Getting Started Futures & Forex Questions

Hi I have been doing some research for my futures and forex trading. I have some basic questions that I haven't been able to solve myself. I want to begin paper trading futures and forex. Some help would be really appreciated:

1. How do you decide which futures contract to trade for e.g. the SPI200 has a few; e.g. AP H1-SFE, AP Z1-SFE etc. (I use esignal).

2. Does interactive brokers have the margin and contract sizes for the futures contracts somewhere?

3. What are some good currency pairs to trade intra-day or swing trade during Australian hours?

4. Have I got these trading hours correct (EST [QLD] TIME)?:

SPI200 (day) 8:50am open 3:30pm close

MINI HSI (day) 11:45am open 2:30 close 4:30pm open 6:15 close

FOREX 24/7

5. Do you recommend any other futures contracts that trade during the day in Australia for intra-day trading?

Thank you,

Regards,

Quinn

quinn123 said:

Hi I have been doing some research for my futures and forex trading. I have some basic questions that I haven't been able to solve myself. I want to begin paper trading futures and forex. Some help would be really appreciated:

1. How do you decide which futures contract to trade for e.g. the SPI200 has a few; e.g. AP H1-SFE, AP Z1-SFE etc. (I use esignal).

2. Does interactive brokers have the margin and contract sizes for the futures contracts somewhere?

Click to expand...

I don't trade futures but the liquidity is at the front month quarterly, for IB margin requirements refer to the IB website under Trading>>Margin>>Futures.

Look here for hours >>http://www.asx.com.au/products/futures/index_futures/contract_specifications.htm#spi_futures

quinn123 said:

1. How do you decide which futures contract to trade for e.g. the SPI200 has a few; e.g. AP H1-SFE, AP Z1-SFE etc. (I use esignal).

Click to expand...

The contracts that are on 3 monthly expiry are now trading the March 2011,like the SPI, ES,K200, Dax, FTSE(z), The commodities ones are all over the place. Although they are all monthly contracts only a few are liquid and half of them are just there for the Arb bots, Some Asian equity futs are monthly, HSI, STW.

Best way is to look at the next 3-4 at the end of the session and see where the vol is. Then Find the roll over date and go from there.

quinn123 said:

2. Does interactive brokers have the margin and contract sizes for the futures contracts somewhere?

Click to expand...

Yes. Surprisingly on the margin section on their web site. :

quinn123 said:

3. What are some good currency pairs to trade intra-day or swing trade during Australian hours?

Click to expand...

Whats good for one trader is a nightmare to another. Have a look at them all and see what works for you.

quinn123 said:

4. Have I got these trading hours correct (EST [QLD] TIME)?:

SPI200 (day) 8:50am open 3:30pm close

MINI HSI (day) 11:45am open 2:30 close 4:30pm open 6:15 close

FOREX 24/7

Click to expand...

Yep. Except FX its closes US arvo Friday and doesn't reopen till NZ morning 8-9ish Monday.

quinn123 said:

5. Do you recommend any other futures contracts that trade during the day in Australia for intra-day trading?

Click to expand...

Have a look at Korean, K200. Lots of big Dicks banging out volume there. Also Taiwan (STW), out of the SGX, good contract to trade @ $12.50 USD a tick. Gold and Oil can be good during our trading hours, not as crazy as the cash hours.

HHI on the HKFX is a good one.

Thank you Trembling hand, answered all my questions.

Quick way to get a general overview of what pairs are doing at different times: http://www.mataf.net/en/tools/02-01-volatility

I've been scalping EURUSD from about 10am to midday Canberra time - spreads still decent, you get a period of small, pretty random moves that are good for scraping a few pips off, and at least a couple of times a week, at some point towards 11am (though occasionally anywhere from 10:15 to 11:30) it'll rocket to a new level in about 10 minutes of 20+ pip move craziness. Not hard to be on, the only trick is staying the **** out of it if you miss it or if jump out too early.

...but if you're using some kind of indicator-based system or trying to swing trade, this sort of behaviour is almost certainly crushingly awful.