Interest rates play a pivotal role in all financial markets. No matter what market you trade whether it is stocks, forex, futures, options, ETFs, commodities, bonds etc, you need to keep an eye on the interest rates. A yield curve is a representation on the graph that compares the entire spectrum on interest rates available to investors.
You will come across three types of shapes on the yield curve. The normal curve rises to the right and the short term interests are lower than the longer term interests. A normal yield curve represents normal economic activity where investors are being rewarded more for investing in longer term securities with a premium on longer term interest rates.
Now, most of the time you will come accross the Normal Yield Curve. But sometimes, you will find the Yield Curve to be Flat. When you find the Yield Curve to be Flat, it means that all the interest rates in the economy are equal. What this indicates is that economic activity is slowing down.
However, when the economy starts to go into a recession, you will suddenly find an Inverted Yield Curve. On an Inverted Yield Curve, the longer term interest rates are lower than the short term interest rates.What this mean is that the economy is slowing down and investors are reluctant to invest long term thinking it to be risky. An Inverted Yield Curve is a leading indicator of an economy doing down into a recession. When there is a financial crisis like that happened in the early part of 2008, you will find the Yield Curve to be Inverted. Investors are shying away from investing in long term projects in the economy.
If you want to trade interest rates short term than Eurodollars are the best instruments that you can trade. Eurodollars are well suited for small traders because of the low margin requirements. Eurodollars also tend to be less volatile and have a highly liquid market due to the large number of market participants. However, like any other futures contracts, Eurodollars position needs to be carefully monitored. Ten Year T Notes and T Bonds can be highly volatile. You can also trade options on these interest rates futures.
Now, when you trade these interest rate futures contracts, you need to keep an eye on the market constantly. Futures trading can be risky and in a matter of few minutes you might get wiped out in the market and get a margin call from your broker. Trading interest rate futures is no different than trading anyother futures contract. If you haven’t traded futures before, a good idea would be to first paper trade these contracts for at least two months so that you get a feel of how these futures contracts gets traded and how the market behaves!
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