How Does Commodity Futures Day Trading Work?

What is commodity futures day-trading? Day-trading strategies are unique mechanical methods for entering a liquid commodity market early in the trading day and exiting some time later in the same day for a profit. Keith Fitschen has developed a family of day-trading strategies for the commodity markets that use the same basic market principle to gain systematic profits. The basic methodology uses multiple timeframe analysis to determine the likely trend for each market early in the trading day. When the likely trend is determined, entry is made in the direction of the trend. Trade exit is made in one of three ways: a stop loss point is hit (and the trade is a loss), a profit target point is hit (and the trade is a windfall profit), or the exit is made at the end of the trading day, usually for a profit.

Keith Fitschen’s commodity futures day-trading methods are used in the most liquid commodities in each group: for the grains, wheat and soybeans can be traded; for the softs, coffee can be traded; for the currencies, the yen and euro-currency can be traded; for the metals, copper, gold, and silver can be traded; for the energies, crude oil, heating oil, and reformulated gas can be traded; for the financials, 10-year notes can be traded;, and for the stock indices, the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, and the German DAX can be traded.

Traditionally, the problem with futures day-trading strategies has been transaction costs: slippage and commission. These costs severely ate into the profit that could be made on a day-trade. But with the advent of deep discount brokers, and electronic trading, commission for a trade can be less than $10, and slippage for a trade can be as low as one or two ticks. This evolution has caused a number of successful trading system designers to promote day-trading strategies. Keith Fitschen’s strategies are unique because they use the same market approach across all the groups, and because the strategy “works” on all the liquid commodities. This type of day-trading leads to an average profit-per-trade of about $150 across all the commodities, and a winning percentage of about 55 percent.

Normally, successful day-trading strategies have been sold to the public for $3,000, or more. This high bar to entry reduces the funds available for trading for a typical trader. Keith Fitschen’s day-trading strategies are offered for a monthly lease fee. This allows a trader to avoid the large upfront expense and spread it over a long period of time, while retaining the right to stop at any time. This means of gaining access to the trading signals is certainly an advantage over the traditional approach.