Quick questions: 1. where is the cheapest place to trade these 2. what are the commissions for a roundtrip 3. what are the margin requirements (cash req) to open an active account Any answers appreciated
Cheapest I have found is IB brokers. The cost is $4.80 round trip. You may want to either look around for other brokers or open up a seperate account in case IB goes down. If you are trading and IB goes down, you will not be able to get a hold of anyone fast enough for futures trading. The only way around this is to open up a seperate account elsewhere and, in those rare emergency cases, open a position opposite of your IB position and "lock the market." This won't always work if the market moves hard against you, but it is the only method I know to freeze serious losses from occuring. Oh, and you are looking at a minimum of $2,500 to trade one contract and another few thousand for cushion. I am in your shoes since I will be trading ES very shortly and starting a journal. aphie
I'm new at trading, and am wondering what e-minis are and how they work. Is there a place to read up on them?
FFastTrade is $3.32 a round turn. You also have a monthly fee of $550, but it is quickly amortized over the month if you trade multiple lots with multiple turns. Blows away IB.
Most places it is less than $2,000 for margin. Different requirements for minimum maintenance account balance.
aplogies for the delay in providing this deeply esoteric link i cam up with specially for you... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=e-mini
Thanks for the intro info on e-minis... which brokers offer e-minis? Do all online brokers allow you to trade them? And which ones are better.