Observation: you should not be thinking about trading live. To say "ever" would be uncharitable, but your education process will likely take years rather than months. There is the ever present danger of your losing all your money.
yes, i know this is risky. that's why i'm using the simulated account, and also asking these questions. i'm glad everyone's been so helpful on this site.
Yes, losses will hurt your account balance for sure. Yes, futures give the ability to trade on massive leverage -- which is why many are attracted to it. If those 2 things are scary, then maybe futures are not the arena you want to be trading in. The selling point / attraction of anything with leverage (futures, options, fx) is the ability to trade something that has a much higher value than what is required to trade the instrument.
i was scared when i thought that buying 1 contract meant going on margin for over 100k, given the value of one contract. but one poster explained it better and now i feel ok with the risk of doing 1-contract trades. i understand i would lose 12.50/tick of loss on each contract. i'm working in a simulated account now. i mentioned i'd be doing sim trades for a few weeks, which may be aggressive. but if i'm losing in my sim account, i'm not going to start risking my capital until i can do better. i'm practicing now and am glad to have found a supportive group on this website to ask questions of, which will help me learn. but I wonder why some are leaving discouraging comments. what's in it for them?
pattyloo, I take it you have a proven strategy for the 1 min time frame you are planning to use? Alot of noise at that time frame, I hope you dont put any protective stops too close to your entries or you will get stopped out all day long. Good Luck
Yeah, I know that bloomberg gives you the contract value. I was pointing out that the contract size is 125,000 EUR.