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I tend to dislike unregulated markets, as there are risks I can't quantify. Also, in my (limited) experience trading spot forex through IB and TDA (both, I believe, reputable), it seems that there's just too much adverse movement, leading to stop runs, that I don't see on the currency futures. It's been a while since I last traded spot forex, though.
Regarding using a $600 account for micro futures. Take the Euro futures for example. They have a notional value of 12.5k usd. That means you'd be trading with about 20x leverage, which is *a lot*, especially for swing trading.
Let's now think about what you would have to endure. For the sake of this simple calculation, let's assume an average daily movement of about 50 pips. That translates into about a $60 change in your account balance, daily.
In other words, even with just 1 micro contract in the $600 account, we're talking about a +/- 10% daily movement!
Given that your plan is to swing trade, it's not unreasonable to imagine maybe 3 or 4 daily losses in a row. And then, you are almost out - no more money to even trade a single micro contract!
So, it's not only the overnight margin that you have to think about, but also what is your risk of ruin. Leveraging at 20x, you have a very high probability of blowing out that account!
Thanks @bfreis I see what you mean as, unlike spot forex, even with micro currency futures the minimum you can trade is one contact. With spot you have the flexibility of going down to micro or nano lots.
In terms of leverage, living in the U.K., I'm used to quite generous leverage. Currently you get 30 to 1 for a major currency pair although you can dial this down by controlling your position or lot size.
What do you consider as the most leverage you would take on trading futures and what would you regard as the bare minimum to start with micro currency futures?
I tend to agree with @Rrrracer. A $5k-ish account would make me feel comfortable for swing trading something like M6E.
Thag would mean a 2.5x leverage. For something that moves 0.5%-1.5% daily, that would mean typically no more than a 4% move in the portfolio balance in a day. I can (and do!) live with that
But then, again, each one has their own personal risk tolerance.
Many thanks for your replies, this has really cleared up a few things for me in terms of assessing account size in relation to the futures instrument one wishes you trade.
So by definition, does this indicate that you'd need a $50,000 account you trade the main 6E futures?
For purely direction swing trading, sounds like a reasonable risk parameter to me (again, personal risk appetite). That would mean, like in the M6E example, about 2.5x leverage, which feels to me like a pretty reasonable amount of leverage for swing trading.
In reality, what I typically do is slightly different. I typically add many positions into my account, including futures in multiple markets as well as options. That way I have a very "dynamic" risk exposure - I have directional exposure, volatility exposure, and intra- and inter-market correlation exposure.
For example, right now I have a position in Gold future options that would be "equivalent" (in terms of purely directional exposure) to about a 10x leverage (ie, the "dollar amount" of exposure is about 10x my account size). But because of the combination of options I bought and sold, the dynamics of the position are quite different than "10x the daily changes of gold prices". The daily changes are smaller than that, and they fit into my risk parameters.
Similar thing with Crude Oil futures - I have a relatively complex position, spanning multiple months in 2019, using futures and options. The purely directional exposure equivalent (i.e., "how many barrels of crude oil I 'control'") is way beyond multiples of my account size, but the dynamics of the position make them fit into my risk parameters.
So, I'd say, starting out, yeah, that ratio you mention sounds reasonable (one 6E contract per $50k in the account). As you learn about and add more instruments into your account, that number might evolve over time!
You can trade the US overnight session can't you? Sometimes there are some good strategies that setup intraday in the overnight US session. You can also swing trade, your stop will be much wider depending on which time frame your setup is on.
It just depends, there can be setups and then it can be slow. From what I noticed, the setups overnight are for the most part pretty clean, and fit my trading methodology. I trade during the day only.