Trading Tips and Strategies Archives • Futures Day Trading Strategies

An Introduction to Tick Charts and How to Trade Them in Futures Markets

The following article on Tick Charts is the opinion of Optimus Futures.

Traders use a wide variety of charts to analyze markets. Most charts, however, are time-based, and traders’ cycle through different time frames to match their specific strategy or preferred time horizon.

Longer-term traders may use daily charts to get a sense of the big picture while using hourly charts to plot entries and exits. Short-term traders may go as small as using 1-minute charts to trade price action.

But what if your short-term goal was to trade on the smallest “transaction” level? What if you wanted to trade price breakouts not on the level of time but on the level of each transactional “tick”? If this aligns with your trading objectives, then you might want to consider trading Tick Charts.

What is a Tick Chart?

To

How to Use Bollinger Bands in Futures Trading

The following article on Bollinger Bands is the opinion of Optimus Futures.

Any movement in asset prices implies some level of volatility. If price is barely moving, volatility is still present but low. When price really gets moving, volatility increases. And when prices begin fluctuating up and down in jagged waves, whether trending or ranging, then volatility is high. But how might you measure whether price volatility has exceeded the average? After a large price move, at what point might prices have gone too far, implying a possible reversion to the average?

That’s what Bollinger Bands are designed to help measure.

What are Bollinger Bands?

Created by John Bollinger in the 1980s, Bollinger Bands are an indicator used to help monitor the volatility levels of a security’s price–be it a stock, futures contract,

Why Futures Traders Should Not Hold Day Trading Positions Overnight

This article on overnight futures trading is the opinion of Optimus Futures

What Is an Overnight Position?

An overnight position is simply any position held beyond the market close. Later today, for example, the ES will stop trading at 5pm EDT. But “tomorrow’s” trading day begins an hour after close, at 6pm EDT. Confusing? It can be. There is no “overnight” close. The ES trades around the clock from Sunday 6pm to Friday at 5pm with one hour close at the end of each weekday. “Overnight” is a misleading term, simply because most commodities trade around the clock (24-hours) five days a week.

Many day traders, particularly new ones, make the mistake of holding positions overnight. Sometimes the mistake is unintentional, and other times it is intentional but poorly thought-out.

Here

How to Use Moving Averages to Analyze and Trade Futures

This article on Moving Average Strategy is the opinion of Optimus Futures

If you’re not familiar with moving averages, here’s a quick demonstration. Let’s imagine that a (hypothetical) commodity ends the day closing at the price of 20.00. The next day, it closes at 22.00. If you average the two prices, you get 21.00 as the 2-day moving average. On the third day, it closes at 25.00. If you average the last three days (20+22+25 divided by 3), you get a simple 3-day moving average of 22.33. It’s an “average” that “moves” as prices change.

So, how can this help you trade futures? A moving average strategy can help you to not only identify the “average” trend, but also “trend strength.” In the first example, the 2-day moving average might have

Learning How to Trade Futures | Why Chasing Perfection is a Costly Mistake

This article on Learning How to Trade Futures is the opinion of Optimus Futures

For anyone learning how to trade futures, not settling for anything less than perfection sounds very appealing. The quest for the ultimate trading system, the hunt for the perfect trade management solution, the search for the flawless broker, the need for consistent winners – these are all healthy objectives that will keep a trader on their toes, always pushing to be better. However, take it a little too far and you are perhaps flirting more with danger and detriment than anything else. Let us explain why.