Trading E-mini

Hi,

Are there any folks on traderji who trade E-minis? I am looking for some initiation advice about which broker and platform, commissions, required account size etc

Thanks,

-- Milind

Looks like I need to do this the hard way. I will post some info here so that it helps next time someone is out to do e-minis.

Brokers - IB, Global Futures, Mirus are some names. Mirus is offering free demo for paper trading with live feed. Commissions range from as low as $4 per lot. Since those folks are discount brokers, not much customer service to be expected of them. Minimum account size is about $5000

Platform - Ninja Trader seems to be one of the favorites. IB has their own platform too. I tried Ninja Trader - order of magnitude better than Odin Diet that I get to use here with my Indian broker.

One contract of E-mini represents equivalent of 50 shares of S&P 500 index. Minimum tick is $0.25. So for a contract, a tick represents $12.50. Total value of the contract at current rate is >$40000. Typical daily range of 2% would mean $800. Intra-day margin required can be as low as $500, but more typically couple of thousand.

Market is open for almost 23 hours a day! So no gaps. But who takes care of your positions while you were sleeping?

Now I am wondering which timeframe to use. For now, I am doing paper trading, so I have infinite money supply (almost). Trading hourly using 60m flow will result in stop losses some 15-20 points away - that is $1000 on loosing trade. The account has to be big enough to deal will several consecutive losing trades which include adds as well.

I have set up Ninja Trader and over next several days, I will try to do paper trading over various time-frames. Unfortunately it (NT) doesn't have P&F charting which I am starting to like very much, lately. There is no connection to Amibroker either as far as I know.

hi milind,

Does mirus ask for credit card details when signing for their free trade demo?
If you are using IB then amibroker can be connected to ninja trader with tws.

Thanks,
Pavan

No, they don't need credit card. And I have read somewhere that you can use the demo as long as you wish. Not sure about that though - Zen Fire, which provides the data, offers demo only for 30 days.

Yes, IB connects well with Amibroker. But haven't looked into what it takes to do a demo account with them.

I trade E-Mini on Us Exchange and use Tradestation as my broker and use their platform (currently TradeStation 8.3) for trading.

Commission for trading the $5 Mini Dow comes to 2.40+ Exchange & Clearing fee 1.82 for each contract.

There are no Platform fees, provided you trade a min of 10 Futures contracts per month else it is $100 for platform fees per month.

Personally I am very happy with the platform and find the matrix order system to be very user friendly and easy to use.

Couple of things I missed out
For trading Futures minimum initial a/c. size required is $5000

Day trading Margins apply
For $5 Dow each tick represents $5, Initial Margin required for Mini Dow is $6875, 50% of this required for day trading.

Check link below for more details on Margins reqd.
http://www.tradestation.com/LW_Reports/report.pdf

In addition TStn charges Market data fees per month depending on the exchanges you choose for getting Real Time data feed for trading. Forex Data Fees are Free.
Link for Market Data Fees:
https://www.tradestation.com/brokerage/market_data.shtm

Platform Fees Link:
https://www.tradestation.com/fees/platform_fees.shtm

Thanks Amar. Have you been trading US Futures for a while, what kind of strategy are you using? strictly intraday or do you carry positions overnight?

-- Milind

If you are paying more then $5 for round trip txn on emini, it is bit too much.
Margin depends from broker to broker. Big brokerage like IB / Tradestation have higher margin need (IB charges $2500 for 1 ES contract). Due to market volatiliy, they had raised this limit in Oct/Nov -08. It just shows that they manage thier risk pretty well.
Other small borkers charge (link ampfutures ) $ 500 for ES contract.
But margin / leverage offered by borker is secondary. We got to know our own limit.
If my acct size is of 10k, and broker is allowing me to trade 20contract. Can I really afford to 20 contracts where each Point move is going to cost $50 contract ie. $1000 for 20 contracts..

So it drills down to your strategy, the expectancy of your stratgy and prudent risk mgmt (account level, as well as trade level).
In my futures trading acct, I split the money in 2 parts.. part 1 is my trading capital or captial towards margin requiremnt based on how many contract I can trade without getting emotional. and Part 2 is my risk capital. My risk per trade is derived as x% of my risk capital i.e Part 2 of my acct. I don't risk x% of my whole acct in one trade.
It has helped me becaues of my small acct size.

Happy Trading

Forgive me, I did not specify the commission correctly
The $2.40 is for round trip + Exch & clearing 1.82 + NFA Fee .02 which comes to about 4.24 per contract.

Hi Milind,
I am still a kind of beginner in E-Mini futures trading. Initially tried trading ES
then switched to mini-Dow.

I trade frequently but my style currently is intraday only, to be more precise scalping only.
I am kind of, still experimenting with a combination of Fibbonacci+moving averages+stochastics. I am basically targetting 10-20 point moves only.

Due to time zone difference and being based in India, I am only trading for a few hours daily and often do not trade if I am maxed out in the day itself.

Regards
Amar