Futures market trading

I am starting an Investments course.  The explanation of futures trading
in the book is confusing.  Does anyone know of a good basic book on the
subject?

12 responses total.

Hi kerry,
I've found most things I've read about Futures to be confusing. Can't
recommend a whole book on the subject, but I'm very fond of Jane Bryant
Quinn's book "Making the Most of Your Money."  She explains finances
for simple folk, and has several pages on Commodities, Futures and 
Stock-Index Options and Futures...none of which she recommends for
the casual or inexperienced investors...in fact she really doesn't 
recommend them at all... but if your intended audience for the
course is the novice investor, I recommend this whole book highly.

  Well, the movie Trading Places somewhat explains the commodities
market, but I donUt know of any books that would fit in here.

re 2:  omni, I'm pretty sure it wasn't jamie lee who was giving the
insight into futures trading...do i remember correctly?

 Actually it was explained by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche. 

  In the latter parts of the movie, it's explained by Dan Ackroyd.

 You can see the results of what NOT to do in "Coming to America"

(Ameche and Bellamy are shown as 2 homeless bums living on the waterfront
in NYC when Eddie Murphy passes by them and tosses them a wad of cash.)

Funny stuff, but if you do dabble in the commodities market, you can
wind up broke right quick.

A future is a device to separate the value of the risk from the value of the
investme[[3~[3~[3~[f the investment.The original asset earns a risk-free rate
and the  risk is traded a traded around .

q
browse

i know that this is about a year or so late but:  IT IS VERY SIMPLE. IF YOU
DO THE HOMEWORK YOU GET GOOD GRADES.  a word of advice:   DONT PLAY SOMEONE
ELSES GAME.  LEARN, LEARN, LEARN UNTIL IT BECOMES YOUR GAME.  THEN PLAY.
DONT BE THE SUCKER.

 It is never too late to give info like that.  Let the mistakes of the
predecessors be lessons for the future.

What use is information and knowledge if you have no money to invest?

I'm hard-pressed to come up with anything. This, too, will pass, though.
Come back when you can make use of it.

That is true! Without money to invest the information and knowledge obtained
seems meaningless. A person finds it a total waste of time and energy to get
up in the mornings and read the section on the stock market closing. BUT if
you join a stock market investors club i.e play the game within a grou, you
can obtain support and wont feel that despair. Alternatively if you do have
a little money to invest (but find it too little ) you can start a club in
your area /city where people come together to invest. The people bring their
own money into the club ( i.e pool money together) which can be used to invest
in the stock market or via the mutual fund industry. Share obtained or  units
obtained can be  divided amongst the club members in some prorption (
preferably in the ratio of their value invested for the month) , after
deducting costs.
Tou will find that this is a great way to invest as:
   descisions are made in a group (this reduces the risk of a single investor
making poor investment decisions)
   risk is reduced (risk is shared)
   you meet people
   Knowledge between the group is shared (some people in the group might have
specific  experience/Knowledge of a specific industry/or someone may be well
informed about the economics of the country/world
   .

However, most people shouldn't invest in individual stocks in this
fashion until after:

- Paying off any high-interest debt like credit cards.  There's no
  better or safer investment.
- Making maximal use of tax-deferred savings instruments like 401(k)
  and IRA accounts (which typically go in mutual funds, although it is
  possible these can go into more direct investments.)
- Building up a decent emergency fund of at least three months' living
  expenses in cash (or some cash equivalent.)

The vast majority of the population probably does not meet the above
three criteria.  (Heck, I don't.)

Even then, most people probably do not have the amount of money,
financial savvy, research interest, etc. appropriate to making
direct investments (as opposed to mutual funds and the like) a
sensible practice, let alone futures trading.  There's just no reason
for your average joe to do this sort of thing, unless maybe he has
stock in his own workplace due to incentive options or something.

That's good advice. The part about paying off your credit cards is critically
important if you are carrying such a balance. That should be your number 1
savings priority.

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss