TOP40 Futures on DWT

[earlyret]

Hi, A question for those of you trading TOP40 futures on DWT. What is the max amount of contracts that you guys trade, or what amount is manageable? 1, 5, 10, 50 ??

[Ninja]

Depends on your risk profile and cash sum.....I trade the Dow, TOPI and FTSE on Idealcfds and use between 2 and 6 mini contracts per trade.

[Electrox]

Ideally you want 30k in your account to manage 1 Contract trades. so basically multiply the margin requirement by 2 for each contract you want to trade. But it all comes back the total risk per trade relative to the account size.. I dont risk more than 1% of my capital on any 1 trade on DWT.

[earlyret]

Lets just talk about managing the number of contracts... is it easy enought to buy and sell, say 50 contracts, assuming you've taken care of the risk management side of things.

[earlyret]

and you have enough cash buffer... say R30k per contract?

[Electrox]

Are you asking me how much money i have??hehe. Look the size/contracts that you trade or manage is totally irrelevent. its the risk you allow on each trade that your total account size can handle to realise the long term results of the specific edge(s) you are trading.

[earlyret]

Yes, how much bucks you got? HAHA Just kidding. Would I be able to trade, buy or sell, 50 contracts at a time. Would there be buyers and sellers for 50 at a time, 100 at a time? Talking day trading.

[john_1]

you need a MINIMUM of 100k per contract..

[earlyret]

OK, so if I've got R5 Mil, would those 50 contracts be able to be traded easily enough?

[#10]

Yes , about 700 already traded in from 8h30 till now (13 minutes)

[earlyret]

Cool. Thanx!

[john_1]

with 50 contracts you buying about 125 000 000 rands worth of market exposure.. do you have the balls for those kinds of capital swings...the point is the limit is not the liquidity of the market but rather the quality of the ice in your veins.

[#13]

Semantics, but I think John got his notional wrong. 1 Contract = Index level * R10. Thus 1 contract = approx R230,000. 50 contracts would then be R11,500,000. Or maybe it's just too early for me.

[john_1]

shoot me.. I rounded up to 250 000. The point is a 2% swing on the alsi is going to be a big chunk of cash. The other point is with 5 contacts catchig 100 points a day you making about a million bucks a year ... do you really need to diploy 50 contracts.

[earlyret]

I think the ice in my veins is probably melted with all the rum & coke. I was thinking of a more conservative 40 pts a day... that would require 10 contracts to get to R1 mil a year...

[john_1]

may I suggest you start with one, If you can pick up 40 points consistantly then add accordingly..rather start small and let your veins chill with time.

[earlyret]

Thats what I'm currently trying to do. Thanx