Hi all,
Over the past few weeks I have been building a trade management system for trading 4 CL contracts. Essentially along the lines of, 2 quick offloads to cover brokerage and move up stop at their trigger, from then any price movement is either positive or makes no difference; if it goes the wrong way I have not lost anything but if it does continue up it gets my other contracts prof targets and starts trailing a good few ticks up. Stop is kept tight so on wrong calls the loss is minimal.
I would just like to ask a few questions about how big your account size should be for trading like this.
For example if I look at IB, it appears I would need 2,500 margin for each contract just to enter the position. 4 * $2,500 = $10,000. Then $1,900 to maintain the position: 4 * $1,900 = $7,600.
Generally I like to have 2 trades running at the same time. I have been trading DAX index futures also in sim at the same time as my CL trades. What a shock i got when I saw the margin reqs for that...
I am planning on starting off with a $25k account, which I thought was reasonable for part time evening trading, I am now starting to think it may not be enough...
What are your thoughts on account size and margin with futures? Is a 4 contract CL trade reasonable with a 25k account, or is that too many contracts for what is really a small account? Technically is it doable, but is it really a good idea to have so much of your account tied up in margin?
Also, I notice other places like Mirus futures offer CL for $500 margin, which seems attractive, what are the pitfalls to these brokers?
Any help would be appreciated.
Over the past few weeks I have been building a trade management system for trading 4 CL contracts. Essentially along the lines of, 2 quick offloads to cover brokerage and move up stop at their trigger, from then any price movement is either positive or makes no difference; if it goes the wrong way I have not lost anything but if it does continue up it gets my other contracts prof targets and starts trailing a good few ticks up. Stop is kept tight so on wrong calls the loss is minimal.
I would just like to ask a few questions about how big your account size should be for trading like this.
For example if I look at IB, it appears I would need 2,500 margin for each contract just to enter the position. 4 * $2,500 = $10,000. Then $1,900 to maintain the position: 4 * $1,900 = $7,600.
Generally I like to have 2 trades running at the same time. I have been trading DAX index futures also in sim at the same time as my CL trades. What a shock i got when I saw the margin reqs for that...
I am planning on starting off with a $25k account, which I thought was reasonable for part time evening trading, I am now starting to think it may not be enough...
What are your thoughts on account size and margin with futures? Is a 4 contract CL trade reasonable with a 25k account, or is that too many contracts for what is really a small account? Technically is it doable, but is it really a good idea to have so much of your account tied up in margin?
Also, I notice other places like Mirus futures offer CL for $500 margin, which seems attractive, what are the pitfalls to these brokers?
Any help would be appreciated.
