So it seems I need to work more. Perhaps I waited in the easy low volume low liquidity stuff for too long and need to move to the intermediate smaller margin trading that you are describing...
How about the mini Dow index future? CBOT IDEM seats are currently offered at $3,500 or $45/month for a lease. Exchange fees will be 27 cents / side. $5 tick, decent liquidity, mix of manual and auto traders. 09.30-11.00 EST is an active time every day. Would be interesting to see if anyone follows garachen's guidance and reports back.
For purchasing the IDEM seat, you also need to own 950 shares of CME currently @ $75.83. which will be held in a Trust ( Probably, no covered call writing or stock lending.) If I am wrong and anybody has more information on this, please post.
I don't trade YM myself but yeah, something quite like that. If you can negotiate 10c or less for clearing then you would be in the realm of competitive. I imagine CBOT has some sort of volume rebate in addition that isn't too onerous. Almost all CME products have some sort of rebate. For the other guy. You only need shares for corporate membership. And 1/2 can be pledged.
I've got YM ES and NQ ladders up. If garachen is sure ES is a terrible contract to manually trade, does that not reflect poorly on YM? They move so closely...
Try it...... From a scalpers perspective, Waiting for your limit bid/limit ask to get filled on ES is like watching paint dry. Especially, if you are sitting on the peak of the volume histogram on your DOM. NQ and YM swings much more since they have less liquidity. Additionally, the larger tick sizes on ES make it much more costly to buy/sell at the market. Personally, I prefer the action on JY. The problem is...it's hard to live with a fixed stop on your ATM. You really have to master trade management and stick with your core setups.
For ES, you should at min being going for 1 point of profit which is 4 ticks. It is true on ES that you will probably not be able to get in on the low or out at the high because the market needs for the most part to trade through a level. When I mean the market I mean the S&P index not the ES future. If the market trades through then on the chart in theory you could get in at the bottom and out at the top. However, there is no need to do that. If you think the market is going up or going down, have a limit order set to go off 1 tick above or below where the ES is currently trading. Then have a limit order to take you out a profit. Plus you have a stop. Only your stop will get you out at market so you may lose an extra tick on slippage or not if the market is moving slowly. Once the order is filled you don't need to watch the market any more, and sometimes I don't. Either your target will be filled or your stop will be hit.