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clients have a minimum of $50,000 to $100,000 in assets to get started, which puts futures trading beyond the means of some investors. Many regular stock brokerages do not handle futures (or futures options), although they may offer such services through a separate division or subsidiary. You must then find a broker that specializes in futures trading in order to trade futures contracts. By the same token, most futures brokers only handle futures (and futures options) and nothing else. So if you are also interested in trading other securities (such as stocks) you would need to work with other brokerages to trade those securities. Here we present a very basic coverage of the components of a futures contract order. Chances are that many of us will never trade futures in our lifetime, but then again some of us might.