I have several examples with live accounts which clearly show the point in reality as a matter of fact.
However, for the sake of simplicity, I will create now a very simple example (which does not cover all that can happen and other reasons). You need to mentally project this on a larger scale, where an investor may have hundreds of instruments at work.
Imagine you have
2 investors and 1 given instrument.
Both the guys are, for instance, short. The
first one (top picture) is running out of funds. The
second one (bottom picture) has still plenty.
Now, the price of the instruments raises (imagine a volatility rise for an option or a rise caused by a market correction).
The first guy gets liquidated (or the bot has no other choice than close) because he has
not enough margins. He will have a
buy order at a
relatively high price (top picture).
The second guy is fine. The bot can take a chance to "ride" the price move and even makes another sell (perhaps accompanied by other
long positions on other instruments used for hedging).
When finally the price get down the second one has a
profit, and the first one has a
loss.
Availability of capital allows the algorithm to
take advantage of price moves that you
may not be able to exploit if instead, the capital available is insufficient.
It's as simple as that. Different capital may cause different trading outcomes, because the sequence of orders may be different due to margin requirements and price moves. It's not a matter of trade size.
View attachment 320457
Imagine this going on for months or years on hundreds of layers, and you get the picture
As a friend of mine says: "
money makes money, lice make lice".
(Pictures are current real-time prices of the
PUT. Note also the init margin requirement of
7.6K for
1 of these (in my trading
journal I have currently 93 instruments like this under watch):
ES FOP 20240328 3200 P CME 50 E-mini S&P 500
EWH4 P3200, 599145730, mult: 50)