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Stocks with Steve

Choosing A Broker & Platform

Brokers and Platforms

There are many brokers and platforms that can be used to trade futures.  Some will be better for some people and some better for others.  So, what is best for you is based on platform preferences and how much money you want to start trading with.  

It is a little confusing to understand brokers and platforms.  Let me explain.  A broker is a company that holds your money and administrates your trading.  A platform is a software that you may interact with to initiate and close trades.  Amp Global is a broker with many platforms available for you to choose from.  NinjaTrader is a broker and they also have their own NinjaTrader Software Platform that traders use to trade.

 I was told by a representative of Amp Futures that it is easy to change platforms, so you don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of time to decide before trying one.  I chose the TradingView platform with Amp.  My choice works well for me and I put in about a week of research on the different brokers and platforms.  I don’t suggest that you spend a week of your time to do the same, but that is up to you.  My recommendation is to open a broker account with Amp.  They are called Amp Global Clearing, but if you do a search for Amp Futures, you will find them.  On the flip side, some people say that they like NinjaTrader.  I use NinjaTrader also and like the platform, but they are considerably more expensive.  I made a price comparison that you can see quickly and easily by clicking here, or at the link at the very bottom.  NinjaTrader has somewhat lower commissions if you lease or buy a platform.  The lease cost about $225 for each three months and the purchase is about $1000 for a lifetime license.  In the comparison I use the free platform prices.  NinjaTrader does not support the TradingView platform, at least not at the time of this writing.  I found a very helpful indicator that works on TradingView, and it will not work on NinjaTrader, but you can have the TradingView platform open in a seperate window, with the indicator open there, and then trade with NinjaTrader.  I will tell you more about this indicator later.  Tradovate is another good broker, but also more costly than Amp.

HOW I STARTED AND MY RECOMMENDATION
I started trading futures by opening an account with Amp, using the TradingView platform.  I like Amp and think that it works well, with a few exceptions.  You can choose whatever broker you prefer of course, and there are other good brokers, though I don’t think any better than Amp for getting started, considering the low commission prices.  If you want to save money while you are learning, then you will probably want Amp, since you will save a lot of money in commissions with Amp.  Amp has many good free trading platforms.  You can see them all at their website if you want.  Or, if you want to save time and just go with my recommendation, then you will just go with Amp brokerage and the TradingView platform.
 
 
One problem with Amp, however, that I had quite often, is that when you get close to your margin limit (that is, when your are trading with all of your available margin), positions will not close as they should and you can be stuck in the trade until you figure out how to pull the stop (or take profit) bar to where the price action is currently, which will sometimes trigger a close.  I talked to the Amp trade desk about this and here is what they said about this.  They said that, on TradingView, when you have a stop set (and/or a take profit target), these take up margin just the same as a buy or sell order.  So, then when you want to close your position, you can’t close, unless you click flatten from the DOM or sometimes you may be able to move your take profit order, or the stop to meet the current price.  They say this is because closing a position is opening another position and takes margin (I know, what??).  This was very annoying when it happened and I lost money several times because I could not close a trade.  There is no problem if you don’t set a stop or take profit target, but it is best to always have some kind of a stop.  This is not a problem when you have plenty of extra margin in your account.  It also is not a problem at NinjaTrader.  So keep that in mind.  It would be good if Amp would change that problem, as it is not a small problem for those with small accounts. So, even though Amp has low commissions, that problem is something to be aware of.  I would not choose a different broker just for that, especially since you now know how to close an open position (though it doesn’t always work) when your margin is low or too tight You can also call brokerage support (312-893-6400) to close a position, but pulling the stop bar up to meet the current price is much quicker.  Amp support tells me that this is not a problem using the Quantower platform.
 
So then, how to open a free demo account is what I want to tell you about next.  There are four options just below here that you can choose from to open a demo account.
 

GET A DEMO/SIMULATION ACCOUNT TO PRACTICE TRADING

Before getting to the four best ways to open a new demo account, I want to tell you that I suggest that you start with the TradingView platform since it is very visual which is good for beginners and because the indicators that I suggest look really good with TradingView.  Having said that, you can use any platform and still get the same basic benefit from this course.  I now use both TradingView and NinjaTrader platforms together when I trade.  I look at TradingView for the visual benefit and sometimes use another indicator from NinjaTrader that is not available on TradingView.  I use several windows on the same 52 inch TV monitor and sometimes use the Amp brokerage and sometimes NinjaTrader brokerage, but Amp is much cheaper when using micros and a little cheaper on mini’s.

Four best ways to get a demo account to practice trading futures:

  •  A first option (and my top choice) is to get a temporary free demo (link here) through a futures broker like Amp Global Clearing.  Getting a free demo account this way will only give you 14 to 28 days of free data with Amp (currently it is 28 days), but you can get additional free data by opening another free demo with a different email address (at the link above) or by getting a free demo with a different broker.  I don’t suggest moving to new demos with different brokers because you will lose a lot of time learning the different requirements of the new broker and maybe even a completely new platform if they don’t support the platform that you picked on the first trial (preferably TradingView).  If the new broker is using the same data company, you will need to use a different email address to get data since data providers seem to only give one free trial per email address.
  • A second option for a demo account is not a free option.  But this option is a good long term option, maybe after using the free demo above.  It is to get a paid account at TradingView.com. there is also a free trial of the paid account that you can start with.  If you choose to get a working real-time demo with TradingView then you will need to pay $4 a month for data to make the demo/simulation account work, as the data is not included with the TradingView account.  To get real-time trading you will need to be on a paid account or a paid account FREE TRIAL, but the free account will not give you real-time data trading, which is what you want.  After you open a TradingView account, in order to connect the data, click on the TradingView menu and go down to your username and then open the billing option and go down to “EXTRA DATA SUBSCRIPTIONS.”  You will only need to choose the $4 CME Group (includes the E-mini).  After you get the data going, you will be able to finish the free trial time on your TradingView account (if you get the free trial) and then you will need to pay monthly or yearly to keep the TradingView account going.

One tip here:  After you are getting to the end of your free 30 day TradingView trial, (if you choose the free trial) they will probably offer you a discount of 40% off the yearly rate.  After my 40% discount, I paid $108 for one year.  The discount does not apply to the monthly rate, which at the time of this writing is $14.95, and they didn’t ever offer me a better discount, even though I waited for about two weeks after the free account expired.  So, I think it would likely be the same for everyone else.  So, if you choose this option, with the data fees of $4 per month, and the monthly rate of $14.95, you will get 3 months of demo practice opportunity for about $57.  That is good.  And to be clear, I don’t make anything on any of the fees you pay to TradingView or Amp or any other broker or platform.  I am just wanting to help you choose the best option to save you time and bother and money, since I’ve already been there.

  • A third option that is slower and much more complicated (not highly recommended) is to get a free demo account by opening a trading account with a futures broker like Amp Global brokerage.  To do this you will need to deposit the minimum required for opening an account, which seems like it changes every few months.  A free demo, without a time limit is included with many, if not all, of the platforms (like TradingView) that you could choose from Amp.  You can use the demo as long as you keep the account above the the minimum level ($100 at the end of each month at Amp), and then when you want to start with real money, you are already set up.  To open an account with Amp, click here.  To fund it, click here.  If they still have the $300 E-mini margin “special,” (usually $400 margin) I would avoid it since the commissions are much higher on that option.  I don’t think that special is a good deal.  There are a lot of questions on the Amp Global application about how much money you have or make.  They do take some risk, so I guess they are justified asking so many questions.  I think that they do approve most applicants, however, though it takes a few days.  I know that I have seen college students on YouTube talking about trading futures, and you know that most college students don’t have much net worth financially speaking.  If you have a bank account and receive income, there is probably a good chance that you will be approved. 

If you want to consider a brokerage company, other than Amp, that is fine, but it will add a lot of time before you are able to start learning to trade.  There are many brokers to consider.  NinjaTrader would be one of my other top recommendations, after Amp Global.  They require $400 to open an account at the time of this writing.  They do have a free platform, but it doesn’t include being able to use stops, take profit orders or bracket orders (order cancels order – OCO).  They obviously do this so people will lease or buy their platform with the enhanced trading options that most other platforms include at no additional cost.  But the lease or purchase options are quite expensive.  Tradeovate is another good option with free platforms available and pretty good commission prices.

Getting that account started:

If you are interested in getting a free demo account by opening an account with Amp, you may want to apply for a trading account soon, since it may take one or two days to get approved, and then up to a week or more to get the account funded by a free ACH bank transfer.  You can get the money in the account the same day if you want to wire the money (and if you get it sent before 2 pm central time, that’s 12-noon pacific time).  Just so you know, I don’t make anything through any of the links on this page.  The links are just there to make it easy for you.

 

PRACTICE ON THE DEMO/SIMULATION

Though there is a lot to learn to begin trading futures profitably, I have put together a lot of information to save you a lot of time and money.  Learning things the hard way, like I did, costs you a lot of money, if you are trading with real money.  But even trading with a demo account, you can lose a lot of time if you don’t have guidance, which is almost as bad.  I wish there would have been a course like this, for such a low price, that I could have found and taken.  I found one course that was $400  and another that was $1499.  If you want to put up $2997 and $297 a month, you can get a one year license to Algobox, the software that Vinny had made and that he uses to trade with.  You can see his course if you are interested, at: VinnyEmini.com  Looking back, It probably would have saved me money to take the $400 course, but they required the use of NinjaTrader, which at the time had a minimum $1000 deposit to open an account, so it wasn’t a good option for me.  I have done my best to save you time getting started and from making errors that are very costly.  Little things that you do not know can end up costing a lot of money when the trade goes bad or gets stuck while it’s going down. It will be mostly up to you, however, to perfect your strategy.  That will mean some learning and a lot of practice to get proficient.

THE PLATFORM FOR THIS COURSE

I use the TradingView platform and use Amp as my broker.  TradingView works very well for me.  TradingView looks nice visually and works well trading on the chart using price action as a primary strategy.  And I am happy to save money on commissions at Amp.  But there are number of brokers that you could choose and still use the TradingView platform that I will be using for this course.  Other brokers that you could choose for Futures, that work with the TradingView platform, include Tradovate and TradeStation.  They are both more expensive in commissions however.  I do want you to know that most of the things that I will be showing on the TradingView platform will be similar on most other chart trading platforms, however, before I tell you about some other good chart trading platforms, I want you to know that there is one indicator that I found, which is free on TradingView, and works really well to help in making good decisions on trades.  This indicator, as far as I know, only works on TradingView.  It may work on some other platforms, but many platforms use different coding languages, so the add on material are often not compatible.  

OTHER PLATFORMS YOU MAY LIKE

Again, I recommend simply getting TradingView.  But if you want to spend a lot of time checking out other platforms, here are some others that Amp offers that are free.  Here is a link to a free demo trial from Amp for MetaTrader5, if you would like to check it out.  And, here is a link to a free trial of MultiCharts.  And, here is a link to a free trial of Quantower.  I don’t make money from any of the links on this page, I am just trying to save you time.  These platforms are popular on Amp, and you could still get the low commission that is offered through Amp if you choose one of these platforms.  Again, I would just choose TradingView.  It works well and is what I will be showing and using in this course.

So, What Next? . . .

After you have a demo account, you can start practicing. 

In the modules that are coming you will be learning about the platform, what indicators I recommend to put on your chart and some trading strategies, among other things.  The module on chart examples will be very helpful to learning the winning strategies that I recommend.

I have already discussed margins a little, but there is more that you will need to understand for trading futures profitably and with the least losses possible.  The use of the word margin is different for trading Futures and Forex than it is for stock trading.  In these markets, margin is referring to an amount of money that you must keep in your account to be able to open a position, or trade.  The amount of money required varies for different indexes or commodities.  There is more information on margins in the margins module which will be coming after this next module which is “Chart Set-up.

Okay, so it is off to the next module.

You may click the link below

Next Module

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