Traders should limit their investment in the futures market to less than 50% of the total capital, and the balance should be used to protect possible losses; The maximum loss allowed for each round of trading should usually be limited to less than 5% of the total capital; For traders with large total investment, the investment in a single futures product should be limited to 10% ~ 15% of the total capital, and the investment in related commodity futures markets should be limited to 20% ~ 30% of the total capital.

2. Opportunity to enter the market

After predicting the trend of commodity prices, we should carefully choose the timing of entering the market. Sometimes, although the direction of the market has been correctly judged, it will also suffer losses if the timing of entering the market is wrong. In the process of choosing the opportunity to enter the site, special attention should be paid to the application of technical analysis methods

3. Set profit targets and loss limits.

Before futures trading, we must carefully analyze and study, make feasible plans, and make clear judgments and estimates on expected profits and potential risks. Generally speaking, the profit-risk ratio should be determined for each planned transaction, that is, the ratio of expected profit to potential loss. The general standard is above 3: 1. In other words, the possible profit should be more than three times the potential loss. In the specific operation, unless there is a pre-judgment error, we should generally pay attention to the implementation as planned to avoid hastily changing the original plan due to short-term market changes or rumors. At the same time, we should also limit the losses within the plan, especially be good at stopping losses to prevent the losses from expanding. In addition, in specific operations, we should also avoid blindly chasing up and down.

4. Make a futures trading plan

Futures trading is a high-risk investment behavior. To participate in futures trading, we must make an appropriate trading plan in advance, which mainly includes: our own financial anti-risk ability, commodity contracts for trading, market analysis of commodities, the holding period of commodity contracts, profit targets and loss limits, and the timing of entering and leaving the market.

Trading strategy is an art, and traders should use various strategies flexibly to achieve the goal of "fully increasing profits and limiting losses to small amounts".

How to judge profit opportunities

War and economy

In today's futures markets around the world, the methods of analyzing futures prices are mainly divided into two schools: basic factor analysis and technical chart analysis, which are independent of each other. The basic factor analysis method pays more attention to medium and long-term analysis, and is more suitable for large spot traders and well-informed investors who master the spot market. Technical diagram analysis is based on the dynamics and regularity of price changes, combined with the analysis of consideration, quantity and time-space relationship, to help investors judge the market and choose investment opportunities. It is more effective to analyze long and short positions, especially to grasp the timing of entering the market, which is more suitable for small and medium investors. However, the two analysis methods can learn from each other, and the key is that investors choose the method that suits their own characteristics.

1. basic factor analysis method

It is a method to analyze the influence of actual supply and demand of commodities on commodity prices. This analytical method focuses on the implementation of national political, economic, financial policies, laws and regulations, and the direct or indirect influence of factors such as commodity production, consumption, import and export volume and inventory on commodity supply and demand.

The fluctuation of commodity prices is mainly influenced by basic factors such as market supply and demand, that is, any economic factor that reduces supply or increases consumption will lead to the change of price increase; On the contrary, any factor that increases supply or decreases commodity consumption will lead to an increase in inventory and a decrease in price. However, with the development of modern economy, some non-supply and demand factors are also playing an increasingly important role in the changes of futures prices, which makes the futures market more complicated and unpredictable. The basic factors affecting price changes can be summarized as the following eight aspects:

(1) supply and demand. Futures trading is the product of market economy and developed on the basis of spot trading of commodities. Commodity futures price is an expected reflection of the relationship between supply and demand of commodities. Therefore, the change of commodity futures price is influenced by the relationship between supply and demand of commodities in the market. When the supply of commodities exceeds demand, the corresponding futures prices fall; On the contrary, futures prices will rise. Therefore, we should pay attention to other factors such as carry-over inventory, output, production report, climate, economic situation, supply and demand of substitutes, global competition and so on.

(2) Economic cycle. In the futures market, price changes are also affected by the economic cycle, and price fluctuations will occur at all stages of the economic cycle.

(3) Seasonal factors. Many futures commodities, especially agricultural products, have obvious seasonality, and their prices fluctuate with the changes of seasons.

(4) Factors of financial market changes. In the process of world economic development, the fluctuation of inflation, currency exchange rate and interest rate has become a common phenomenon in economic life, which has brought increasingly obvious influence on futures market and commodity futures.

(5) Government policies. Some policies and measures formulated by governments of various countries will have different degrees of influence on the futures market price.

(6) Political factors. The futures market is very sensitive to the change of political climate, and the occurrence of various political events will often have different degrees of impact on prices.

(7) Social factors. Social factors refer to the public's ideas, social psychological trends and the information influence of the media.

(8) Psychological factors. The so-called psychological factors are traders' confidence in the market, commonly known as "popularity". If you are optimistic about a commodity, even if there are no obvious favorable factors, the price of the commodity will rise; When bearish, there is no obvious bearish news, and the price will also fall. Another example is that some big market participants and bookmakers often use people's psychological factors to spread some news and artificially buy or sell in large quantities to seek speculative profits.

1. Technical chart analysis method

As a way of investment analysis, technical chart analysis is based on three assumptions, namely:

(1) The price reflects everything in the market;

(2) The price evolves in a trend way;

(3) History will repeat itself.

According to the first hypothesis, technical analysis does not need to pay attention to why the price changes, but only to how the price changes. The second hypothesis is to borrow the first law of Newton's mechanics, "Without any external influence, objects will move at a constant speed in a certain direction", and prices, like tangible objects, will move along the original established trend until they are affected by external factors. History will repeat itself, which reflects the psychological reaction of market participants.

The basic principles of technical chart analysis can be summarized as follows:

(1) The price is determined by the relationship between supply and demand;

(2) The relationship between supply and demand of commodities is determined by various reasonable and unreasonable factors;

(3) Ignore the small price fluctuation, then the price change will show a certain trend in a period of time;

(4) The changing trend of price will change with the change of market supply and demand. The basic method of technical analysis is to examine future or potential investment opportunities according to the track of past investment behavior.

The theories of technical analysis methods in futures market mainly include Dow theory, graphic analysis theory, volume analysis, trend analysis, tangent theory, shape theory, wave theory, Gann theory, cycle analysis and various technical indicators analysis. These analysis methods are basically the same as the technical analysis methods of the stock market. The quantitative analysis in the technical analysis of futures market includes the analysis of contract trading volume and position.

3. Matters needing attention in technical chart analysis of futures market

(1) The central idea of technical diagram analysis is risk management and control, that is, ensuring the safety of funds is the first task;

(2) Technical diagram analysis can help to make trading plans, but the strict implementation of trading plans is more important;

(3) Technical drawing analysis must be comprehensively judged, and the key is to find out what kind of tools are most suitable for the current market situation;

(4) In the oscillating market and unilateral market of futures market, the application scope of technical analysis indicators should be strictly distinguished;

(5) Complexity is not necessarily superior, and we should strive for simplicity.

4. Construction and analysis of futures continuous graph

We need a long-term chart to study the long-term trend of the market, and commodity futures contracts usually have a trading life of less than one and a half years before expiration, and the most active period is usually around half a year, so we should construct a continuous long-term chart of futures. Because there will be a price gap between the upcoming futures contract and the subsequent futures contract, the establishment of futures continuous graph is to eliminate the data deformation caused by the gap. In order to ensure continuity, the easiest way is to always use the price information of the recently expired contract. In order to filter out some abnormal factors such as short positions of contracts that have recently expired, futures traders often use the data of the second or third contracts that are far away from trading time to construct futures continuous charts. Generally speaking, c 1, c2, c3, C4 ... can be used to indicate which of the current contracts is used to construct the futures continuous chart.

5. The relationship between volume, position and price.

Volume refers to the number of contracts of a commodity futures in a certain trading time of an exchange. In the domestic futures market, the sum of trading volume is used to calculate trading volume.

Open position, also known as short position or open position, refers to the quantity of a commodity futures contract that has not been hedged and delivered in kind after buying or selling. The buyers and sellers of open contracts are equal, and domestic positions are calculated according to the total number of buyers and sellers. If both the buyer and the seller are new positions, two contracts will be added; If one party opens the position and the other party closes the position, the position remains unchanged; If the buyers and sellers close their positions, the positions will be reduced by 2 contracts. When the next opening quantity is equal to the closing quantity, the positions held will remain unchanged.

Since the open contract refers to the number of contracts that have not been hedged and settled during the period from the beginning of the transaction to the end of the open contract, the more open contracts, the greater the sum of closed contracts and physical delivery before the contract expires, and the greater the transaction volume. Therefore, the analysis of the change of positions can infer the flow of funds in the futures market. The increase in positions indicates that funds flow into the futures market; On the contrary, it means that funds are flowing out of the futures market.

Changes in trading volume and positions will affect futures prices, and changes in futures prices will also cause changes in trading volume and positions. Therefore, analyzing the changes of the three is conducive to correctly predicting the trend of futures prices. Generally speaking, there are the following rules:

(1) When the price rises, the trading volume and positions increase, and the price has the motivation to continue to rise;

(2) The price increases, and the trading volume and positions decrease, indicating that the kinetic energy of price increases is weakened;

(3) As the price rises, the trading volume increases, but the positions decrease, indicating that the kinetic energy of the price rise is weakening;

(4) When the price falls, the volume and positions increase, and the price still has the power to continue to fall. However, if the selling is excessive, the futures price will rebound strongly.

(5) The decline in prices, the decrease in trading volume and positions indicate that the kinetic energy of price decline has been exhausted;

(6) The price drops, the volume increases but the position decreases, indicating that the possibility of further price drop is decreasing.

From the above analysis, it can be seen that under normal circumstances, if the increase of trading volume and positions is consistent with the direction of price change, the price trend can continue to be maintained for some time; If it is contrary to the price change, the price trend may turn. Of course, this needs to be further analyzed in combination with different price patterns.