[cosmic]

good point rcfran, we are not looking for homeruns, but consistently green days...this will build an account up...just look at friday morning, the bsc trouble gave you the chance to be done in 30 mins.

[Armand]

Originally Posted by OAC »

Do you know that 50 contracts controls about $3 million. A 1% move, which can easily happen in less than a couple hours given today's volatility, means a $30,000 swing in your account.

Would someone please explain what this means? I'm not quite sure I understand and it seems very important...

[Sparrow]

This is because you only have to pay a margin on futures to buy a contract unless you take delivery. But price changes take full effect on your account not only the money you had to pay for buying the contracts.
e.g. E-mini S&P: $12.5 per tick * 50 contracts = $750 per tick
It just takes 10 S&P points to lose 30k, that's less than 1% at the moment.

[OAC]

Originally Posted by Armand »

Would someone please explain what this means? I'm not quite sure I understand and it seems very important...

Originally Posted by OAC »

Do you know that 50 contracts controls about $3 million. A 1% move, which can easily happen in less than a couple hours given today's volatility, means a $30,000 swing in your account.

Sorry that was written a couple months ago, now it is more like a couple of minutes instead of a couple of hours.

[treydog]

I hate to resurrect a dead thread but this is the topic I was looking for.

I am mostly concerned about fill times i only trade 1-2 contracts of ES. But have had a lot of problems with fills as the posters above noted. I have not tried the YM but what is the difference? I have placed a couple of orders and both my ES and YM get filled at close to the same time (a few seconds) but that was only a couple of times. I am hoping someone can give me deeper insight into the differences in fill times on trading the ES vs YM at small contract sizes 5 contracts or less.

[BlueHorseshoe]

Originally Posted by brownsfan019 »

That is open for debate.

If you lease a seat (or purchase one) and get your commissions under $3 round trip and focus on the ES, I think slippage is not an issue.

It's not really necessary to be an exchange member to get commissions below $3 per round trip if trading a significant number of contracts, is it? I'd have thought most brokers could be talked down from their headline rate by someone flipping contracts at the rate the thread starter suggests.

I'd be really interested to hear more of your thoughts on slippage in the ES - are you saying that most market orders will be filled without any slippage?

Thanks

BlueHorseshoe

[BlueHorseshoe]

Originally Posted by Er2Junkie »

I developed trading systems for funds which scalp the market and they play orders at the beginning of the day and pull them once the price gets close so when they need them they are first in line on the ES.

I am currently exploring this idea myself, having read about it in a book on HFT. The difficulty seems to be in 'sweeping away' unwanted orders ahead of time. Would you be willing to share any information about how this concept can be implemented? Is it possible within the confines of the retail platforms (or TS, specifically), or are bespoke software/hardware solutions required?

Many thanks,

BlueHorseshoe

[steveh2009]

For the small trader, the CL is the premier scalping instrument. Once you start looking at that, the e-minis won't hold much interest unless the VIX gets over 30.