Whether you’re a day trader, swing trader or long-term investor, being on the right side of market trends is no doubt important, and one effective tool that’s helping traders do exactly that is Finviz Futures.
If you’ve ever wanted to know how to monitor commodity prices, movements in a stock index or the current sentiment in the global economy at a glance, you will want to see what Finviz can do for you.
In today’s post, we’re having a look at Futures on Finviz — what they are, how you can use them, and why traders can’t get enough of this tool for taking advantage of the markets.
What is Finviz?
Let’s start with the basics. Finviz (Financial Visualisations) provides both free and premium stock screening tools with an easy-to-use and clean interface, and it’s well-liked for providing rich information and so on.
Although Finviz is best known for its stock screener, heatmaps and news aggregation tools, relatively few users of the service become familiar with what I believe to be one of the site’s hidden gems: Finviz Futures.
What Are Futures?
Before we get into the platform, it’s useful to make sure we understand what futures are.
Futures contracts are standardised contracts to buy or sell a particular asset (such as oil, corn, gold or the S&P 500 index) at an agreed-upon price at a specific point sometime in the future.
They’re traded on regulated exchanges like the CME and are valuable instruments when it comes to trading commodities, forex, and equity index instruments.
Well, this is where Finviz will come in handy.
Finviz Futures: A Detailed Overview of the Best Futures Trading Viewpoints
On Finviz, you can monitor real-time (or close to real-time) price movements through its Futures section, which gives you a slick dashboard to see what’s happening. You can locate this under the “Futures” tab on the home page.
Here is what Finviz Futures covers:
- Futures on Commodities (such as crude oil, natural gas, gold, silver, wheat, corn)
- Stock Index Futures ( S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Russell 2000)
- Currency Futures (Eurodollar, Pounddollar, DollarYen)
- Bond Futures 10-year Treasury Note 30-year Treasury Bond
- Energy & Metal Futures
Every asset is described with a colour-coded grid that includes the symbol, name, last price, change % and chart trend icon— providing you at-a-glance view of what’s hot and what’s not.
Finviz Futures Features and Benefits
1. Heatmap Visualisation
Perhaps Finviz’s most popular feature is the Futures Heatmap. Think of it as a real-time weather radar — but for the markets.
Its heatmap, which employs a basic colour scheme (green for up, red for down), enables traders to quickly scan which futures markets are currently ripping and which are sputtering.
2. Interactive Charts
Finviz has interactive futures charts, but you can’t see much past the recent price action. It does give you that trend with some technicals such as:
- Moving Averages
- RSI (Relative Strength Index)
- MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence)
What it does is it provides an advantage in timing your entry and exit tactics with more accuracy.
3. Macro-Level Perspective
One of Finviz’s futures tool features that stands out is the big picture it offers you in terms of global market trends. And it’s directly visible how the stock futures in the U.S. correlate to the commodity prices, as well as the currency pairs.
This whole-person perspective is crucial for:
- Hedging strategies
- Gaining insight into market sentiment
- Envisaging trends of inflation or deflation
What Traders Like About Finviz Futures
✅ User-Friendly Design
And there’s none of the digging through complex settings or cluttered dashboards. Finviz Futures is user-friendly — one screen tells you everything you need to know.
✅ Time Efficiency
Professional traders don’t sit around for hours sifting through charts. With Finviz, a quick 10-second scan instantly gives them the pulse of the market.
✅ Ideal for all levels from beginners to experts
Whether you are entering or exiting an oil trade or monitoring a diversified futures portfolio, the layout of the platform is an ideal fit for all levels of experience.
Using Finviz Futures to Trade
Here’s a little example:
🔎 Step 1: Check the Heatmap
So you see that Gold (GC) is up 1.2% on the Finviz futures heatmap.
📊 Step 2: Open the Chart
You pull up the red author chart pattern on Finviz and see the stock chopping along at a level of resistance as the stock is trending upwards.
🧠 Step 3: Confirm with News
Hop over to the Finviz News tab to see if there seem to be any obvious headlines moving gold prices, say inflation numbers or geopolitical tensions.
📈 Step 4: Execute Your Trade
After you have done your homework, you can enter your trade via your brokerage platform.
Boom — in less than five minutes, Finviz just eased your way toward a more informed move.
Finviz Free vs. Elite: Should You Pay For The Premium Version?
As robust as the free version is, many professional traders prefer Finviz Elite, which opens up:
- Data in real time (not 15-minute slow data)
- Advanced charting
- Email alerts
- Backtesting tools
- Custom filters
If you are trading futures or using them to hedge other investments, you may want to consider the investment in Finviz Elite.
How to Use Finviz Futures Like a Pro
- Look daily at trends in commodities, indexes and currencies at the start of each morning.
- Use chart instruments to validate entry/exit signals.
- Combine with macroeconomic calendars(eg FOMC meeting, CPI releases) for more profound analysis.
- Cross-reference with sector performance in ETFs for specific sector guidance (oil ETFs versus crude oil futures, etc.)
Final thoughts: Should you use Finviz Futures?
Absolutely. Whether you are directly involved in futures trading or merely keeping an eye on global market sentiment, Finviz Futures is a resource that you need to put to work for you. And it’s clean, fast and effective.
And now with Finviz, you can quickly see what’s happening in the oil and gas markets, stock index futures and currency markets all at once. It takes complicated information and makes it easy to understand and act on – something every trader in today’s markets can appreciate.
