Deciding To Live On A Budget

Trading the e-mini is a great way for people to get started in the trading world. E-minis are futures contracts that you trade online. Essentially, you are signing a contract to buy or sell different assets, but the actual transaction will occur later.

E-minis are excellent for beginning trades, because they are easy to liquidate, meaning that you can take your money out of the market relatively easy when you are ready to cash out. E-minis are also fairly volatile, meaning that if you start to lose money, you can feel relatively certain that the market will experience an upswing in a short period of time.

One factor that is going to determine how much success and enjoyment a beginner trader will get out of trading e-minis is whether or not he or she has chosen a trading platform that is right for him or her. Here are some characteristics of trading platforms to consider.

1. Commission Cost

A commission cost is the amount of money that a person who is trying to trade e-minis has to pay per trade. Some software charges a very low commission price for the first few hundred trades, and then the commission price increases at a steep level. Other software trading platforms have a medium-level commission that remains fixed regardless of how many trades are done each month.

If you are just starting out, you might want to start with a software that allows you to get a lower commission price for your first few hundred trades, because it will allow you to dip your toes into the e-minis trading waters without investing more money than you are prepared for. If you plan on making thousands of trades a month, you want to go with the fixed commission.

2. User Interface

The next characteristic to consider is the user-interface, more specifically how easy the user interface (UI) is to learn and use. The UI of any software should be relatively intuitive. You ought to be able to look at the screen and figure out where to find information about specific e-minis, where to set your buys, and where to set your sells, as well as where to review the history of your trades. If you cannot find these four areas within a few seconds of looking at the software, then you might want to find a different trading platform. You need to be able to act fast when trading e-minis and a bad user interface can slow you down.

3. Customer Service

Finally, you want to make sure that if you should lose your Internet or cellular connection while making a trade that the trade can be completed by calling the software trading platform's customer service line. Doing so will allow you to trade regardless of your spotty signal and will allow you to make sure that you do not miss out on any opportunities.

For more information, talk to a company that specializes in making e-mini trading platform software.