Futures Trading Education, Articles & Strategies | Optimus Futures Blog

Is Scalping Futures A Sustainable Trading Strategy?

 

The following article on futures trading scalping strategies is the opinion of Optimus Futures.

Scalping is a trading strategy that involves capturing profits from small price movements–as small as one to a few ticks. In order to make a profit, you often have to execute a substantial amount of trades a day. It isn’t uncommon for scalpers to make anywhere from ten to a hundred trades a day as each individual scalp trade typically generates a minuscule profit.

While scalping sounds good in theory, it comes with some caveats:

Since you must carry out a large number of trades, the transaction costs from fees and commissions can eat up a lot of your gains. Considering that trading volume and liquidity may differ from minute to minute, you can never predict

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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

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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

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Why Futures Traders Should Not Hold Day Trading Positions Overnight

 
 

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

Holding Positions Overnight

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,

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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

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