A futures contract is a promise to buy or sell a set amount of something at a set price on a set date, traded on an exchange and guaranteed by a clearinghouse. Traders use futures to speculate on stock indexes, oil, gold, currencies and interest rates with one account, nearly around the clock, and with a lot of leverage. This course explains the contract from the ground up, with the arithmetic of every example shown, and then shows how to trade it carefully.

Every class works the same way:

Read the class and redo each worked example with a calculator.
Tick I’ve read the class.
Check yourself with the quiz. You need 70% to pass, you can retake it as often as you like, and your best score counts.

The ten classes:

	Class	You will learn to
1	What a Futures Contract Is	Explain who trades futures, why, and what the clearinghouse guarantees
2	Contract Specifications	Turn any price move into dollars from the tick size and tick value
3	Margin, Leverage and Daily Settlement	Work out margin, leverage and a margin call, day by day
4	Expiration, Delivery and the Roll	Read month codes, avoid delivery and roll a position
5	Sessions, Reports and Price Limits	Know when futures trade, what moves them, and when they can stop
6	Equity Index Futures	Trade the E-minis and Micros, fair value and the overnight session
7	Energy, Metals, Currencies and Rates	Handle crude oil, gold, currency futures and Treasury futures
8	Orders, Execution and the Platform	Place brackets, read the DOM, and count every cost
9	Risk, Sizing and the Futures Plan	Size by ticks and dollars, and write the rules down
10	Futures Through the Outer Box	Draw the session box correctly and trade the ladder in ticks

It helps to have finished Market Basics and Risk and Money Management first. Forex traders will find Class 7 especially useful: it compares currency futures with spot forex, including the yen contract that is quoted upside down. Class 10 uses the ladder from Outer Box Foundations, but explains every level it uses.

Before you trade futures with real money: your broker must approve your account for futures, and you will receive a risk disclosure statement required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Read it.

This course explains how futures work. It is not trading or tax advice, and nothing in it tells you to buy or sell anything. Contract specifications, trading hours and margin requirements are set by the exchange and your broker and change over time; check the current figures before you trade. Margin figures in the examples are for illustration only. Futures are leveraged, and you can lose more than the money in your account.

Units

What a Futures Contract Is

Forwards and futures, the exchange and the clearinghouse, hedgers and speculators, long and short, how gains and losses move between accounts, and who regulates the market.

Contract Specifications

Contract size, the multiplier, tick size and tick value, the specifications of the most traded contracts, notional value, symbols, and turning any price move into dollars.

Margin, Leverage and Daily Settlement

Initial, maintenance and day-trade margin, how every account is settled to the market each day, a margin call worked day by day, measuring leverage, and how a futures account can lose more than its balance.

Expiration, Delivery and the Roll

Cash settlement and physical delivery, first notice day and last trading day, rolling a position to the next month, calendar spreads, contango and backwardation, and why continuous charts jump at the roll.

Sessions, Reports and Price Limits

The 23-hour futures day and its 5 p.m. New York cut, the Asian, European and U.S. sessions, settlement times, the economic reports that move each market, holiday hours, and the price limits and circuit breakers that can stop trading.

Equity Index Futures

The E-mini and Micro E-mini contracts on the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000 and Dow, fair value and the basis, what 'futures are up before the open' means, the overnight range, comparing futures with SPY, and hedging a stock portfolio.

Energy, Metals, Currencies and Rates

Crude oil and its weekly inventory report, gold, currency futures compared with spot forex, why the yen contract is quoted upside down, and Treasury futures quoted in 32nds.

Orders, Execution and the Platform

Market, limit, stop and stop-limit orders, bracket orders, reading the order book (DOM), slippage, the full cost of a trade, options on futures, platform setup, and the tax and rule basics of futures.

Risk, Sizing and the Futures Plan

Sizing by the stop in ticks, including slippage and fees; why Micros make sizing possible; checking leverage; overnight gap tests; daily and weekly loss limits; correlated positions; the futures journal and a written plan.

Futures Through the Outer Box

Drawing daily, weekly and monthly boxes on the futures session, handling the roll and currency futures, stating the ladder in ticks and dollars, and a full Micro E-mini trade: entry at the sentiment trigger, stop beyond the threshold, targets on the ladder, size by the stop and by alignment.