Futures investing is usually thought to be the domain of experts and investing gurus due to the risks of such trading. However with the progression and rise in popularity of electronic investing and extended trading hours within the futures market, futures trading is becoming very popular with the trading public.

You can invest in many different kinds of futures almost at any hour, 5 days a week. Such futures contracts include market indices, forex, commodities as well as stock futures and futures options.

Another reason for the popularity of futures trading among the trading public is that the much criticized pattern day trading rule doesn’t apply. Therefore unlike with stocks, investors with accounts under $25,000, can buy and sell futures contracts as regularly as they want. Also, Stock Brokers typically grant traders substantial margin allowances in order to trade futures.

As opposed to trading with stocks, retail investors typically don’t take actual delivery of the underlying asset . For instance, if you’re investing crude oil, you are trading a contract that stretches out a number of months from the date you place the trade. If you kept that contract until expiry, usually the contract would roll over to the next month.

So basically, retail traders who trade futures contracts are basically speculating about the short term direction (down or up) of the underlying futures contract.

As mentioned, there are many types of futures contracts that can be invested in. A few of the very popular futures contracts include market indices, Crude Oil, and Gold and Silver. However there are there are many more commodities that can be traded on the futures market. Examples of these are Corn, Wheat, Coffee, Sugar, Soy Beans, Pork Belly and even weather forecasts.

So while investing in futures might seem somewhat overwhelming to some, the truth is they trade somewhat like stocks do. You have to focus on both the technical and fundamental variables which may have an impact on the price direction and velocity. If you manage your risk adequately, there’s significant money to be made in futures trading.

If you are interested in trading Futures, please check out Stock Shock and Awe for more information on Futures trading and investing.