r/FuturesTrading

I am just starting to learn to trade, slow and steady. I was planning on the Asian session specially Gold to start out. Do think it’s a smart start for a beginner? At least until I learn the market.

Is there any platform, broker or software that would allow you to be locked out for say 5 minutes after you lose $500 but still trade for the day until you hit a higher daily loss limit of say $1000?

I want to do this through Sierra but it seems it can be overridden.
If you know how to set it up so it works in Sierra that would be awesome.

Anyone interested? DM me.

So, I am debating between Rithmic vs BookmapData for MBO data. I saw that AMP Futures offer Level 2 Rithmic data for $17 per month. Does this include MBO data for stuff like icebergs?

Anyone use Rithmic with AMP Futures and have linked them to Bookmap? If so, does the MBO data and related stuff like icebergs work there?

For those who use fundamental/macro analysis when trading futures or commodities—what does your process actually look like, and what’s the hardest part of it?

I have been working on strategy development for the last 10 months. In most of my findings I eventually end up with mean-reversion. I have been trying to dive into the data trying to find a continuation or breakout strategy to offset or hedge the mean-reversion setups, but I keep running into dead ends.

Right now I run intraday mean-reversion strategies on 2 symbols (MES and MGC) with 3 configs using different risk levels. I have another MR setup for CL, but due to the current situation with oil it trades at levels I can't support.

Just to give some insight on how I validate my own setups now: Research data, either by research papers or tick data analysis.

• Benchmark on 2020-2024, forward walk, trade shuffle, monte carlo, finalize the test against 2025-2026. Can't go further back, as I don't have the data.
• Tick level replay with realistic fills, commission and slippage.
• Every config that survives runs on a sim account for 2-3 months and I match the live fills against the backtest to make sure that fills aren't conflated or positively biased.
• Execution is against Ninjatrader, I build my own system that handles automation, logs, signals, track account status, send guard orders on desync and handle reconciliation.

For pullback and continuation I can't seem to get past step 3. So far I found and tested:

• Trend Pullback Continuation (MNQ, Volume bars): Find a trend (defined by X of X bars moving into 1 direction), wait for the pullback, enter on the break of high/low. Survived the backtest including tick replay, but when I started trading it on sim live the volume bar was desyncing from the backtest. Live fills fired 2x more often than the backtest, even on tick data. Couldn't figure out how to match these, so shelved it.
• Breakout key levels: Positive expectancy on ORB (MNQ), trades match. Problem is that, over the long periods, there was decently high DD or dead periods. Currently testing GEX options gamma to improve ratios. Still testing expectancy live. Could end up being viable. Other setups (IB, key levels, VP levels) didn't yield results.
• Higher timeframe patterns > Lower timeframe zone entry: Seemed promising until I realised I had look-ahead bug in my research. Edge died afterwards.
• Zone indicators (Supply/Demand, Rejection zones): Couldn't find an edge that worked realtime. Most zone definitions came after the move already happened.

My research comes mostly from data analysis, or research papers from SSRN (not to find strategy, but hypothesis to test). I tried looking into currency combinations, but couldn't find an edge that survived cost, so I am focusing on metals, energy and US market.

Some of the questions I have:

• When you found continuation edge, what was the variable that made it work for you? What was the hypothesis that made it work?
• How did you validate a system that has fewer trades, but are fat-tail setups, without fooling yourself? My MR setups (high winrate, high trade count) don't really transfer to trend tails.
• What do you use to invalidate a hypothesis on trend setups?
• If you trade continuation on volume bars or tick bars, how did you get live bars to match historical data?
• Do you have resources you find useful for research in trend and continuation setups?

I came to the conclusion that mean reversion is a lot easier for me to define in a ruleset than trend breakouts and continuations are, and I am getting stuck with the definition of the hypothesis (what is a trend?). Most of the ones I tried died (either because the research published invalidated it by optimization, or because of hindsight and look-ahead bias, or because I simply can't think of one and define it).

Curious if you had similar findings, and how you went about finding a trend hypothesis that stuck.

I am moving over from FX trading. I have done that for over 5 years and while I have developed an understanding of how to trade Futures I am stuck on the best platform/broker to consider - there are so many options.

I prefer to learn from people who are doing what I want to do so I am hoping someone could recommend experts in this area offering courses who could help me with?

Many thanks in advance.

I’m seeing as of the posting of this that ES is still over 20 points below all time high and yet SPX is over that. I know futures will eventually converge with SPX and since it’s already higher due to contango wouldn’t it go even lower and isn’t that a sign of bearish divergence and the market pricing in a pull back?