Johnny Retro
Well-Known Member
lol never thought i'd see the day when someone on RIU is recommending trading CL. Futures can wipe you out just as fast, if not faster, than penny stocks. Not only can they wipe you out, you can also lose more money than whats in your account. Futures are a risky business for retail traders. You are utilizing margin in a big way. To put on a position in the 10 year note futures you only have to put down $500 in intra day margin and with that you are controlling $100,000 worth of 10 year notes. Scary stuff if you don't know what you're doing and put on a position 5min before unemployment or FOMC and the thing goes 25 ticks the opposite way of your holding. This is coming from someone that trades fixed income futures (the least volatile out of all the products). Its taken me years to become consistently profitable. If you are a "point and click" trader..give it up, that is a losing game unless you are a prodigy or something. Trading these days you NEED to know a high caliber programming language (c++). So unless you're willing to put in 50+ hours a week for years, don't even think about touching futures.
If you want to be a truly successful investor (not trader) read "margin of saftey" by Seth Klarman. Its going for like 2500 on amazon but you can find it on the major torrent sites. Also go look at his hedge funds (baupost) 13f filed every quarter to get an idea of what hes doing. Hes been the top of the hedge fund game for 30 years and still producing 20% annualized returns.
Also let me say this. ITS NOT ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU CAN MAKE, ITS ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU CAN LOSE IN EACH TRADE. Always...ALWAYS be looking at your risk. You should look at the risk before you look at how much you can make.
If you want to be a truly successful investor (not trader) read "margin of saftey" by Seth Klarman. Its going for like 2500 on amazon but you can find it on the major torrent sites. Also go look at his hedge funds (baupost) 13f filed every quarter to get an idea of what hes doing. Hes been the top of the hedge fund game for 30 years and still producing 20% annualized returns.
Also let me say this. ITS NOT ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU CAN MAKE, ITS ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU CAN LOSE IN EACH TRADE. Always...ALWAYS be looking at your risk. You should look at the risk before you look at how much you can make.