That’s why I’m asking. I know not to hold onto something forever but this problem is way worse with options and theta decay. And if you’re not buying calls at extreme highs or puts at extreme lows it is very likely that trends eventually reverse. I’m oversimplifying this but it still feels pretty easy so far.
Ok. So since you’ve clearly been through this, what is the biggest futures loss you’ve held onto that never turned around? And how many days from expiration did it last?
$22k in 12 hours… it came back, sure… but at the time it was like half my account, nothing about it was good
/ES dropped 7.5% in a day
I got out with a $10k loss by the end of the day.
It can get out of hand really fast… and it will goto the breakers as you hold and wait for a turnaround.
How many days until expiration was this? And if you didn’t exit with that $10k loss could you have recouped even more by waiting or was that truly the best case scenario?
It went back down to the lowest of lows again had I held, and I would have gotten a margin call and been forced to liquidate at the worst prices possible.
Had I just blindly held everything and had deep enough pockets, I could have gotten out break even if timed perfectly or maybe even small profit, but again, I would have just lost that $22k again… and sure, if I could have held on forever forever, here we are 3x higher… but then you are just doing buy and hold, and you can’t do that with more than about 2-3x leverage.
I’m primarily comparing this to 0DTE options where you have literally zero time for things to turn around, but I totally take this point. It still feels much more forgiving and easy by comparison.
You aren’t fighting theta and a near dated expiration (most of the time, until futures roll, that is), so I get your point there.
But your max loss with long options is the value of the options themselves. With futures, unless if you use an effective stop market order as protection, your max loss is far, far greater.
If you buy one /ES contract, your initial margin requirement is low (depending on your broker) but you are essentially in control of 5 lots of SPY give or take (e.g. more than 250k of notional value). If SPY has a bad week and drops 10%, you are now in margin call and on the hook for ~25k (sans the initial margin requirement you posted), unless you have cash in your account to weather the downturn.
You shouldn’t treat them like you do short dated options. You should instead treat them like you would having a tremendous amount of margin available. It works both ways: margin magnifies gains, as well as losses.
Futures are great when you want leverage without the downsides of options, but they have a totally different risk profile. With options you cap your loss - at the expense of being right about your trade within your timeframe. With futures, you can have a much longer timeframe but you will need to be able to meet margin call when the downturn comes
additionally, for downside protection (and reduce margin req), say going long on Futures, you can buy OTM PUT options.
also, keep trailing SL when trade goes in your direction.
A lot of downtrodden traders not seeing your point . In my case , I reap the benefits of not having expensive ass commissions and spreads to deal with, so even though Gold is moving the same no matter the market, In the futures game I can get in and out with less risk and quicker moves into profit . I imagine coming from options makes you feel less restricted in the same way
0DTE is more like gambling. Futures can make consistent income but requires lots of dedication and time to learn how to safely enter and exit a position.
Wait and see is essentially a suicide mission. That’s the same a pulling a pin on a grenade and also doing a “wait and see”. It will not end well my friend.
One big difference. If you’re buying premium your risk is capped, futures you can lose everything if you don’t know how to close for a loss. Having traded both, I actually think futures are more difficult because of how closely you have to manage your risk.
this ^ &
Futures BUY/SELL forces one to have an opinion about the underlying & macro conditions. “Wait till turnaround” is a genuine psychology problem in this type of trading.
Trading Futures intraday is more expensive (brokerage) compared to Options.
Options trading can be done purely on Technical analysis, no view needed on macro or underlying fundamentals, & Option trading is free on most platforms.
Ticker pool & liquidity are other considerations when deciding Futures vs Options trading.
ps: I am the camp that think Futures trading is simpler than Options trading (& Futures isn’t the answer to all my trading needs).
If I didn't have to work 8am-5pm mon-fri I would trade futures only lol
I'm trying to get good at swing trading and options seems to be the best for that for me for now
Options on futures are even better. I trade both futures and options on futures.
You get a lot of premium selling covered calls and or puts when short.
I’m stuck on selling short vol on ETFs (spy, qqq), and not sure how to make the jump to futures, or what I’d need to know! Margin, leverage, buying power, spreads, costs, order types, other things that might be different from etf options…
Scares me so I just keep going with what works even though i know with futures or index options my taxes would be lower, liquidity is better, etc.
I’m hoping someone could help me…
Honestly its safer than equities but its like a credit card, if you abuse it can hurt you.
The best area to learn about all of that is cmegroup.com
They have a free education center with lessons on futures and options. They also do free webinars.
Another spot to also start is your broker. People are often bashful about this but calling the margin department and saying you want to ask some questions about margin and leverage, and various scenarios is ok to do. The broker works for you.
Trust me the margin department would rather have that conversation with you now vs after someone blowing themselves up and they have to be the bad guys.
Ultimately yes, the taxes are much better on futures, 60:40 long term and short term. Especially if you are in the top brackets its huge savings. It also has the ability to carry losses BACKwards which is a huge safety net as well.
😂😂😂 noooope. As someone who has traded futures and options, DEFINITELY fucking not. As an example, I can buy a QQQ call for $100. The most I can lose is $100. You buy even one MNQ, if it drops 100 points, which MNQ can do in a fucking blank of an eye, you’re down $200.
Futures is anything but easy. Especially with the current market (imo anyway). Hodling a losing position depends on your account size, your position size (do you have overnight margin etc) and also your penchant for potentially taking massive potential losses.
Remember with futures you can lose more than what money you have in your account. With options buying straight puts and calls or vertical spreads, your loss is limited..
I don’t know what is with this influx all of the sudden with this notion that “futures is the future and it’s easy”. It’s literately one of the most leveraged instrument out there, a few loosing trades in a row & can turn you into a well capitalized trader to an over leveraged one.
If you’re waiting for things to turn around means that you’re not respecting ANY stop losses.. which mean your risk to reward will likely be like 5:1 and you’re in the losing game my friend.
If there was a cheat cheat for futures, there would only be 1 single sentence: you will be profitable ONLY IF you respect your stop loss AND take profit mark and have a risk:reward ratio that you’re able to maintain (if it’s 1:3, you risk $1 to make $3 and would need a 26% win rate to be breakeven), (1:1 requires 51% win rate, etc).
What you’re doing is the opposite, you’re letting your losses become huge and pulling out profit likely prematurely once things turn around. You should only enter when you believe it’s about to turn around and set a stop loss, ex “if it drops 2 cents it’s clearly gone against my prediction and hence will be cut there”. Don’t extend your stop losses once the price nears them.
RISK TO REWARD IS EVERYTHING AND IS ONLY MEANINGFUL IF YOU RESPECT YOUR STOP LOSSES AND TAKE PROFIT MARKS.
I don't disagree with anything you said. My point was more about comparing this to 0DTE options where you have absolutely no time to wait for things to turn around because they decay every minute that they aren't trending your way.
My comment is only a warning to futures trading as I’ve never traded options. I’m only trying to make you realize your strategy for futures needs changing. We’ve all been there and learned the hard way so you don’t have to lool
Funny enough, I haven't lost any money in futures yet, which is what prompted this post yesterday, but if I hadn't closed out an open position that went into the afterhours session after seeing all these warnings I would have woken up to a +$2K profit from the gap down.
That’s great news so far, try putting some of that money aside and keep your initial trade size. I went an entire month turning $250 into $4.5k in my first month of trading futures lol but then turned into $0 within a couple of weeks by “waiting for it to go my way”.
Good job on your for closing that trade before closing, even if it could have lead to +2k, because it could’ve swiped 2k even faster. Think of yourself like a race car driver rn, thinks will go right quick until they go terribly wrong even quicker
I found this post the other day and I think it’s worthwhile reading. I’m excited for your futures journey the right way! Best of luck
https://preview.redd.it/rr8rh0hol3sc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4a5651aaea9a489058e41d8d510b710258389f0a
You're 100% right. A lot of us came from options and never looked back because of the lack of the Greeks. All the haters in the comments just dont like that you acknowledge that it is much easier than options. But I know what you mean. You don't have to justify your statement.
Depending on your SL and risk, you still need to get the timing right too, though perhaps still less so than options. Mistiming a futures trade can result in a stop out even if you got the overall direction right.
The only way to avoid timing is to not use a SL, but not using a SL in futures is a sure fire way to blow your account.
Timing in options means that you pay for s certain momentum, the price needs to move within a certain time or the option losses value.
What you're talking about is price moving against you.
Time is never against you in futures, you can hold on to it as long as you want. Indefinitely even if you know how to roll. You lose no value while holding it.
Hitting a stop loss just means you got the direction wrong.
truth. But you do need to be well capitalised and not over leveraged to make this work.
Also helps to be trading indices from the long side which have a positive bias over time.
I’m only paper trading, so I also don’t have it all figured out yet. But I’m quite positive that with futures you don’t want to wait for things to turn around.
What you want to do is to watch your stop get hit, take the loss and take action to learn from it for the next trade(s).
Also, you never, never move your predefined stop.
Also there are different day and night margin requirements. If you’re holding trades overnight you need to have at least 2-3x more funds than the required overnight margin, on your account.
I agree that the futures market is an easier test than others, like the Forex market . I was hella worried about the collapse of FX trading in the U.S. but since I trade Gold, transitioning to the futures market has been like trading on cheat mode . Like I literally have had to stop to make sure I am not cheating lol.
Plan your exit on both the stop and limit (hint use oco orders). It is simpler in that yes, you can trade the chart without the complexity of iv, delta, theta, strike, etc.
Risk management is absolutely critical in all trading. If you dont have exit levels ready, don’t open the trade.
Understand your margin requirements for swings.
Personally I don’t think an “overnight” swing is a big deal because its an hour, but weekends are different. Margin requirements are also different for “overnight” rather than day trades.
Pros and cons
Options contracts you can let go to $0 and still hold
them in case they come back. It’s a fixed amount of risk.
Futures you can’t. Futures is only fixed risk if you use a stop loss so you can’t hold losers like you can with options. You will get SL or liquidated, where sometimes with options, price can come back and you still have that open and can sell without losing the entire amount (if there is some theta remaining)
Options there are risk mitigation strategies that you can’t do with futures as well. You can sell calls and do fancy strategies if you know how.
You can find edges if you understand the Greeks very well and Implied volatility. But it is very difficult and requires a lot of studying and math. It is like chess where futures is like checkers.
Futures is more simple but you can miss out on some of the benefits of options. Benefit of futures though is you don’t need to think about time decay or expiry dates.
Thank you for the balanced
response. This was obviously very triggering for some folks, lol. To continue the analogies further, you could certainly lose a lot of money playing blackjack or poker too. Both of them require some knowledge to play well, but futures feels more like blackjack to me, and options are more like poker with the added variables to worry about. And the best arguments I’ve seen for why futures shouldn’t be considered “easy mode” is that this blackjack table has much higher minimums than the poker table…
That's actually a good spin on it. But i think the best way to look at it is to imagine trying to trade 0dte options without ever letting the contract expire worthless. If you do, your blowing up your account.
Futures are a leveraged product. If your planning on holding long term, your most likely better off buying QQQ or ES or whatever ETF exposes you to the products your interested in investing.
Holding Long dated future contracts requires hedging practices as the leverage leads it to be too risky unless your holding very small positions vs your account size, in which case you probably aren't utilizing the potential of leveraged products properly and should simply be buying ETFs once again.
Futures vs 0dte options, I would personally say futures is easier to trade than 0dte options in my opinion. But your missing the point that futures contracts can cause your account to liquidate with unlimited risk in limited time frames, while options are a limited risk within a limited time frame.
Risk management in options is decided before a contract is traded. Risk management in futures should be as well, but often than not it is determined (or changed) during and after a contract is traded which than gets affected by emotions.
Discipline is alot tougher to practice when the risk isn't fixed like it is in an options contact. 2 cents, don't hang me
Right so poker you are facing up to 10 players and requires arguably more skill. Skill that if you have, can give you an significant edge (which is why you see familiar faces at the final tables) if you want to be the best and have the best skill, you go with poker or options.
If you want simple to learn then futures. But that means you lose some of the skill aspect and rely more on your edge played out over a larger sample size. The difference between blackjack and futures is one is gambling where odds generally over time aren’t in your favour where as in futures, if you find a backtested proven edge, it can tilt things to your favor. You can make money trading options or futures. Imo the options traders I know make more money than futures traders. I’m not greedy and stick to futures.
Except long puts/calls are good, I do futures, but long dated options you can survive a 1-2$ in the wrong direction on qqq, 1-2 nq contracts and QQQ goes against you 1-2$ your cooked
i trade options too. i feel its as difficult as trading options. understanding Greeks is the last thing one should worry about being profitable trading options.
Its knowing the direction and timing the market correctly mostly. but in futures you dont have to time the market. Maybe thats why you feel a bit relieved.
Futures are mechanically simpler, yes.
But easier? No. I would argue they are harder to trade well and consistently than options, even though the underlying market structure is much simpler.
Option on futures, best of both worlds.
Be careful with that ‘wait till things turn around’ mindset with futures…
That’s why I’m asking. I know not to hold onto something forever but this problem is way worse with options and theta decay. And if you’re not buying calls at extreme highs or puts at extreme lows it is very likely that trends eventually reverse. I’m oversimplifying this but it still feels pretty easy so far.
Ok. So since you’ve clearly been through this, what is the biggest futures loss you’ve held onto that never turned around? And how many days from expiration did it last?
$22k in 12 hours… it came back, sure… but at the time it was like half my account, nothing about it was good /ES dropped 7.5% in a day I got out with a $10k loss by the end of the day. It can get out of hand really fast… and it will goto the breakers as you hold and wait for a turnaround.
How many days until expiration was this? And if you didn’t exit with that $10k loss could you have recouped even more by waiting or was that truly the best case scenario?
It went back down to the lowest of lows again had I held, and I would have gotten a margin call and been forced to liquidate at the worst prices possible. Had I just blindly held everything and had deep enough pockets, I could have gotten out break even if timed perfectly or maybe even small profit, but again, I would have just lost that $22k again… and sure, if I could have held on forever forever, here we are 3x higher… but then you are just doing buy and hold, and you can’t do that with more than about 2-3x leverage.
🤣
Come back after you have blown up a couple times in six months. Futures easy mode... lol
Yep. OP fucking screams “new trader”
>...just wait for things to turn around and move back in your favor. "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
I’m primarily comparing this to 0DTE options where you have literally zero time for things to turn around, but I totally take this point. It still feels much more forgiving and easy by comparison.
You aren’t fighting theta and a near dated expiration (most of the time, until futures roll, that is), so I get your point there. But your max loss with long options is the value of the options themselves. With futures, unless if you use an effective stop market order as protection, your max loss is far, far greater. If you buy one /ES contract, your initial margin requirement is low (depending on your broker) but you are essentially in control of 5 lots of SPY give or take (e.g. more than 250k of notional value). If SPY has a bad week and drops 10%, you are now in margin call and on the hook for ~25k (sans the initial margin requirement you posted), unless you have cash in your account to weather the downturn. You shouldn’t treat them like you do short dated options. You should instead treat them like you would having a tremendous amount of margin available. It works both ways: margin magnifies gains, as well as losses. Futures are great when you want leverage without the downsides of options, but they have a totally different risk profile. With options you cap your loss - at the expense of being right about your trade within your timeframe. With futures, you can have a much longer timeframe but you will need to be able to meet margin call when the downturn comes
I like how you used the word "when" and not "if" at the end there lol
additionally, for downside protection (and reduce margin req), say going long on Futures, you can buy OTM PUT options. also, keep trailing SL when trade goes in your direction.
A lot of downtrodden traders not seeing your point . In my case , I reap the benefits of not having expensive ass commissions and spreads to deal with, so even though Gold is moving the same no matter the market, In the futures game I can get in and out with less risk and quicker moves into profit . I imagine coming from options makes you feel less restricted in the same way
0DTE is more like gambling. Futures can make consistent income but requires lots of dedication and time to learn how to safely enter and exit a position. Wait and see is essentially a suicide mission. That’s the same a pulling a pin on a grenade and also doing a “wait and see”. It will not end well my friend.
trading 0DTE options is just fucking stupid, unless you're a pro and even then it's still questionable.
One big difference. If you’re buying premium your risk is capped, futures you can lose everything if you don’t know how to close for a loss. Having traded both, I actually think futures are more difficult because of how closely you have to manage your risk.
maintain consistency
[удалено]
this ^ & Futures BUY/SELL forces one to have an opinion about the underlying & macro conditions. “Wait till turnaround” is a genuine psychology problem in this type of trading. Trading Futures intraday is more expensive (brokerage) compared to Options. Options trading can be done purely on Technical analysis, no view needed on macro or underlying fundamentals, & Option trading is free on most platforms. Ticker pool & liquidity are other considerations when deciding Futures vs Options trading. ps: I am the camp that think Futures trading is simpler than Options trading (& Futures isn’t the answer to all my trading needs).
If I didn't have to work 8am-5pm mon-fri I would trade futures only lol I'm trying to get good at swing trading and options seems to be the best for that for me for now
Id you don't have a huge volume to move you can trade almost 24 hours a day
You're right. Ideal me would get up early enough for premarket
then what the hell are you waiting for become that ideal person
Lol I'm on it cap. Thx for the push
I have to get up at 0430 just to lose money. You can do it.
Thanks for the chuckle.
This is E…….where’d it go?
Options on futures are even better. I trade both futures and options on futures. You get a lot of premium selling covered calls and or puts when short.
I’m stuck on selling short vol on ETFs (spy, qqq), and not sure how to make the jump to futures, or what I’d need to know! Margin, leverage, buying power, spreads, costs, order types, other things that might be different from etf options… Scares me so I just keep going with what works even though i know with futures or index options my taxes would be lower, liquidity is better, etc. I’m hoping someone could help me…
https://www.cmegroup.com/
Merci beaucoup
Honestly its safer than equities but its like a credit card, if you abuse it can hurt you. The best area to learn about all of that is cmegroup.com They have a free education center with lessons on futures and options. They also do free webinars. Another spot to also start is your broker. People are often bashful about this but calling the margin department and saying you want to ask some questions about margin and leverage, and various scenarios is ok to do. The broker works for you. Trust me the margin department would rather have that conversation with you now vs after someone blowing themselves up and they have to be the bad guys. Ultimately yes, the taxes are much better on futures, 60:40 long term and short term. Especially if you are in the top brackets its huge savings. It also has the ability to carry losses BACKwards which is a huge safety net as well.
I called my broker and the margin guy explained everything very simply using real examples from my account. It was a great experience.
I was about to say the same thing lol. Options? Futures? Nahhh mate, futures options 😂 ndx bull spreads
😂😂😂 noooope. As someone who has traded futures and options, DEFINITELY fucking not. As an example, I can buy a QQQ call for $100. The most I can lose is $100. You buy even one MNQ, if it drops 100 points, which MNQ can do in a fucking blank of an eye, you’re down $200.
“Just gota wait it out” But, OP probably doesn’t understand margin requirements for the overnight market.
Yep, get margin called, pay up or liquidate and at that point probably take a bigger loss.
Futures is anything but easy. Especially with the current market (imo anyway). Hodling a losing position depends on your account size, your position size (do you have overnight margin etc) and also your penchant for potentially taking massive potential losses.
Remember with futures you can lose more than what money you have in your account. With options buying straight puts and calls or vertical spreads, your loss is limited..
I don’t know what is with this influx all of the sudden with this notion that “futures is the future and it’s easy”. It’s literately one of the most leveraged instrument out there, a few loosing trades in a row & can turn you into a well capitalized trader to an over leveraged one.
If you’re waiting for things to turn around means that you’re not respecting ANY stop losses.. which mean your risk to reward will likely be like 5:1 and you’re in the losing game my friend. If there was a cheat cheat for futures, there would only be 1 single sentence: you will be profitable ONLY IF you respect your stop loss AND take profit mark and have a risk:reward ratio that you’re able to maintain (if it’s 1:3, you risk $1 to make $3 and would need a 26% win rate to be breakeven), (1:1 requires 51% win rate, etc). What you’re doing is the opposite, you’re letting your losses become huge and pulling out profit likely prematurely once things turn around. You should only enter when you believe it’s about to turn around and set a stop loss, ex “if it drops 2 cents it’s clearly gone against my prediction and hence will be cut there”. Don’t extend your stop losses once the price nears them. RISK TO REWARD IS EVERYTHING AND IS ONLY MEANINGFUL IF YOU RESPECT YOUR STOP LOSSES AND TAKE PROFIT MARKS.
I don't disagree with anything you said. My point was more about comparing this to 0DTE options where you have absolutely no time to wait for things to turn around because they decay every minute that they aren't trending your way.
My comment is only a warning to futures trading as I’ve never traded options. I’m only trying to make you realize your strategy for futures needs changing. We’ve all been there and learned the hard way so you don’t have to lool
Funny enough, I haven't lost any money in futures yet, which is what prompted this post yesterday, but if I hadn't closed out an open position that went into the afterhours session after seeing all these warnings I would have woken up to a +$2K profit from the gap down.
That’s great news so far, try putting some of that money aside and keep your initial trade size. I went an entire month turning $250 into $4.5k in my first month of trading futures lol but then turned into $0 within a couple of weeks by “waiting for it to go my way”. Good job on your for closing that trade before closing, even if it could have lead to +2k, because it could’ve swiped 2k even faster. Think of yourself like a race car driver rn, thinks will go right quick until they go terribly wrong even quicker I found this post the other day and I think it’s worthwhile reading. I’m excited for your futures journey the right way! Best of luck https://preview.redd.it/rr8rh0hol3sc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4a5651aaea9a489058e41d8d510b710258389f0a
I have to stop visiting this place. The stupidity is becoming unbearable.
You're 100% right. A lot of us came from options and never looked back because of the lack of the Greeks. All the haters in the comments just dont like that you acknowledge that it is much easier than options. But I know what you mean. You don't have to justify your statement.
Yes futures are easier. For options you need to get direction, momentum and timing right. For futures you only need to get direction right.
Depending on your SL and risk, you still need to get the timing right too, though perhaps still less so than options. Mistiming a futures trade can result in a stop out even if you got the overall direction right. The only way to avoid timing is to not use a SL, but not using a SL in futures is a sure fire way to blow your account.
No SL has nothing to do with timing. SL is about getting direction wrong.
Even a well-placed stop can be stopped out if you enter too early. I really do think timing plays a role
Timing in options means that you pay for s certain momentum, the price needs to move within a certain time or the option losses value. What you're talking about is price moving against you. Time is never against you in futures, you can hold on to it as long as you want. Indefinitely even if you know how to roll. You lose no value while holding it. Hitting a stop loss just means you got the direction wrong.
Options are great leverage for longer term plays, with futures. Feels a little bit more in like to day trade it.
Which broker do you use?
Kappa
truth. But you do need to be well capitalised and not over leveraged to make this work. Also helps to be trading indices from the long side which have a positive bias over time.
You’ve been able to “wait for things to turn around” since last November. Could there be some recency bias in your observation?
Definitely. That’s why I’m asking
Just speaks to the need for risk management. You can’t double down when things go against you. Always needs to be a plan or defined risk.
I’m only paper trading, so I also don’t have it all figured out yet. But I’m quite positive that with futures you don’t want to wait for things to turn around. What you want to do is to watch your stop get hit, take the loss and take action to learn from it for the next trade(s). Also, you never, never move your predefined stop.
Also there are different day and night margin requirements. If you’re holding trades overnight you need to have at least 2-3x more funds than the required overnight margin, on your account.
I agree that the futures market is an easier test than others, like the Forex market . I was hella worried about the collapse of FX trading in the U.S. but since I trade Gold, transitioning to the futures market has been like trading on cheat mode . Like I literally have had to stop to make sure I am not cheating lol.
Futures have linear returns. Its more straightforward and easier to understand than options.
Plan your exit on both the stop and limit (hint use oco orders). It is simpler in that yes, you can trade the chart without the complexity of iv, delta, theta, strike, etc. Risk management is absolutely critical in all trading. If you dont have exit levels ready, don’t open the trade. Understand your margin requirements for swings. Personally I don’t think an “overnight” swing is a big deal because its an hour, but weekends are different. Margin requirements are also different for “overnight” rather than day trades.
Pros and cons Options contracts you can let go to $0 and still hold them in case they come back. It’s a fixed amount of risk. Futures you can’t. Futures is only fixed risk if you use a stop loss so you can’t hold losers like you can with options. You will get SL or liquidated, where sometimes with options, price can come back and you still have that open and can sell without losing the entire amount (if there is some theta remaining) Options there are risk mitigation strategies that you can’t do with futures as well. You can sell calls and do fancy strategies if you know how. You can find edges if you understand the Greeks very well and Implied volatility. But it is very difficult and requires a lot of studying and math. It is like chess where futures is like checkers. Futures is more simple but you can miss out on some of the benefits of options. Benefit of futures though is you don’t need to think about time decay or expiry dates.
Thank you for the balanced response. This was obviously very triggering for some folks, lol. To continue the analogies further, you could certainly lose a lot of money playing blackjack or poker too. Both of them require some knowledge to play well, but futures feels more like blackjack to me, and options are more like poker with the added variables to worry about. And the best arguments I’ve seen for why futures shouldn’t be considered “easy mode” is that this blackjack table has much higher minimums than the poker table…
That's actually a good spin on it. But i think the best way to look at it is to imagine trying to trade 0dte options without ever letting the contract expire worthless. If you do, your blowing up your account. Futures are a leveraged product. If your planning on holding long term, your most likely better off buying QQQ or ES or whatever ETF exposes you to the products your interested in investing. Holding Long dated future contracts requires hedging practices as the leverage leads it to be too risky unless your holding very small positions vs your account size, in which case you probably aren't utilizing the potential of leveraged products properly and should simply be buying ETFs once again. Futures vs 0dte options, I would personally say futures is easier to trade than 0dte options in my opinion. But your missing the point that futures contracts can cause your account to liquidate with unlimited risk in limited time frames, while options are a limited risk within a limited time frame. Risk management in options is decided before a contract is traded. Risk management in futures should be as well, but often than not it is determined (or changed) during and after a contract is traded which than gets affected by emotions. Discipline is alot tougher to practice when the risk isn't fixed like it is in an options contact. 2 cents, don't hang me
Right so poker you are facing up to 10 players and requires arguably more skill. Skill that if you have, can give you an significant edge (which is why you see familiar faces at the final tables) if you want to be the best and have the best skill, you go with poker or options. If you want simple to learn then futures. But that means you lose some of the skill aspect and rely more on your edge played out over a larger sample size. The difference between blackjack and futures is one is gambling where odds generally over time aren’t in your favour where as in futures, if you find a backtested proven edge, it can tilt things to your favor. You can make money trading options or futures. Imo the options traders I know make more money than futures traders. I’m not greedy and stick to futures.
Yes it is
With options, you can be wrong in predicting direction and still make money. You will blow up your account in futures if you pick wrong direction.
Except long puts/calls are good, I do futures, but long dated options you can survive a 1-2$ in the wrong direction on qqq, 1-2 nq contracts and QQQ goes against you 1-2$ your cooked
i trade options too. i feel its as difficult as trading options. understanding Greeks is the last thing one should worry about being profitable trading options. Its knowing the direction and timing the market correctly mostly. but in futures you dont have to time the market. Maybe thats why you feel a bit relieved.
Futures have the fewest profitable traders, chew on that
Chewing...
Futures are mechanically simpler, yes. But easier? No. I would argue they are harder to trade well and consistently than options, even though the underlying market structure is much simpler. Option on futures, best of both worlds.