Day trading margin

C2
1


What’s the maximum number of Russell e-mini contracts that can be traded at one time with a $100,000 account?



Thanks,

Jack

2

The maximum number of Russell e-mini contracts that can be traded at one time can be computed as follows:



contract size = $100,000 / brokerage_margin_requirement

3

HI Lew,



You said:

"The maximum number of Russell e-mini contracts that can be traded at one time can be computed as follows:



contract size = $100,000 / brokerage-margin-requirement."



Yes, but here we aren’t using a broker, right? So doesn’t Collective act as a broker and determine the day trading margin?

4

Typing “collective2 margin requirements” into google yields the following:



http://www.collective2.com/cgi-perl/session.mpl?session=69sex&displaypage=faq.sessionhtml



"For futures, we use SPAN margins. Collective2 automatically goes out and downloads the latest SPAN data files a minimum of once each day, so you can be assured that we calculate accurate future margin requirements. When normalizing P/L results against margin requirements, we use initial net margins which are always higher than maintenance margins. (Of course, if the maintenance margins increase above the initial margins, the system will recognize this.)"



If you’re not familiar with google, you might try a similar tactic for chasing down the actual SPAN margin numbers.

5

I admit it might be nice to actually display each contract’s margin. I’ll try to add that soon.

6

Margin would be an EXCELLENT addition. Especially in the track record, as a column. One contract of corn can appear next to one contract of big S&P. They are not comparable without margin…