Question on trading E-mini

Hey, everyone. I'm new to this board and to day-trading. Have a question on day-trading e-mini's and was hoping someone who currently trades them could clarify.

I'll use Interactive Brokers as the example. On their margin requirements they have ~$2,000 as the requirement to daytrade one E-mini S&P contract. Does that mean if I deposit $2,000 into an account I can trade one contract as many times during the day as I want to as long as i don't have an open position at the end of the day??

Would also appreciate any other helpful daytrading advice on e-mini's in general. Thanks for your help!

 

That means you can buy one, then sell one, making you flat.

Then you can repeat the process as many times as your finger can hit the mouse, unless you go below the $2K margin.

You obviously could also sell first and then buy.

 

Do you mean unless you go beneath the maintainance which I believe is closer to $1,500?

 

Initial margin is the amount of money required to open a new trade. If you don't have this amount of money then you can open no new trades. Maintenance margin applies to trades that are open. Trades that are open that go below the maintenance margin amount will be closed by the broker or a margin call will be issued. IB doesn't do margin calls - they will just close the position.

 

I am not sure if they would let you put on another position if you fell below $2K, probably not.

 

Thanks for the replies....On another note, if you can successfully daytrade the SPY, can you assume you can successfully trade the emini? I spent all day on Friday watching them together and I don't see why not.

 

emini will be more volatile than spy, but if you can trade spy successfully you should be able to trade the emini. just throw some one lots around until you get used to it.

 

I would think you would do better; after you pay a little tuition.

 

Correct me if i'm wrong, but, isn't the leverage on an emini better than the leverage offered at these prop firms (Bright/Echo)? In my mind I think momemtum daytrading the emini is easier and less stressful than scalping stocks....plus, I only need to have a $4,000 account to trade the equivilent of $112,000 in a liquid market on just 2 eminis. Can anyone give me a reason why a prop firm would be an advantage to this?

 

you could be trading 8 emini S&Ps for $4,000 or even more contracts - with some brokers when u start out and with others when they see your risk/reward strategy