Futures emini S&P

Thanks to all, I have collected good information. My main concern was that if I open an account to trade e mini sp with a margin account of 5000 I own a debt for the rest of the value of the contract. Which is something that i do not like at all.

Not sure about the amount but the 5000 was just an example.

I will go to an online broker and ask for a simulated account.

Joaquin

 

you're doing it right. Keep in mind, almost nobody in the history of the world has ever made a profit trading e minis starting with 5k, but better to start with 5k and learn than to start with 10k and learn.

After you get comfortable paper trading ES, check out a little forex. I think you will find that more to your liking.

 

The only way I can think of that you could owe the entire value of the emini contract (approx $65k) would be if the S&P went to zero.

But yeah, in the case of a 9/11 type scenario you could end up losing more than your account value. Like others have said, very unlikely but still possible.

The Flash Crash was another scary scenario. If you're a day trader who's in and out fairly quickly and always watching your trades without leaving the computer, then most likely you could sidestep a situation like that easily. But if you were playing knife-catcher that's another story. The Flash Crash is actually why I will not consider swing trading futures.

I have heard stories of people losing their houses or cars because of being overleveraged in the futures markets. Had to pay back the debt somehow, and the only way to was to sell their stuff. I dont know if some of those stories are urban legends or not but it is possible.

 

but on the list of things to worry about, that is way down on the bottom

 

Strongly disagree.

Forex is just as hard to trade as anything else, and you're dealing with a shady market with no rules and scammy brokers, fake liquidity pools, padded spreads, the house betting against you, etc.

The ONLY advantage Forex has going for it is that you can trade very small size, like 1 cent per pip small.

But it's not enough to overcome all the other negatives.

If you want to trade currency, trade currency futures. Unfortunately, they force you into leverage.

There are the micro currency futures but they don't have very good volume so the spreads suck.

 

I will check out Forex, because of what I 've read I thought that the best option was e-mini S&P.

Thanks.