Hi, all, I'm opening an account by end of this year for day trading ES futures at CME. I don't need very tight margins. $2000 per contract should be plenty sufficient. I currently use Ninjatrader, so it would be very nice to have a broker who support it or even offers it (but I can pay for it on my own if I have to). In the past, I've used IB and was happy with them. I traded through NT and it worked like a charm. I think they have a minimum account of $10K which I might be able to fund. Any other brokers I should consider? Is NT brokerage worth considering? Thanks a lot in advance! Howard
We typically require $25,000 for a futures account. I might be able to do $10,000 but it would require permission. You would have to use RealTick to get our lowest rate of $0.60/side. Bob
$5- 10k is way undercapitalized for futures trading. Rmorse requires $25k for a reason. Start with SPY and build up.
Among this site's sponsors there are at list 2 good ones. Scroll done to the bottom of this page. I disagree with those who says you need 25K. If you gonna lose you can lose the 25K too. What are the chances you will lose down to 12K and then make it back up?
Even with $25k, you're levered 5:1 trading a single ES contract, which makes you the weak short-stack at the table. Trading with $5k, 25:1 leverage, is just insane. You can't afford to have even a single big economic number or Fed announcement go against you.
Yes, if you like NT then the Ninjatrader brokerage is a good choice. If you are only interested in ES the continuum data is solid and cheap, i think like $7/mnth for only the CME. You do not even need an NT license, but the free live trading version has a higher commission and maybe some missing features.
Would be more than happy to a accommodate a 5K. If you tell us which technology routing (not platform) you used before we may do it via a free platform. I guess it was either CQG or Rithmic.
I had Interactive Brokers as my broker and used Ninja as a front-end for placing orders. That's all I know.
I think 5K is sufficient for a day trading account, but obviously I'd like to fund a 10K account if I can. I spent a few years developing my system and am now forward/live testing it in simulator mode with good results. I don't hold positions in front of big economic numbers or FED releases unless I should happen to be in a profitable position with a trailing stop. Fills are usually very good on ES with small (and bigger) size.