i'm confused by the pricing. It's like 1.3296/contract. In options, I would multiply that by 100 to get $132.96 actual cost/contract. But, I don't understand the multiplier for these futures contracts. Furthermore, I'm told I only need a $500 account balance to trade them, which I know means I'm getting margin for day-trading. But, I'd like to know how much I'm 'borrowing' on margin. Thanks, and sorry for the newbie question. I've googled this and can't seem to find an answer.
http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/g10/euro-fx_contract_specifications.html It's amazing at what info the actual exchange provides...
thanks for the link. i had found that myself, but being new to futures, i still don't understand what 1 ES contract costs in actual dollars. i know the price changes tick-by-tick. but, it must be some multiple of the price quoted, right? i see that a contract is 125,000 euros. does this mean the cost of 1 contract = 125,000 euros? i'm coming from an options background, where we pay for intrinsic value plus time value, which is much cheaper than buying the stock. but by using options, we can control the shares just as if we owned them. i'm assuming it is similar for futures, but i just don't understand it yet. i'd prefer not to go on margin at all, and with options, i have stayed away from margin. but, it sounds like 1 ES contract may be more expensive than i could afford without margin.
I understand pricing on ES is about $1300/contract. i'm confused about the 6E series. Sorry if I said ES instead of 6E in my question.
Are you sure? It's $50 x E-mini S&P 500 futures price, so the contract size/notional is actually about 65k.
thanks for that info on the es. i did think it was 1300/contract. didn't know about multiplying that by 50. do you know the cost of the 6E?
dont confuse margin with contract value. 1 6E contract is the equivalent of 125,000 USD or 125,000/1.4510= 86,147 EUR then 500 USD is the margin, that you need to have in your account to buy 1 contract. that is not a price. on other brokers you need to have 2500 USD for the same contract. that is only a deposit. 1 ES contract has the value of 50 x (actual price) = around 65,000 USD the margin (u call it the price) is from 500 to 3000, depending on vroker
No Contract Specifications The full contract specifications for the EUR futures market are as follows : Symbol (IB / Sierra Chart Format) : 6E (EUR) Expiration date (as of February 2011) : March 14th 2011 (the second trading day before the third Wednesday of every third month) Exchange : GLOBEX Currency : USD Multiplier / Contract value : $125,000 Tick size / Minimum price change : 0.0001 Tick value / Minimum price value : $12.50 >> you see contract value? 125.000 USD