LMAO!!! Come on JJ for someone of your intellect and stature, that can spot that blowing 1/3 of your account isn't the way forward and can disect exactly why, I really hope you would be able to figure out the the future value of something (which you can trade in a "future contract") is the underlying value (or spot) + interest (between now and the exp of futures contract) - dividend. F= U + I - D
, now comes the stalking. *** Gnome actually nailed the calculations osho67, I (on the other hand) just pulled the info off of the PDF that I uploaded in the middle of the night to help you figure-out your question, with the hope that others would come along and elucidate further on the subject matter. It just so happens that your statement "Margin requirement will be a constraint as well because roughly 500 of SPY will require 35000 while 1 contract of ES requires roughly 6000." may be true of your broker, but it isn't true of all (or even most) discount brokers. Overnight margin should exactly equal $3,500 as well. - if this is not the case with your brokerage, you should find one where it is. Purely aside from your question, as a trader, this is very good information to have at your fingertips. There are numerous scenarios where risk can be managed more effectively by working exclusively with ETFs if the S&P E-mini represents too much leverage for a given style of trading, incorporated into a portfolio of stocks if that is more your style, or through a combination of offsetting trades between the futes and the ETFs if you like to hedge-your-bets. Good trading is all about managing risk. Good trading, Jimmy Jam