Can I trade Forex with you?
No, you cannot trade Forex with Topstep. Topstep is focused on Futures trading only and we highly recommend Foreign Exchange Futures to anyone with Forex experience.
Foreign Exchange Futures and Forex are similar in that you trade one currency for another and they both track the spot cash, but Foreign Exchange Futures are what professionals trade because the price discovery is set by the trader, not the broker or institution.
Try these Foreign Exchange Futures Products if you're a Forex Trader
Will my trading system translate to Futures?
Yes, your trading system can translate to Futures. Whether you're trading stocks, options, or futures, the market moves based on supply and demand. That supply and demand can be plotted on a chart where price movement can be analyzed with trendlines or your favorite indicator.
How do Foreign Exchange Futures work?
With standardized contracts and a centralized exchange, all participants in the market get pricing transparency and great liquidity. Each product has defined leverage and commissions because it is built into the contract—no surprises. It doesn’t matter what broker you choose to trade with, the price will be the same no matter what. The same cannot be said for Forex, where you could have the same product across different brokers, and a different spot price between each.
With all market participants operating within a centralized exchange, it maximizes the liquidity for each market, which means there are tight Bid/Offer spreads—NO SPREADS in Futures. This means you can enter a position, and immediately be in the green, without having to overcome the spreads offered by your FX broker. This gives every trader a fair shot at being profitable, regardless if you are a retail trader or a major company using the Futures market to hedge a position.
Below is an example of the liquidity available in the Futures market and you will notice the tight Bid/Offer lack of spread in each of the different markets. From left to right the markets are S&P 500 (ES), Crude Oil (CL), 10-year Note (ZN), and the NASDAQ (NQ).
For example, this trader went long 87.40 in Crude Oil and has a Take Profit of $87.60 and a Stop Loss of $87.30. The numbers in the green and red box immediately below and above the yellow box indicate how many contracts are available to trade at that price. So 15 contracts are willing to be bought at $87.40 and 6 contracts willing to be sold at $87.41. That is a spread of one tick, the smallest possible unit of price, not bad!
Five Advantages of Foreign Exchange Futures
1. Trade with Other Traders Forex markets have many "liquidity pools", where Futures only have one. In Forex, your brokerage sets the "spread" between where you can buy or sell. In Futures, you trade directly with other traders, so there is more information available to make decisions, like volume and open interest, and your stops are not visible to the brokers.
2. Buy the Bid & Sell the Offer: Futures traders Buy at the Bid and Sell at the Offer, instead of in Forex, where you Buy at Offer and Sell at Bid. Why have to make 3–10 pips on the trade just to break even on your position? Why start out at a loss the second you put the trade on? With Futures, you can gain your edge!
3. Better Manage Your Leverage: Why rack up fees and commissions by putting on complex combinations, like Butterflies and Condors, to add leverage to one of your currencies in the pairs? If you want to be more heavily positioned in a currency, just add to that currency!
4. Spread Out Your Risk: Once you have a consistent and profitable strategy, and want to position yourself to find more opportunities, consider managing more, but spreading out risk not only against other currencies but against other products like Interest Rate Products, Metals, Energies, Crypto, Grains, Meats.
5. Trade in a Regulated Market: Trading in a regulated market, like Futures, gives you the assurance that you are trading in a safe environment, safe from scandals and scrutiny.
What is the leverage in Futures?
Our Trading Combine is based on account size, not leverage. For example, in a 50K account, you can trade up to 5 contracts at any given time.
50K Trading Combine - 5 contracts
100K Trading Combine - 10 contracts
150K Trading Combine - 15 contracts