E-mini data question

bourbon · May 20, 2005

First of all, I would like to thank you both for being kind enough to reply.

Secondly, I'm gonna go read up more, cause I didn't understand anything either of you posted.

---
let's say I have a 10k account, and do 1 contract (1 lot?) of ES e-mini.

Buy at 1191, sell (close position?) at 1186. No slippages.

I just lost 5 whole points.

That means, I lost 250$ + 5 $ commision (roundtrip).

How is this risky? how did spike500 calculate that I could of nearly lost half my account?

what has the margin (500$ for intraday) have to do with anything?

PitchBlack · May 20, 2005

Quote from bourbon:

First of all, I would like to thank you both for being kind enough to reply.

Secondly, I'm gonna go read up more, cause I didn't understand anything either of you posted.

---
let's say I have a 10k account, and do 1 contract (1 lot?) of ES e-mini.

Buy at 1191, sell (close position?) at 1186. No slippages.

I just lost 5 whole points.

That means, I lost 250$ + 5 $ commision (roundtrip).

How is this risky? how did spike500 calculate that I could of nearly lost half my account?

right?

How much capital will you use to trade 1 mini?
If you use 10K than you risk is 10 times smaller than if you trade with 1K per mini. You can trade already 1 mini with 500$ capital.

So the risk depends on the ratio 1 point loss versus your capital per mini.

DTK · May 20, 2005

Don't know where that calculation came from, but I guess the loss calculation of ~$16% has to do with a comparison to the initial margin of $2000.

Instead of comparing the dollar risk to the margin requirement, it's probably better to measure it as a function of account size, probability of trade success, win/loss ratio, and resultant maximum expected drawdown.

Best,

Quote from bourbon:

First of all, I would like to thank you both for being kind enough to reply.

Secondly, I'm gonna go read up more, cause I didn't understand anything either of you posted.

---
let's say I have a 10k account, and do 1 contract (1 lot?) of ES e-mini.

Buy at 1191, sell (close position?) at 1186. No slippages.

I just lost 5 whole points.

That means, I lost 250$ + 5 $ commision (roundtrip).

How is this risky? how did spike500 calculate that I could of nearly lost half my account?

what has the margin (500$ for intraday) have to do with anything?

bourbon · May 20, 2005

Quote from spike500:

So the risk depends on the ratio 1 point loss versus your capital per mini.

What? where do I go read up to find out what margin has to do with mini; what does it matter if I have 500 or 10k per mini???? i still only loose 250$ if it is 5 point loss?

PitchBlack · May 21, 2005

Quote from bourbon:

What? where do I go read up to find out what margin has to do with mini; what does it matter if I have 500 or 10k per mini???? i still only loose 250$ if it is 5 point loss?

i will explain it with an example:

broker A wants 300$ margin: so a client that trades with 300$ margin loses (250$/300$) 83.33%.

broker b wants 500$ margin: so a client that trades with 500$ margin loses (250$/500$) 50%.

broker c wants 1000$ margin: so a client that trades with 1000$ margin loses (250$/1000$) 25%.

So the loss is always 250$ but the loss in relation to the invested capital defines how much you lose in %.

If you say that you use 10K, than the loss of 250$ will represent only 2.5%.

So the level of risk depends on the amount of money you use for trading 1 contract.

I hope it is clear now.

DaveN · May 21, 2005

Quote from bourbon:

I don't understand (haven't read enough yet, obviously), let's take todays high&low

high 1193.00
Low 1186.00
open 1191.50

so up until now (today), the worst you could of done is lose 5.50 points right?

and 5.50 points is worth 275$

don't tell me it is 5.5 x tens of thousands of dollars.

what am I missing?

Nothing, you are correct, except that on average it's more like twice that difference. spike500's point is correctly trying to help you frame that $275 or $550 loss. That can be a significant percentage of your margin.

Now, you may be framing this in the context of what you can afford to lose. (I hope it's this rather than what you can borrow or take from a credit card, etc.). That's another way to look at it, but that will vary from person to person in their tolerance of drawdowns.

Consider this: it will be very difficult to trade the ES only once per day. This worst case scenario that we are discussing above is misleading. You can lose considerably more than 10 points in the ES if you make more than one trade a day. Unless you are following a strict system, it'll be hard not to make a second or third trade.

As an example, if I use the reasoning above and sum up the loss potential per day across 60 minute bars, the average approaches 30 points, or $1500. Now, six losses is not a stretch. I know several pros for whom six losses in a row can be a daily occurence. What makes them very good is how they manage those losses, and how those compare in relation to their wins.

Consider also that trading 1 ES is the equivalent of trading 1,000 Citi shares, or if you take comparative daily volatility into account, almost 2,000 Citi shares. For anyone just entering the markets, 2000 shares is a lot to start with.....

pun intended.

Fishbird · May 21, 2005

Hi Elite Traders

And dont forget, that ES can move 50 Points in one Minute. In 2001 it made a 80 + Move.
With 4000 Margin your Account in that case is gone.
With 8000 Margin the Drawdown is 50% and your Broker possibly covered your Position at the worst Price because of Margin Call.

I use 19.000 for one ES holding overnight.

bourbon · May 21, 2005

Another example;

Within 1 minute, the ES goes down 15 times, but there were also 7 upticks within the same minute.

Then the most I risked in this minute was the single deepest low (-20 points), and NOT a cumulative low (all 15 downticks combined)? On a 4k margin per emini, I would not receive a margin call for -20 points.

Marsupilami · May 22, 2005

Quote from Fishbird:

Hi Elite Traders

And dont forget, that ES can move 50 Points in one Minute. In 2001 it made a 80 + Move.
With 4000 Margin your Account in that case is gone.
With 8000 Margin the Drawdown is 50% and your Broker possibly covered your Position at the worst Price because of Margin Call.

I use 19.000 for one ES holding overnight.

Fishbird,

now this very interesting. You write, the ES made a 80+ move down, I guess it was on 9/11. How fast did the ES move ? How many ticks were there per minute when this move happened ?

I know that currencies and bonds can move extremely fast ( spike ), what is the maximum speed ( points per minute or second ) in the ES that you observed ?

Events like 9/11 are my greatest fear ;-) I don't want to end up with debts in the end :mad:

PitchBlack · May 22, 2005

Quote from Marsupilami:

Fishbird,

now this very interesting. You write, the ES made a 80+ move down, I guess it was on 9/11. How fast did the ES move ? How many ticks were there per minute when this move happened ?

I know that currencies and bonds can move extremely fast ( spike ), what is the maximum speed ( points per minute or second ) in the ES that you observed ?

Events like 9/11 are my greatest fear ;-) I don't want to end up with debts in the end

This 80 points move occurred between opening and close. So in more than 7 hours.
In the 10 years i'm trading futures i never had any problem to get out of any position within a 5 points move.
The 80 points move was not 9/11 but on 01/03/2001 i think.

If you check the 5 minute charts form this year we had 7078 periods of 5 minutes. This gave the following information:

less than 1 point move: 5310 periods
between 1 and 2 points move: 1537 periods
between 2 and 3 points move: 192 periods
between 3 and 4 points move: 28 periods
between 4 and 5 points move: 8 periods
more than 5 points move: 3 periods

Conclusion: 99.45% of the 5 minute moves are smaller than 3 points.

For the daily charts since 1987:
calculated in % not in pints because a 5 point move in 1987 was much bigger than today because the index was around 300.

less than 1% move: 2088 periods
between 1 and 2 % move: 1820 periods
between 2 and 3 % move: 476 periods
between 3 and 4 % move: 114 periods
between 4 and 5 % move: 29 periods
more than 5 % move: 27 periods

Conclusion: 98.43% of the daily moves are smaller than 3 %.