Eminis / E-minis Trading

With the turmoil that the financial markets have been experiencing, a question I get asked a lot is, “Should I get started trading now?”

That’s a great question…

First off  don’t believe anyone should jump into live trading right away… yet I think people seem to just do this, thinking that they must take advantage of opportunities they are currently spotting.

Get started slow… follow the markets, and build your foundations.

Ok, I’m getting a bit off topic…

So should you start in eminis now?

Why not…

Start with your education… there’s never a bad time to get started with that. 

Then build your experience through papertrading…

Then move forward and start trading small.  The number one killer of most beginners is overtrading and undercapitalization.  Make sure you only risk UP TO 5% of your account on any single trade.  (And even that much is probably a stretch.)

In a future article I’ll go into the 3 components of successful trading.

I think the best reason is because everyone else trades them…

Ok, that might not be the most accurate statement, but what I mean is that this market:

• has liquidity
• has volitility
• is widely followed

That said, it can make it competitive… but if you’re going to spend your time getting good at something, it might as well be something worthwhile getting good at… wow that was a mouthful

Eminis are getting more popular by the year.  I’ll pull up some stats I got from the CME that outlined the growth in yearly trading volumes, and post it in a future blog.

Over the next little while I’ll be posting some points for getting started in trading the eminis.

Of course trading them is not really different from trading any other instrument, so basics that apply to stocks, futures and forex can all apply to this market equally well.

The first point I would like to get across is that there is no need to rush…

The markets will be there tomorrow, and the day after that… opportunities will always be around.  The biggest mistake you can make is trying to jump in too fast and overextend your account - wiping you out before the game (and the learning) has even begun.

This is a classic mistake of the beginner…

So follow the markets, educate yourself and get started slowly… I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but its what you need to hear!