Edit – My view is future trading can be addictive. And you have many full proof therories available like hedging which eventually fail. You cannnot take long term stand like purchasing shares. You tend to morgage your assets to manage for margin money while playing in futures and liekly to get in further crisis. So future trading is gambling in many ways.
Futures Trading, like all other product trading requires knowledge and expertise in not only the products but also in the markets and the general economy driving those markets.
There are many who have made very good livings from trading, believe it’s not gambling, it’s not dangerous as long as you have the knowledge and the wisdom to know that before you enter a trade you know what you are doing, how to do it and why you are doing it.
Trading, in any market is not for the amateur.
To Muncie Birder – The Hunts knew how to trade and did well with it for years, then they traded on ego & emotions and thus loss big time – I know my firm was on the other side of their transaction, so what they loss we made
Yes it is. My husband lost a lot of money doing just that.
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LOL – I just read something about that only 10% of the people actually make money at this.
Sometimes it’s the company you are dealing with that is scamming you without you ever being aware.
They tell you that you lost money, and if you don’t keep good records – you’ll believe it.
Google Forex scam, complaint, rip-off.
The complaints are numerous.
If your husband is still doing this – tell him to google Forex Scam.
Or google t he name of the company he dealt with followed by the words complaints.
Enjoy spending the rest of your day reading about this…..
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depends on your knowledge,risk taking abilities,and offcourse your bank balance
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YES!
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It is nothing less than gambling. One wont’even know when money was lost.
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Yes,futures trading is speculative.so,it is dangerous .it requires an intimate knowledge of financial instruments. we should be knowledgeable in the 4 main things — income , growth, speculation and inflation hedges. Without adequate knowledge, it will restrict us ,may lead to loss.also there is counter party risk.Futures trading is headache,better if it is a full time activity…not for others.In india many experts are suggesting government to ban futures trading on essential commodities….because it is unethical.
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Is it ever. Ask the Hunts if you don’t believe me.
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It’s about on par with Slot machines and Table games. You may win one time,always a loser in the end. Casinos for fun. Futures trading if it rocks your boat???
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Futures trading, like all other product trading requires knowledge and expertise in not only the products but also in the markets and the general economy driving those markets.
There are many who have made very good livings from trading, believe it’s not gambling, it’s not dangerous as long as you have the knowledge and the wisdom to know that before you enter a trade you know what you are doing, how to do it and why you are doing it.
Trading, in any market is not for the amateur.
To Muncie Birder – The Hunts knew how to trade and did well with it for years, then they traded on ego & emotions and thus loss big time – I know my firm was on the other side of their transaction, so what they loss we made
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from the industry
I am a trader and the answer is:
YES!
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No more than anything else. If you mean trading futures using gearing then yes, the gearing is always very dangerous, especially if you don’t understand it.
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If you ask a question based on a dramatized presumption, you’re going to get some weird answers.
Yes, leverage is dangerous, but you can literally leverage anything. Any time you borrow money to buy something, you are leveraging your position. Is stock investing a "very dangerous gambling game" if you leverage it at 2:1 or 4:1? Or is it just futures? Well, futures are leveraged at 20:1 or 40:1, so they are certainly more dangerous. The fact is, leverage is dangerous, not futures trading.
You can approach anything, literally anything, as "a very dangerous gambling game."
Let’s say this very ignorant and emotional blond woman sees this sparkling new car and borrows the money for it because she thinks she got a 20% discount, but doesn’t know the first thing about cars or bother to compare prices or ask an expert and doesn’t even start the car or test it in any way. She pays cash on the spot and puts her money down because it is pink. Blondie is now long a pink car, leveraged to the max with a lot to lose.
But then she goes to start the car, and it doesn’t perform as she "presumed." Her boyfriend soon discovers that the car doesn’t have an engine. So the dumb blond made a big gamble, because she had no knowledge of what she was doing, and made several dumb presumptions and didn’t ask the right questions. All a product of incorrect thinking.
Auto trading is not "dangerous" or "a gambling game," simply because it is leveraged, but presumptuous people can certainly make it that way, just like anything else. They can also describe it that way, although they would be terribly inaccurate. So gambling with your money can always be approached that way, or with a lack of knowledge.
One of the most important Samurai texts ever written, by Miyamoto Musashi, “The Book of the Five Rings (1643)”, offers this advice: “Think of what is right and true. Learn to see everything accurately. Become aware of what is not obvious. Be careful even in small matters. Do not do anything useless.”
There can be no great success in trading (life) without great commitment, hard work, discipline, and the realization of the “right” type of thinking.
Here are several other instances where this question about gambling vs trading is asked every other week. It’s a similar argument to "Do guns kill people?" or "Do pencils kill people?"
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…
http://www.investorguide.com/gambling-vs…
http://www.financemind.com/investment/in…
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApANyU7DnWQ50TYeutjswKXty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20091230172914AAKJU9p&show=7#profile-info-ZaFreVDhaa
Addendum
I’m not sure why, but most people don’t seem to understand leverage, or they don’t understand that you don’t have to trade at maximum leverage.
The highest leverage available is in the currency marekts. If you buy one standard contract (futures or spot), the margin requirement is $1,000 to manage $100,000 of a currency. That is 100:1 leverage.
But if you have $200,000 in your account, you can buy 2 contracts and be completely unleveraged, just like a stock. And yes, you can hold the spot contract for years, if you wish. No gambler can hold a position for a year.
Unleveraged futures is no riskier than trading stock. It is only the leverage ABILITY that is risky, not futures trading itself.
Approached as a gambler with only chance and luck and a newspaper or TV to guide him, trading or even investing are similar to gambling or betting on a horse race.
By the Trader’s definition of trading, it is not. Traders focus on risk control and money management. Gamblers rely on chance, roll the dice and hope. Traders are buying and selling an asset, gamblers hope on nothing.
Timing is critical to the Day Trader, since by definition, they must be out by the end of the day. His ability to concentrate fully and intensely can mean the difference between consistently taking home huge profits and barely staying above water. It’s vital that he pay attention to multiple sources of information, sift through them, prioritize each separate piece, and make an astute decision once all information has been scrutinized, and depending on the time frame or volatility, this may need to be done every few seconds or minutes. You can’t be distracted and unfocused while formulating a trading plan or monitoring an ongoing trade.
We, who live by values, not by loot, are traders, both in matter and in spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved, like a gambler
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