If you’re a long-time follower of Investing Shortcuts, you know that there’s no shortage of great tips and tricks to help you be a better trader and smarter investor. But we know that with the amount of tips we offer, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and hard to know where to start.
And if you’re new to Investing Shortcuts, first may we say, welcome! Second—this is a great shortcut for anyone interested in trading futures. We’ve saved you time and compiled 5 of our top futures posts.
Plus, check out our Top 5 Options Posts and Top 5 Stocks Posts if you want to cut to the chase and get our best content on options and stocks.
1. Top 5 Reasons to Choose Futures Over Stocks
While it’s true that how you trade is often more important than what you trade, once you’ve perfected your trading plan (with entry and exit parameters and both profit and loss management), it’s probably time to move on up to the big leagues.
Find out the five reasons why the big money traders focus on futures over stocks in this post.
2. A Quick Guide to Intercommodity Spreads
Most sophisticated traders prefer to trade spreads over outright contracts because there are potential advantages over a simple outright long or short position. Intercommodity spreads are some of the most popular spreads traded, and can be very appealing to commodity traders.
Learn what an intercommodity spread is and how the most popular spreads work in this shortcut.
3. What Does a Contango Market Mean?
Both commodity hedgers and speculators care about the shape of the futures curve and whether or not the commodity futures markets are contango or backwardation markets.
4. Revealed: Commodity Calculation Cheat Sheet
Futures or commodities contracts offer investors and speculators a direct, highly leveraged vehicle to participate in the resource building blocks of the economy. These types of contracts are standardized in size and months traded. Calculating point values is a function of contract size divided by the pricing unit.
Get a handy cheat sheet to trading commodities in this super useful shortcut.
5. 4 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Commodity Trading Advisor
If you have decided that managed futures should play a role in your overall investment strategy, the question now becomes which managed futures programs you may want to consider. This likely means working with a commodity trading advisor, or a CTA. A CTA is an individual or an organization who advises you on the value or availability of futures or options on futures.
Before deciding on a CTA, make sure you take the following four questions into consideration.
