Dear ET friend I was wonder if with $2000 is it possible to trade , scalp the NQ ES ym And how many contract is the most i will be able to buy with $2000 how much is the whole contract worth helpfully suggestion is greatly appreciated Broker in Mind IB
Anything's possible, but not very likely to get very far on 2k. Global Futures will allow you to trade 4 es if you settle by end of regular session (if you don't hold anything into the evening session), for $500 per daytraded-contract margin. They will also allow you to trade for $300 margin if you agree to pay double the $5 commission. If you've never traded before you'll discover: 1. you need an edge (high probability system) 2. you'll always want to take a profit, no matter how small 3. you'll always want to delay a loss, no matter how big 4. the combination of small wins and big losses will wipe you out immediately, even with an edge
At the start of the day, 11/23/2005, 1 ES contract was worth $50 X 1261.25 = $63,050. At the end of the day the same contract was worth 63,437.50 Global will let you buy/sell that contract for $500 during the day only. In other words..a few bad trades and you will wipe yourself out in one week.
Hi ksonsin, You can scalp the eminis with a $2000 account with some brokers that have $500 margins per contract. (Note: I didn't say you can scalp the eminis successfully with a $2000 account.) However, based on how you've asked your question... You most likely don't have a futures broker account... Nor do you understand that to successfully scalp the eminis your going to need to have commission rates so cheap... Such is not available to someone with a $2000 trading account. That's just for starters. Successful scalpers of the eminis also have excellent/reliable data feeds, broker platform suitable for scalping and other trader equipment suitable for scalping. Then there's the psychological aspect... Those successful scalpers are extremely discipline traders and experience traders... Not trading with a $2000 account. What I'm saying is this... Find out whom here at ET are saying they are successfully scalping the eminis and you should find out what commission rates they are getting, whom the broker is, what execution platform is being used along with all the other costs of doing business as a scalper... Then if you still think your interested in scalping the eminis... Save up a lot more money...get a similar setup as those other successful scalpers to give yourself a small chance of making it. By the way, the main reason why I said the above is that I've read some of your recent past posts here at ET and its obviously your still trying to put some pieces together to figure out what's required to just trade. You mentioned before your going to join a prop firm... Which one have you decided to join ??? P.S. I'm not a scalper. Mark (a.k.a. NihabaAshi) Japanese Candlestick term
As long as you make sure you belong in that 5% winners-category, $2000 will do. Hope this helps, nononsense PS: If it didn't work out, you must have been wrong about your category. You must have really belonged to the 95% losers pack.
Dear Ksonsinc, I started to trade futures with a 2000$ account, only trading one contract per 2000$. I think no matter how good you are...it won't work !! Of course, people warned me to start trading with almost no capital, but I did't listen and started trading anyway... I'm glad I didn't blow up, I even managed to break even and close the account, but it is an experience that I never want to go through again. Even if you have a good system, an edge or whatsoever, the emotional pressure is so high that you will not be able to make good decisions... I wonder why the daytrading rule, i.e. the 25k minimum account, is only applied to stocks, while some brokers will let you trade the mini futures with 500 $. This should be prohibited, because such margins, if completely used up, can destroy you financially within 1 or 2 houres or even seconds, if there is a spike, especially, if you trade the t-bonds, t-notes etc. This is not better than some FX bucketshops offering you a leverage of 200 and more... Today, I would at least deposit 5000 $ as a margin per mini S&P, and this still quite risky.
I trade the ZF (future on 5 year US Government bonds) quite successfully without ever risking more than $1000. To do this I buy an option to limit my downside. Sometime I will trade ES when the options are close to expiry, when insuring my downside is cheaper. The other thing you need to do if you want to trade with $2000 is trade congested markets. That means no trading during news releases and very little during pit hours. Focus on the overnight market and you'll have a chance. When trading with $2000 you are trying to make you money last as long a possible so you can develop you trading skills. This isn't a bad approach because you can probably learn as much from $2000 as $20,000 if you make it last long enough; either way you likely to lose it all if your just getting started.
zf trader, how frequently do you trade per day ? Doesn't the spread you pay on the options reduce your profit substantially ? Regards, Marsupilami
For ZF I trade between 2 and 5 round trips on average plus an option trade depending on what the market is giving me. i don't like risking more than $800 per trade. I also tend to trade more contracts closer to expiry. I trade $C as well making maybe 3-5 trades a day on average. I need congestion to trade so the more congestion the more I trade.