The Complete Guide to Futures Trading: What You Need to Know about the Risks and Rewards

CHAPTER 5

Using an Auto-Executing Trading System

You may have heard the expression, “a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.” You might have a similar impression of futures at this point—a great idea but you wouldn't want to trade them yourself.

After reading the previous chapters and recognizing that trading successfully requires considerable effort, you may be about to conclude that you don't have the time, … or the knowledge … or the trading skills … or the personality … or you have some other shortcoming that might keep you from venturing into futures. But you can still participate in the futures markets and reap the potential benefits by tapping the expertise of experienced traders who have already worked through all those issues and have developed methods that can help you.

One of the emphases in the previous chapters has been having a trading plan before you enter a trade. This plan should be a well-thought-out approach that takes into account not only when and how to get into or out of a position but also the amount of risk you'll accept, the size of the position you should be trading, when to increase or diminish your position, and every other detail of every trade you make.

However, you may not have a trading plan or the time and resources to do the research to develop one, much less trade it. A solution could be purchasing or leasing a trading system that already has a record of actual trading and can provide you with the trading signals that you don't ...