not sure what weak liquidity you think there is in VX... In the ETH the VX trades only several contracts in a 5 minute window a large portion of the time and slippage will cost you. The other ugly thing is you are required to use a stop limit. VX is a bear for trading in the ETH. I can get short using the ES/NQ/YM with far greater liquidity and not have to worry about slippage or the stop/limit rule. Even if you have an extra tick of slippage on the YM/NQ you only eat $5, on the VX it is $50.
$50 per trade doesnt make sense for day trade or swing trade. One vix future contract just worth around 10,000, $50 is 0.5%.
I agree. For trading intraday the futures suck. The ETFs/ETHs are much more efficient. When you have instruments trading 20 million shares a day with penny spreads, why would you screw around with a futures contract? It certainly hasn't worked for me.
If anyone here is goint to trade futures, you should learn to check with the exchange website to find the increments they trade in, the value of each increment and any other important information like hours of trading, expiration, what happens on expiration etc. Since IB is your brokers, you will have to check with them to see required margin, as they have a different set of requirements for day trading and overnight positions that might or might not match the exchange requirements. VX futures trade in $0.05 increments not $0.01. Each point is worth $1000 and each increment is worth $50. VX futures trade over 22 hours a day and have better tax treatment than ETFs. They are pure products rather than a derivative that few can understand the value of. Margin on near term VX is higher than longer dated VX and more volatile and has more volume. I'm not suggesting you just jump into trading futures, but you should learn more than the tick size.
If i use all the money in my IB account to day trade multiple times a day, does IB consider I borrow money with margin after the first trade in a day?
You don't borrow money when you day trade equities. Do you only borrow money if you hold positions over night that are greater than your liquidating equity.
Sorry was referring to the switches, I do not trade them outright which is basically taking a guess on market direction, or simply trading ES. I would not recommend trading a month outright for day trading.