I used to have four accounts, two of them were high margin. Took me a few years to figure out that this was completely stupid. I will not name any brokers.
You trade with Ironbeam? What's their RT comm for ES? I hate when brokers don't post their commissions publicly
I don't start from leverage, I start from the risk I want to take. I calculate the total cost of a losing trade and the risk percentage that I accept for that loss. This is an example for ES with a $5,000 account. As I can only trade entire contracts, I round the number of contracts up or down. So 0 till 0.5 rounded down, +0.5 rounded up. So for 2 contracts ES I need a margin between $2,100 and $3,400 per contract. The risk goes from 13.21% till 8.16%. If I feel that the risk for a specific trade is to high, I just take 1 contract less. At the start I compounded till I reached a certain level and from then on I took out my profits on a regular basis. So I don't compound eternally. The advantage is that after a few weeks I had enough profits to avoid going broke. From that moment on I ccould wipe out my account and start again by using my profits to fund my account again. I will never trade the ES with $500 margin. To me that sounds insane. Because that would mean that my risk for 1 loss would be around 55% of my account.
Hello hilmy83, Yes, I have. Good service too. The commission, I forgot but it was fair. ES is very good instrument to trade, commission not so much to worry. ES margins is low enough to get you rich man quickly and fast man. We are very lucky to trade the ES.
Hello Overnight, Well, we have to get rich, and we have to get rich quickly buddy. The ES future market is the only way. It is best to figure out how to win in ES future market. We do not have a choice.
There is always a choice. There are plenty of other CME instruments with low day-trading margins, like NQ, HO, RB, YM, CL, LE (well not so much on movement there), GC, 6E, MGC, and all other micros as well. We do not have to get rich quickly. We just have to make profits consistently, and the rich part will follow naturally.
Hello Overnight, Yes, we have to get rich quickly. If you take too long, then you never get there. That is why the future markets exist, to get rich quickly. You do not have a choice
Hello Overnight, No there is no other choices. If you have too many choices, then how can you get rich quickly. You spend too many years on those instruments. Best to stick with ES, with low margins and make it work. Then you become master of one. ES and NQ is the instruments to master and get rich very quickly. And there is no other business to start. So you have to stick to ES futures market.