I would love to do a brokerage comparison on this site. I'll go first. I use TD Ameritrade, they let me trade the ES, the S&P mini contract. I started out telling them I wanted to limit it at 100K, and that lets me trade up to 20 of the mini contracts at a time. Each contract bought or sold represents $50 per S&p point. So for example, if I buy 10 contracts and sell for a 6 point gain, I make $500 per point, so $3K.
At TD Ameritrade, the commission per trade (each buy and sell) is roughly 2.65 plus a .70 exchange fee. So if I buy a contract , and sell at a 1 point profit, commissions eat almost 7 bucks of the $50, but if I hold on for 10 points, it's only $7 0f $500.
I also can trade gold futures ($33 per point), and Nazdaq futures ($20 per point): the commissions are slightly less, I think.
The large contract is $3500 per point, I think, so you would need to put up a $350 k limit I guess. Ameritrade doesnt trade the large. I like the flexibility of the small contracts, I can size into and out of positions much more easily.
Thats it for me, I'd love to hear what others are doing |
