Commodity futures, also known as futures contract is a business transaction to buy or sell a commodity at a specific date in the future at a specific price. In order for a good to be included in a futures market, it must be standardized, unprocessed, and raw, must have an adequate shelf life for delivery, and there must be price fluctuation and uncertainty for the good. These makes the futures market profitable for people, even to those who are not really interested in buying or selling the actual goods.

There are many things that are traded in a futures market and one of them is oil. It is a very important commodity as it greatly affects the global economy. And with the help of modern internet telecommunications, anyone with enough capital can participate in oil trading. You can now trade oil in New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) or through Forex brokers as contract for difference (CFD). Through oil trading, you can make money with oil without actually owning one, while you are behind a computer screen.

In order to trade oil, you will need an oil broker that will supply you with the virtual trade contracts that you will manage. Oil brokers will also provide you the trading software and market analysis. To obtain profits when trading oil, you need to correctly analyze the available data from the oil markets so that you can use them to your advantage. Your oil broker can also advise you about the trends in the market and make probability estimations of the future direction of it.

When trading oil contracts, you have to pay your oil broker commissions for every trade that you make. Oil brokers have varying prices for buying and selling, which is how they make money out of the whole thing.

You have to keep in mind that oil is a very volatile commodity because it is affected by many global factors such as political crisis or natural disasters. As such, there is no clear-cut formula on when to buy or sell trades successfully. Therefore in oil trading, you win some, you lose some. The important thing is how you are able to manage your finances so that the end result will still be favorable to you.