Trading Futures

[TradeSmart 10]

I am just getting into futures and I am wondering if there is a good place to find the following information for several types of futures contracts:

 

· Cost to buy 1 contract

 

· How much does 1 tick and 1 point translate to into dollars?

 

· Average contracts traded per day

 

The contracts I am interested in knowing about right now are:

 

· ES

· NQ

· YM

· TF

· NG

· ZB

· GG

· 6E

 

I’ve been looking around the CME website and this info is still eluding me. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[Frostyx7 10]

In the CME website you can click on the contract you are interested and there is link called contract specifications where it tells you the tick to dollar amount or any other information you need(ex. E-mini S&P 500. Margin requirements to buy a contract, you would need to check with your brokerage.

[brownsfan019 17]

Cost to buy 1 contract

Depends on your broker. If you are daytrading (out by 415pm EST) you can buy 1 contract for a small margin or 'deposit'. This can get as low as $500 (or lower). In other words, if you have $500 margins you can buy 1 contract per $500 in your account. This is called leverage b/c you are controlling something worth much more than $500.

 

 

How much does 1 tick and 1 point translate to into dollars?

Each tick varies based on the contract being traded. To get that info, go to the cme site and click where I''ve highlighted:

 

 

 

Average contracts traded per day

 

The easiest way is to pull up a chart and just look. If you need a demo, you can get 2 weeks free at Open ECry and then create a daily chart, add volume and done.

 

You could also try using this on the CME site but I've never used it: