A Beginner’s Guide to Futures Trading

Complete video tutorial

We highly recommend this video to understand the basics of Binance futures trading. It’s an hour long but worth every second.

Introduction

In futures trading, you can participate in market movements and make a profit by going long or short on a futures contract.

By going long, a trader buys a futures contract with the expectation that it will rise in value in the future.

Conversely, a trader sells a futures contract to go short, to bet on prices to decline in the future.

On our Binance Futures platform, you can go long or short with leverage to reduce risk or seek profits in volatile markets. Follow these steps to start trading on our Binance Futures platform:

  1. Deposit USDT, BUSD into your USDⓈ-M Futures account as margin, and other Coins e.g. BTC into your COIN-M Futures as margin
  2. Select the level of leverage to your preference
  3. Choose the appropriate order type (buy or sell)
  4. Indicate the number of contracts you wish to own

Here’s an example of how you can profit by going long or short on a futures contract:

Going long on BTCUSDT:

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Going short on BTCUSDT:

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In spot markets, traders can only profit when the value of an asset increase. In contrast, through futures contracts, you can profit in both ways as the value of an asset rise or falls.

How to calculate Unrealized PNL and ROE%

USDⓈ-M Futures Contracts

  • Users choose Mark price as price basis:

Unrealized PNL = position size * direction of order * (mark price – entry price)
ROE% =Unrealized PNL in USDT / entry margin = ( ( mark Price – entry Price ) * direction of order * size ) / (position_amount * contract_multiplier * mark_price* IMR)

*IMR = 1/Leverage

  • Users choose Latest price as price basis:

Unrealized PNL = position size * direction of order * (latest price – entry price)
ROE% = Unrealized PNL in USDT / entry margin = ( ( latest price – entry Price ) * direction of order * size ) / (position_amount * contract_multiplier * mark_price* IMR)

direction of order: 1 for long order;-1 for short order

COIN-M Futures Contracts

  • Users choose Mark price as price basis:

Unrealized PNL = position_size * contract_multiplier * direction of order * (1 / entry price – 1 / mark price)

ROE% = Unrealized PNL * mark price / abs(size) * contract_multiplier * IMR

  • Users choose Latest price as price basis:

Unrealized PNL = position_size * contract_multiplier * direction of order * (1 / entry price – 1 / latest price)

ROE% = Unrealized PNL * mark_price / abs(size) * contract_multiplier * IMR