Wondering how much leverage do you use in your trading? For example for every 13k I trade 1 ES contract.
yes, thanks. I guess that would be two polls then. Just curious about the leverage other traders use. Either day or overnight would do.
way less than 5k per contract for daytrades. why not maximize your leverage, in a safe maner ?? that is the name of the game. best, surfer
i would have expected more conservative numbers. what are people using for swing trades? so basically, suppose 3k per ES in a 60k account, a 2 point stoploss on 20 contracts would be 3% risk on the account. something seems a little top heavy to me about holding $1,032,500 worth of futures in a $60,000 account. is this less risky than i think? i've been swing trading one contract per 6-7k, and feeling way too much heat on this level during drawdowns.
IMO $3000 per NQ with $1125 intraday margin leaves plenty of room for drawdown plus the possibility of a comms disaster that puts you into overnight $2250 margin and the risk of a 20 point death spike. What you want, I believe, is to maintain control of your account by not getting sold out. A REAL (Black Swan) disaster is going to take you out no matter how much money you have in a reasonably sized account.
A "REAL" disaster may be going to take you out, but it will not be taking me out. You know, I've been around quite a number of years at this point. I've seen alot of guys carried out. Almost always it's due to overtrading and overleverage. And the guys who make the big dough through overtrading and overleverage, almost always lose it to the same. In other words, it's a bad habit that gets you in the end. My suggestion is that if there is something that is going to 'take you out', that you rethink your trading plan so that it won't be able to 'take you out'. OldTrader
I think the difference between day trading and longer term trading of futures must be better addressed here. 3k$/NQ for a daytrade is very reasonable if you are good and have reasonable drawdowns. Trading futures overnight..... well... I would say you'll eventually get a nasty suprise, even with globex the liquidity is not there overnight (in a large panic) and also are you going to watch a long term position every minute of every day (and even then a weekend disaster could do you in...). Moral of the story? Lots of relative leverage vs. your account balance overnight will eventually bite you in the rear, thus I would keep it real small for overnighters or even better don't use much leverage at all! A good daytrader will be hard pressed to totally blow out during the day with moderate leverage unless he/she freezes up or the original risk profile is totally ludicrous. In either case that individual is just a ticking timebob, hopefully they can defuse themselves before they go off (although odds are it is unlikely). Goodluck,