Hello all, I am really happy to have found your forum as I have always been interested in trading but have no idea how or where to start. I do have some basic questions though: 1. how much does one YM contract cost? With $5000 would I be able to purchase one contract, 2 maybe? 2. If I open an saccount with $5000 how much margin I would have for futures trading? Thank you very much for your time and answers. JH
Intraday you can trade with $500 margin per contract. If you hold through closing the margin jumps to $2700. For more info on trading YM start here http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/cont_detail/0,3206,1180+17719,00.html
As the above post says, www.cbot.com is a great resource. Spend some time there and educate yourself on the basics of what you are thinking of trading. www.cme.com is good as well for the other popular indexes.