I have contacted a few brokers and viewed a few sites and told the maximum position limit on the ES is 20 e-mini contracts. I have also seen individual traders trade much larger sizes sometimes in the thousands for example the flash crash trader Navinder Sarao and My question is how do these guys get to trade such large sizes? What firms allow you to trade larger sizes based on your funds and not a pre-set limit and thus will allow you to grow?
There's no maximum Emini ES futures limit of 20 contracts involving position size unless you misunderstood your broker when they were talking about the capital (money) in your specific trading account. Simply, more money you have in your trading account...more size you can trade. Therefore, position size limit is directly related to the amount of money you have in your trading account during the trading day as a trader. The person name you mention was a professional (not retail) high frequency trader that had a starting account size in the multiple millions of dollars and then grew it much larger prior to hiring a programmer to help him cheat the markets via spoofing. He began his trading career working as a professional trader for a trading firm (Futex) with an obscene account size. Yet, I'm a little confused about if he was the owner or a partner of Futex or he had his own trading firm...a small group of professional traders. wrbtrader
Like @wrbtrader mentioned the 20 limit is probably based on your account size. For example over here, if you have $10,000 you can go long or short intraday 20 contracts using the $500 day trading margins ( I would not recommend that personally but you could....). Most brokers will set maximum order and potion size based on how much capital you are trading with. After that, There are a few terms one need to be familiar with: maximum allowed order size by the CME assuming you have enough margin is: 3000 for the ES per one single order. report able limits if you holding positions overnight are 100 ....
Thanks @wrbtrader & @Cannon_Trading for your responses. I had contacted Ninja trader a few months ago and I was told the max was 20 contracts, that was at the initial inquiry stage, when they had no idea what my account size would be. I also checked a few broker sites and a few of them did actually say on their sites a position limit of 20 contracts so i just stuck to trading CFDs where I can trade larger sizes. I am new to futures but have been trading indices via CFDs for many yrs. I just never saw the need to change to a new platform till recently. A question for you @Cannon_Trading, are your $500 day margin rates same for larger daytrading positions?
Yes up to a certain level and then it depends on the platform, trader history, markets etc. I will PM you.
The limit is 60,000 contracts, far as I can tell. https://www.cmegroup.com/rulebook/files/position-limits-cme.xlsx
Yes position limit is 60k max order size is 3000 you may have to report positions held overnight to the clearing house/ CFTC if you carrying more than a 100.
Usually when I see someone asking questions about large position size and costs like > 100 contracts... I immediately begin thinking that person is a professional trader or the broker will soon change their classification from individual retail to professional trader. Yet, gameplan was only asking about 20 contracts. My question, what position size being traded consistently would tip off a broker that the client should be classified as a professional trader instead of as an individual retail trader ? I ask the above question also because I've seen more angry / confused posts by traders in the past year or so that their classification was changed to professional trader that resulted in increased trading fees. Another question, if an individual open a 500k trading account at Cannon Trading...would that set off a red flag with you guys to watch the trade size if the client initially select individual retail ? The above question is due to lately there's been more stories online about traders having their classification changed from retail to pro although some of those reclassification was linked to prior employment at a professional trading firm although the trader is now individual retail and didn't mention the prior employment in their application to the broker. wrbtrader