What do I choose with so many different market options?

Relax.

For people ready to start trading, the large number of choices and market options can prove daunting. It’s difficult to chose which markets to trade on and what assets to trade. The first step to making these decisions is to do research. There is no such thing as passive trading or passive income from trading. All trading will take an investment of time and money, but some markets and some assets are easier to trade, especially for beginners. Two of the most popular markets for new traders are the forex and futures markets. They are easily accessible, with relatively low capital requirements, and each have assets which are good for beginners to trade.

If you want to learn some background on forex and futures, check out this blog post for a comprehensive overview of each.

Forex:

Forex stands for foreign exchange, and is traded in currency pairs. Here are some of the most popular and best pairs to trade:

• USD/EUR
  • Most popular pair in the world
  • Lowest spread among the world’s Forex brokers
  • Not too volatile and lots of data available
• GBP/USD
  • Potential large movements due to Brexit
  • Lots of available data for a volatile currency pair
• USD/JPY
  • Low spreads and easy to follow a smooth trend in
  • Combining 2 different timezones

Before putting your real money into the Forex market, make sure to test your strategies using a demo account. Sign up for free here.

Futures:

Futures are contracts for the option to buy an asset for a certain price at a time in the future. Here are some of the popular futures to trade:

• E-mini S&P 500
  • Excellent middle ground and starting point for new day traders
  • Margins are low, the volume is relatively high, consistent liquidity
• Crude Oil
  • Requires high margin and high volatility
  • High potential market but not recommended for new traders

If you’re interested in starting trading futures, it’s important to learn to understand the symbols futures traders use.

Other trading resources

There are a plethora of resources online where you can learn anything about trading. Lots of resources focus on characteristics of successful traders and good trading habits. There are also resources focusing on trading vocab and strategy. Platforms like Quora have all sorts of useful information and plenty of individuals who are happy to give advice about forex, futures, and other markets.

Before starting trading, it is important to remember how important research is. If you’re not interested enough in a market to take the time to research it before you start trading, it will be difficult for you to stay interested in the market enough to keep up and make a profit. However, there are so many resources available online that there’s no reason not to start researching trading.

About BetterTrader

The Better Trader platform is  an analysis tool that interprets new information that affects markets, and produces actionable insights in real-time. BetterTrader is created by a team led by day traders with real insights and experience on the world’s biggest exchanges, including NASDAQ, EUREX, ICE and the forex markets.

The company platform collects and generates information that traders need to know and be aware of and help recognize how important news is relevant to every particular market.

If you are interested in learning more, you can sign up for a free trial here.