My goal is to make $50 per day trading and scalping mainly in the pre-market. How much would I need in my brokerage account in order to achieve this goal?
Some brokers require $50 to daytrade 1 contract of MES or MNQ. A 1 pt. profit is $5 (before commissions) with 1 contract of MES. Trade a $500 account with 10 contracts of MES and a 1 pt. profit will get your $50 goal (excluding commissions).
It is not the amount of money in your brokerage account that will determine if you make $50 a day, but your skill set. Money is never the problem.
Account size depends on your probability of ruin. The larger the account and the smaller the risk, The less likely you’re gonna go bust. Depends on your statistics but … I’d say 10,000$ max. Make or lose 1% average 0.5% Maybe 2,000$ ? Make or lose 5% average 2.5% Maybe 1,000$ ? Make or lose 10% average 5% Would you be able to avoid going bust with a 500$ account ? Then go for it. We can’t tell for you. It’s based on your potential. Your aptitude to take risk and make moonies.
LOL you beat me to it. OP is asking the wrong question. If a trader has a great money making strategy he can turn small account into a big one real soon.
In my modest but very long experience, there is no such thing as "$X a day" in trading. The thing that will determine if you make or lose money is how far you let your winners ride and how soon you cut your losers. Especially the last one.
Yeah was about to write this: The concerning bit is the OP writes "make X/day", because financial returns are not well behaved (not even normal). The make X/day guys either forego a lot of potential by quitting once reaching X, and/or tend to risk asymmetric left tail returns that aren't balanced by capping right tail outcomes, that eventually end up putting their acc in the red (OK that's just my interpretation). You want to stay in on the rare days you can make 100X.
Those are really low requirements. Looking at the specs on the CME group. How can those brokers ask for only that small amount to trade? Are you really trading futures there or is it some kind of synthetic market following the price? Regarding OPs question: if you really can make 50 a day, every single day, you won't need to worry about anything. I doubt that you can do that.
Some days you might lose $100 and have to quit for the day. Some months you might lose $1000 and have to quit for the month. To make on average $50 a day you would need triple the overnight margin, around $6,000 for MNQ.