Emini Futures Trading - characteristics of a good day trading instrument.

In 1997 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange created a new financial instrument known as the emini futures contract. It started off small but now is a fully mature market with excellent liquidity. Now in 2005, the emini futures contract is an investment vehicle very popular amongst beginning and advanced traders. There are several reasons for this: It needs to be accessible to a wide public. The high margin costs of trading regular futures, makes it hard for beginning traders to get started. With the emini, the entry costs are within normal means of most. It needs to be liquid, in other words there must be enough buyers to buy when you want to sell and sellers to sell when you want to buy. The emini is very liquid. The low entry cost allows the development of business plans involving leveraging and increasing the contract size over time. Through training and education and practise trading trading skill can be developed. Many traders only trade for an hour or so per day. They may spend more time analysing their results, which is recommended and tweaking their trading system. There is much to be gained from study and practise in trading the emini before actual trading is commenced. Successful investing, is not so much about being right or wrong or the roll of the dice, but about money management, patience and discipline to following a system. If you are a gambler then stay away from futures, for you will surely lose and can lose big. The emini will most likely be around for a long time and when considering futures trading, is a good training ground before entering into the big contracts.