Trading E-Mini's

So is trading E-Mini's as easy as buying at a certain price and selling at a higher price (or lower for a loss)?

Do you have to have current price*$50 to purchase one contract, or can you just invest 10k, 20k, etc in?

 

I assume you refer to the S&P e-mini (ES).. No you don't have to have that amount (Price * $50) to long or short a contract. brokers' margin ranges from $500 - $2000 to trade a contract intraday, so with this amount you can trade though you really should have more captial than that.

 

Thanks. on the first question, I guess what I'm confused on, is in reading all the documentation on the CME site, it says you trade a contract for a certain price on a certain date... so do you have to keep that contract until that date or can you sell on any day, or more specifically, and time after you buy. For example I bought a contract this morning when the dow opened at 10,484.84, and then when it hit 10,534.84, 50 points higher, can I sell?

Thanks

 

Also, is that buying a full contract on margin? or are you just buying $500-$2000 worth or a contract?

 

http://www.nfa.futures.org/investor/UOR/UOR11margins.pdf

http://www.nfa.futures.org/investor/uor-main-toc.asp

 

Thank you, all answers in my head on the differences in margin on equity and futures is answered.

I am still a little fuzzy on the buying and selling part though... I must have ADD because after 10 minutes of reading all I see is "blah blah blah".....

 

You can buy and sell at any time without having to wait until the expiration. The end result is your profit and loss per that day.

Per your example, you bought 'mini' Dow contract and made 50 points. the per point value is $5 so you made 50 * $5 = $250 today

 

Why is the point per value $5 instead of $50?

 

No,, you are buying a full contract always. You can never buy a partial contract. Regardless of how much your capital is, your trade and the end result is based on a full contract.

If you start with $5K, and you long 1 e-mini S&P contract,, let's say at 1200.00. Later in the day the price moved to 1203.00, you made a profit of 3 ES points. Your $ profit is + $150. Your new equity balance = $5K + $150 = $5,150 ( of cource, minus comm.)

 

Now when buying and selling, are you going off the current dow quote, or the 'future' dow quote?