Welcome to Trading Applications, the judgment capstone of the speculation chapter, where you stop calculating and start deciding: given a market view, pick the position that fits it, then pick the orders that get you in and keep you protected.
Exam Weight: Part 1 spans ~71% of the exam across Chapters 1-7 combined; the National Futures Association (NFA) does not publish per-unit weights.
What You'll Learn
In this unit, you'll cover:
- Recommending Appropriate Speculative Trades: How a bullish, bearish, or neutral outlook maps to a specific position, and how the speculator's risk tolerance decides whether that view is expressed with outright futures, a bought option, or a spread
- Using Orders to Initiate and Protect a Position: How the same order types enter a position and guard it, why the protective stop always sits on the losing side, and why a stop guarantees a fill rather than a price
Why This Matters
This unit introduces no new product and no new formula. It is the disciplined selection of tools you already met: the directional positions, the order types, and the option expressions of the same views. Two rules run through everything here, and the exam tests both: match the trade to the outlook (do not chase price), and know your exit before you need it.
Let's start with recommending the right trade.