When is micro emini available on IB?

ids said:
IB is expecting to offer micro-futures at the first day of trading.
It makes sense to keep your IRA in a large FCM that cares about safety of funds rather than go to a small shop that is using minimal margin requirements for IRA accounts.
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Yep. I like the fact that IB doesn't offer the lowest margin requirements on futures contracts (I do have my IRA there and look forward to trading the micro mini) since I don't want to be in the same boat with a lot of people who are going to get crushed by a major sell-off.
 
I can't imagine that the roundtrip transaction fees will be 1/10th of an e-mini's. That's in too good to be true land.

You know, this whole idea could turn into a cumulative train wreck. Newbies will take wider stops. He'll be down $150 at the RTH close on one mini on a 100 pt NQ range day and think to himself, "Hmm, I'll hold overnight. I can take heat. Maybe my luck will change tomorrow when I wake up!" And sure enough, that loss has doubled by the morning coffee peek...on ONE micro contract!
 
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Fortunately for me
SteveH said:
I can't imagine that the roundtrip transaction fees will be 1/10th of an e-mini's. That's in too good to be true land.

You know, this whole idea could turn into a cumulative train wreck. Newbies will take wider stops. He'll be down $150 at the RTH close on one mini on a 100 pt NQ range day and think to himself, "Hmm, I'll hold overnight. I can take heat. Maybe my luck will change tomorrow when I wake up!" And sure enough, that loss has doubled by the morning coffee peek...on ONE micro contract!
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Newbies (or not) with wider stops who take more conservative position sizing for risk control could also easily outperform -- in the long run -- people trading the NQ and constantly getting stopped out of positions that usually end up profitable. We'll see.
 
ids said:
It makes sense to keep your IRA in a large FCM that cares about safety of funds rather than go to a small shop that is using minimal margin requirements for IRA accounts.
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NOt sure what that means. Most FCMs, including Wedbush Futures that we use, allow for IRAs opened with a self-directed IRA company like Midland IRA and offer SPAN margin like any other account. That does not mean you have to use all your margin to trade.
 
The wider stops only encourage upside-down trading. Forex traders do it all the time with their micro lots. They go to 1H, 4H and day charts, give a trade 200 pips stop-out when there's no way they're going to get 200+ pips, winning 70% of the time on avg to compensate.

People aren't failing on the NQ because their stops are too tight and where widening them by reduced sizing would cause a positive expectancy. Average winning pct has an inverse relationship to the avg reward to risk ratio.
 
SteveH said:
The wider stops only encourage upside-down trading. Forex traders do it all the time with their micro lots. They go to 1H, 4H and day charts, give a trade 200 pips stop-out when there's no way they're going to get 200+ pips, winning 70% of the time on avg to compensate.

People aren't failing on the NQ because their stops are too tight and where widening them by reduced sizing would cause a positive expectancy. Average winning pct has an inverse relationship to the avg reward to risk ratio.
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That can be true Steve but I think it depends on your trading style. Since I like to account for those rare black swan market shutdowns/crashes that can wipe me out, I’m not comfortable scaling into (I almost always scale, rather than go all-in with stops) say, 5 NQ contracts, because I don’t have the several million in capital that I think people should carry to accommodate a position that large (effectively, to me, 750K, despite the margin factor). I’m more comfortable scaling into a micro position of 5 contracts (75 K), trying to hit lots of singles and doubles and being able to scale out of that position in a way I can’t with the NQ. I typically manage my risk with conservative position sizing and not stops though when something obviously really bad happens (like say, Russia invading Venezuela or our power grids getting attacked), I’ll try to get to all cash. Very rare I know, but if the markets shut down, I may not be able to get my stops filled so I like to always keep it small. Thus, I like the idea of the micros, even with a higher total commission if I’m trading more actively.
 
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Looks like the IRA margin at IB is about $2800 per contract or, 1/10th of the regular emini. Commission is about .45 per .....
 
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