You will need 4 things to begin trading...
1- A broker (AMP Futures is my broker)
2- A live feed provider (CQG in my case)
3- A trading software (I use Multicharts)
4- A trading system (I designed mine)
In this post, I will talk about the the first 2.
First you need to open a trading account that will be used to buy and sell stocks/futures.
As mentioned above my broker is AMP Futures (https://www.ampfutures.com/). They let us buy/sell the Micro Russell Futures at only $50 per contract and at $500 for the Mini.
When you visit their website you can click the signup link on the upper right corner, you see this page. Just make sure that the mobile phone number is filled because you will need it to login to your trading account because when you click login, they send you a SMS msg with your verification code.
Then you will need to fund your trading account and this page HERE is where you will find instruction on how to do that. On their homepage AMP has a chat that you can use to speed this account activation.
As for me, I was given the choice or using ABA or the Swift one and the first time I did it, it took me 2 days to transfer my funds to my trading account with it cost me $30 US while on my 2nd transfer, I used the SWIFT/WIRE option and it cost me $15 and the money was transfer the same day so I would recommend you the Swift one.
Also, I am using US currency because it's just fun to deposit $US 50 (about 70 CAN $) and then hopefully one day get back $50,000 $US that will turn into $70,000 CAN in my bank account.
When your account is activated and the funds have been transferred, the next step is to login to your account on the Client Portal page.
When your funds are deposited, then you will need to activate your live feed. Login to your account on the Client Portal page, go to the "Trade Desk" option on the left menu and then click "Live Trading Setup".
As shown below, select the CQG (No Data - Order Routing Only) option and that will give you access to the markets live for a HUUUGE $1/month fee.
There are no monthly fees for AMP once you have deposited your initial $100 minimum and that will also give you a free SIM account that we will use to build our trading skills.
Once you have your trading account activated and funded and got your CQG live feed activated too then you are ready to trade and for that you will need a software and that will be the topic of my next post.
If you have any questions please let me know by posting them below.