum of $25,000 in my account. Does Ninja have minimum requirements for net worth or account size?

  3. To trade futures on Ninja, I have to select a futures commission merchant. They gave me two choices, Dorman Trading or Phillip Capital. I have no idea what one to choose. Does it matter which one I choose?

#2

Hi David,

  1. Unless you are trading an 8 figure account and crazy volume there is no issue with liquidity in these futures markets you mentioned above, we trade them all day long every day . So no concern there.

  2. Yes would recommend going with Ninja Brokerage, they are fast and cheap,great rates. All futures brokers require a net worth for margin call risk purposes. If this is an issue you can trade Nadex spreads, margin and risk are the same amount on Nadex so there are no Margin calls to worry about, so no net worth issues etc

  3. I would say to use Phillips

#3

If I use Nadex spreads to trade futures…in example NQ, can i trade any time of the day and is there ATM contracts and what price is each tick worth?,Thanks

#4

Basically you can trade futures on the U.S indices from 6pm to 4:15pm the following day.

I.e - Tuesday at 6pm to Wednesday until 4:15pm. The one exception is Sunday/Monday - where the markets wont open until 3am Monday Morning.

One thing to note… even though it only says there is 1 contract available, Nadex actually added many new spreads to their various tradable markets and there are now 4 daily NQ spreads

#5

Ok thanks…Im starting off with a small account and Im seeing if the Nadex futures will provide a sufficient ATM contracts that will compete with the trading that i could possibly get from trading through the DOM, until Im able to start trading from the DOM …