Finally got a hold of my friend who works for the CME!

[Ps3tn0NcYk]

I was going to respond similarly but I thought it might be distasteful considering the enthusiasm of the OP with hooking up with his buddy at the Merc.

[kimchi]

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I was going to respond similarly but I thought it might be distasteful considering the enthusiasm of the OP with hooking up with his buddy at the Merc.

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EMA cross-over isn't a strategy any more than following a pre-flop chart is a poker strategy. There's nothing intentionally distasteful here, but I'm sorry if it was taken that way.

I'd be very interested to hear more about OP's friend and his trading style/technique. I've studied and tested various trading strategies with mixed results, so I'd love to hear about new ideas.

[CrushinFelt]

1) If he's a futures trader certainly not working for the Merc (not allowed to trade if you work there)

2) The CME stock is at like $660 right now ;p

3) Ask him what firm he's with

4) Ask him if he has direct market access from home or if he has to log in to a work computer from home to trade

5) Ask for more details about what products he trades and whether it's mostly futures or options or both

6) Ask him what his goals are going into each day

Just a few points and some good questions to ask him to get him talking about himself... everyone loves doing that.

[ItalianFX]

Here is a new one:

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The CME is great, but it's kind of sad it's all going electronic and you can feel it on the floor. There's not as much energy as there used to be. The funny thing is I've only been here since 2005 and I can feel it. There are guys here that have been traders since the '70s. They're the ones that are having the hardest time adjusting.

I trade E-mini equity futures. S&P, Nasdaq, Dow, Russell, and Midcap. We look for imbalances between the cash market (the quotes you see on TV, like on friday when the dow fell 360 points) and the futures market. so for instance on friday about a half hour before dow cash closed it was trading down 290 some odd points, futures were down 400, so we bought e-mini dow futures trying to capitalize on that imbalance, and get out before the close. Worked out but not great, because cash market kept falling. But we were able to close the gap and got out with futures down 380, so we made 20 ticks.

Right now I work for a firm called Lin Group of Illinois. and he's slowly but surely moving us all to the computer screen. Which is nice because it means trading on the computer at home... you should see the system I have at home now! (3 24inch dell monitors) it's sweet. But the floor is a lot of fun. I was never in a fraternity at IUP, but I'd imagine that's how it is. lol.

Because of my job and SEC regulations, I can't trade stocks or forex on my own anymore. At least not directly. I can trade in our IRA's and 401Ks, but I can't trade for myself. So unfortunately I'm limited to mutual funds. (GOLD. Stick with gold for the next 3-5 years and you'll be a happy man) most of my money since I started working at least in my 401K has been in TGLDX (the Toqueville gold fund). I have an individual 401K account through fidelity, and that's also where my IRA is. The IRA is the "trading account" right now it's mostly filled with Short positions in banks. I missed the great move in C, but I rode it's tails down with my BAC and WM. I'm not allowed to own CME stock PERIOD. so that was a sad day for me, but I'll survive.

My goal is to trade with Lin Group for a few more years, and then officially go out on my own, with no backing. Once (God Willing) that happens I'll be able to trade anything I want, in any account I want.

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