There are no "points" charged by (most) brokers... there is a broker commission, an exchange fee and a NFA fee, per contract. At many/most firms that cater to day trading, for the mini contracts, like ES, 1 tick covers RT costs with a few bux leftover. For micro contracts, depending on product, 1 to 3 ticks are required to cover RT costs. Of course, the commission component is potentially negotiable.
Ok, I'll bite. Why the hell would you do this? First, it's called shorting the box, and we used it to avoid the uptick rule back in the day before it became illegal. Second, there's no uptick rule in futures so it's not necessary, but it's still illegal. Third, it's illegal. Fourth, if breaking the rules is the only way you can make money, well, good luck to you in life in general.
Low margins... is a fools game. The only reasonable positions size is the position you do not care you win or lose and do not lose any sleep over it. You do not get at that stage if you use low margins. Even with widely diversity in your portfolio, you should never ever base your positions on how low the margins are. Manny long term ( as in years of experiences) traders take the full contract as a basis for their risk calculations.
First of all, these are "day trading" margins. Hence, you can't hold your position overnight. If you don't close out your trade before the close, it will be force liquidated (for which you will also need to pay for). Second, any time your account drops below the minimum account threshold (which I think is like $50) during the day, it will also get liquidated. So if your account balance dips below $50, you're pretty much done at that level. You won't be able to open another position before your account is back above $550
What??? Unless you have two trading accounts, this ain't possible. When you buy and then subsequently sell, it will just simply close your trade. But then as @Robert Morse already stated, why the hell would you even do this? You'll only rack up commissions.
Wrong, some brokers allow hedging, you can also do it with short/long dated futures, and the commissions are insignificant to the market knowledge gained, but as everyone trades on the wire this makes the all difference to them, if you don't trade/invest like that it's irrelevant. Offsetting trades allow you to see in to the markets when you're not looking, try it overnight, it's fascinating, I can make a newbie student out-trade anyone here instantly, I was generating 50% per quarter seeding a new fund doing exactly this, so much simpler when you're generating marginal returns
1. Name a broker 2. For the most part, only the front month can be traded for ES. Only time you can trade the dated futures is in the final 2 weeks before the rollover. I long ES and short NQ sometimes, but offsetting the same instrument is pretty counterintuitive. Anyway, to each his own.
Suppose I want to be long ES based on today's breakout. I think ES is going 200 points higher. I want to hold contracts long for that swing. Now, suppose tomorrow after CPI data is released, I get a signal on a five-minute ES chart to go short. I want to day trade that swing. How do I do both trades, same instrument, same account, without liquidating the long ES that I put on today? Even if there were a way to identify lots and liquidate by last in first out, it is so much easier t have one account for what is effectively more of a "buy and hold strategy," and another for day trading where I might be in and out of the market, trading both long and short, and be done by 10:30 AM.