I think that you are quite right to approach moving into the futures market with caution. Though I have every confidence that you could trade any chart based asset that was put in front of you, futures are a lot different than equities. It is the detail that can trip you up and in futures the detail is never intuitively apparent. Simple, basic things like market hours and calendars are different. The value of a tic or point, minimum price movements, limit up/down, reporting and position limits, these are all items that a trader should be familiar with. Not only do these things differ a lot from the stock market (many of them don't even exist in the stock market), they differ a lot from one commodity market to the next. Its not that it is that complex, its just that there is a lot of it, and mistakes can be a lot more expensive than the tuition paid in the equity market. It is very interesting, but should be approached in a systematic way.
Futures brokers have an old joke about this. Q: how much money does a dentist lose when he opens a $10,000 futures account ? (They refer to retailers as dentists). A: About $15,000. They wouldn't think it was so funny if it was not somewhat true. People who have had some success or luck in the stock market think that they can jump into futures trading and repeat the process. The brokers love them.
Something that may be of interest to you are the courses offered at the CME. They teach everything from basic fundamentals to advanced technical trading. The instructors are mostly floor traders and CME members who have been with the exchange many years. Some are third generation futures traders, some have made valuable contributions to the study of the industry, some are well known authors. The guy who gives the candlestick course was an associate of Nisan. However, it is not an academic approach, very hands on and practical. Better yet, the courses are very cheap, relative to any other higher education, (from around $90 to $225).
For those that do not have direct access to an exchange, there are plenty of good books that can get you started. But whatever you do, don’t open a futures account until you become fluent in the language and practice. Leverage can be a wonderful thing, unless its going against you. Then it can get real expensive, real fast.
