thanks everyone, so far I have this list:
What broker offers the lowers pricing on these?
- CME ES S&P 500 Index futures
- CME CL Crude oil futures
- CME NQ E-mini NASDAQ-100 Futures
- CME 6b GBP/USD Futures (British Pound)
- CME 6e EUR/USD Futures (Euro FX)
- CME GC Gold Futures
- CME ZB U.S. Treasury Bond Futures
- CME ZN 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note Futures
- EUREX FDAX DAX Index futures
- EUREX FGBM Euro-Bobl Futures
- EUREX FGBL Euro-Bund Futures
- EUREX FESX EURO STOXX 50® Index Futures
For a small retail trader who does not alot of volume AMP offers very low rates. If you do at least some volume then I would suggest Tradovate with their commission free membership or again AMP with their 2K membership.
If you do some serious volume (>10k contracts per month) then you can get excellent offers from Advantage Futures.
It is not easy for a retail beginner trader to become profitable, one of the many reasons is the very small profit margin. On average you will only make a fraction of a tick per contract. Lets say you scalp for example the Bund, you might scalp with a clip size of 50, doing 30 trades during the day. So that means you traded 3000 contracts. If at the end of the day you have been able to catch 8 ticks, I would consider it a ok day, not great but ok. 8 ticks with that clip size means a gross profit of 4000 EUR.
If you have to pay something like 3 EUR or more per roundturn like most retailers have to, you will end up net negative despite of the nice gross profit (4000 EUR - 4500 EUR = -500 EUR).
If you get very low rates (less than 1 EUR per roundturn), you can still make a nice net profit despite the low profit margin (4000 EUR - 1500 EUR = 2500 EUR). If you divide that net profit of 2500 EUR with the traded volume you get your average net profit per contract which in this case is less than 1 tick (2500/3000), which is typical for a scalping trading style and shows you why a good cost structure is so important for a scalper.
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