#TradingTypes101 You can make $100 a day trading crypto by trading —
Spot markets
Margin
Futures
Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Spot markets offer the least amount of risk as you only stand to lose the percentage the market moves at.
When trading margin and futures you stand to lose more when the market goes against you since you are using leverage (borrowed funds from the exchange) unlike in spot trading where you are only using your funds.
For example: If you have $100 of your own funds in spot trading if the asset you are trading moves up 10% you make $10 (minus trading fees of course) if it goes down 10% you will lose $10.
In margin and futures trading you stand to gain or lose more based on the percentage of your leverage (the money you have borrowed)
If you have $100 of your own funds and use 3x margin meaning you borrow $300 bringing your tradable funds to $400, if the market moves 10% upwards you make $40. This is $30 more than you would have made trading on the spot market. And if the market moves against you by 10%, you lose $40 which is $30 more than you would have lost had you been trading on the spot market only using your own funds.
So while trading margin and futures markets can be more lucrative, they are also riskier.
The main differences between margin trading and futures trading is that in margin trading you are trading an asset you own using leverage while in futures trading you are trading a contract. You do not own the asset at all in futures trading.
Also, in margin trading, trading the swings in an asset can improve your margin levels therefore significantly reducing your risk of liquidation. While you can improve your margin levels in futures trading especially when trading a large account, it is not as significant as in margin trading and once you close a trade in futures trading, you get a new margin level as opposed to margin trading where you can close trades as many times as you want and can improve your margin levels on the asset you are holding.
This makes futures trading even riskier than margin trading.
Also the leverage for margin trading goes up to 10x in most cases while in futures trading it can go up to 50x. This means you can borrow up to ten times your initial funds in margin trading and up to 50 times in futures trading making futures trading even riskier. Or more lucrative depending on your trading skills and the market movements.
In futures trading too, you can buy long ( trade when the market is moving upwards) or sell short ( trade when the market is going down).
This means that you can benefit both ways in futures trading while in margin and spot trading you only stand to gain when the market is going up.
For example if you think Bitcoin is going up, you can benefit by moving upwards with it in futures trading. If you think it will go down, you can benefit by going down with it.
Remember in futures trading you do not own the asset but are simply holding a contract. Therefore you are in other words betting on the price movement of an asset whether it is going to go up or down.
It is recommended that beginners start with spot trading. They have to master it well before risking their funds by venturing into margin or futures trading.
Otherwise, other than these differences, market reading and chart analysis is mostly the same for spot, margin and futures trading. The use of leverage is what brings the major differences meaning a trader should be more careful when trading margin and futures as they stand to lose more if the market goes against them as much as they stand to gain more if the market moves in their direction.