just an odd question that came into my mind. not to age anyone but can anyone remember the margin requirements of any futures in the 90s. was day trading margin available? emini s&p when it first came out? thank you.
1) Margins for physical commodities tended to be around 5% of the contract value. Bond and note margins tended to be about 3.5% and 3%, respectively, of the contract value. 2) I am not sure of that. 3) ?......8% to 10% of the contract value.
I remeber the margin on the full S&P500 (1 pt=$500) got around 14k just before the e-mini came out. In fact that was one of the reasons. I think it was around $2-3k when I started trading.
Recalling from memory... futures leverage has for a long time has been about 12-20x... with about 16x being most common... except for Bonds... higher because of lower volatility.