[hanz]

In your opinion,how much one has to spend/prepare to jump into the path trading?

Trading what? Knowing what you are trading is as important as how to trade it. A little more info on what you are planning to trade would be helpful to answer your question.

[hanz]

futures/forex/CFD/Warrants...

whatever is accesible for a small guy

i've a scalping strategy

p.s: I've been demo all along and plan to go live

[Sledge]

Hanz-
If you are highly skilled with your Risk Reward Ratio/money management/discipline you would be able to start with less. If you are not, I would start with more capital.

Example you say: Sure- If you enter a trade, set your S/L upon entering at a determined percentage of your account size or dollar amount, and then you have the ability not to move it or tweak it- then you can start with less- if not, I'd start with more.
Aaron

[goumie]

What if you wanted to trade individual stocks. Would 40k in a margin account be a decent start?

[sevensa]

Originally Posted by goumie »

What if you wanted to trade individual stocks. Would 40k in a margin account be a decent start?

To be brutally honest, if you are asking questions like this, this means you have no system, no plan and no backtesting and you should not even think about trading until you do. If you do, you would have a pretty good idea what account size you need for your type of trading and goals.

Originally Posted by goumie »

What if you wanted to trade individual stocks. Would 40k in a margin account be a decent start?

PDT rule says $25K is the account mininum for daytrading equities.

Good luck.

[goumie]

Sorry I should have stated the question more clearly. I know that day trading min is at 25k if you make 4 round trips a week. The question I should have asked is 15k a reasonable cushion above the 25k min. I actually do not plan to do this for about a year while soaking up knowledge and practicing strategies and such and then will I decide whether or not to make the jump but want to know how much I should expect to save. Are equities not the best thing to start with? Any feedback is appreciated.