As I mentioned in my introductory thread, I'm dipping my toe into the futures market.

I'll be starting to trade the MES for two reasons. 1) The contract sizes are small. 2) I'm starting with a tiny pool of capital and want something to trade an instrument that has much smaller moves than lets say the ES.

I will be starting with $1000USD in my trading account. Yes it is small, but this is the amount of money I am willing to put at stake to learn how the markets works. This is my "tuition" money for my first semester at the Futures College.

As of this post, the MES is currently at 2800. With the amount of money I am putting to work, that allows me a maximum draw down of about 7% with 1 contract before I get wiped out.

For now, I will only utilize one contract and one contract only per trade. The margin is already tight as it is.

My goal is to break even on all my trades. With the amount of leverage I have, I need to be careful. Risk management and capital preservation are my two main focal points to start. If I make money, fantastic.

Thinking down the road, what would be an appropriate amount of margin to have available when trading 2 MES contracts? I was thinking $3000USD as it would allow me a 10% cushion on my trades. I'm not trying to live on the bleeding edge and trade with the minimum amount of margin possible.

I eventually want to graduate to the trading the ES contracts. However when playing with the bigger boys, I will only be comfortable with a 10% cushion ($14,000 USD Margin) per contracts.

I am excited to see how this journey plays out.

Good luck with your trading!