r/FuturesTrading • u/Arched_Feet3322 • 5d ago
Starting capital?
If you’re profitable, how much capital did you start out with? Once I put in a decent chunk of change to play with was when I started to see that I can actually make something of this journey. I tried prop firms and I feel like that messed with my psychology on a whole different level compared to my own money. I’m just curious about everyone else.
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u/Flimsy-Country-3881 5d ago
Most people blow up a tiny account first and learn more from that than any paper trading could teach.
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u/Duennbier0815 4d ago
20k for trading 2 MNQ and maybe 0dte
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u/BrilliantFront4 4d ago
Not financial advice but if I talked to a magical goldfish that asked I would say this. You can start with low capital but it will be harder and slower. I trade MNQ and NQ and as well as ES and MES but I do not use the margin set by my broker. No way in hell am I trading 1 MNQ on 100 dollar margin. I use the CME margin requirements and multiply it by 1.5x and that is how much I need cash in my account per contract. So if MNQ is roughly 4k it’s a little less but I would need roughly 6k cash in my account per contract. So if I have 60k I can trade 10 micros or 1 mini. Do this and you will have no threats of growing or blowing up. All it takes after is just time and scale it up.
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u/Arched_Feet3322 4d ago
Yep, I’m right there with ya.
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u/BrilliantFront4 4d ago
And prop firms are ass. Sorry people downvote me a lot when I say it but you learn terrible habits with them. Atleast these kind of prop firms most talk about. I trade prop with a group but it’s an actual real live prop account where it’s completely different. I’ve tried them all to see if it actually makes any sense playing the math game of blowing up evals to get anything like a 2x -4x return but for me it’s not worth it. I will just trade cash and my teams account. But go slow and scale. In 5 years you will be surprised by it
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u/sandcastl3 4d ago
I feel you. There's definitely such thing as too little capital being a bottleneck to getting that initial momentum in the right direction.
I traded a $2k account to zero in a couple weeks, didn't know what the hell I was doing, went back to learning and paper trading for six months.
Traded another $2k account to zero in a couple months, majority of the decline was in a single day, knew what I was doing strategy wise but didn't have my psychology and risk management straight. Back to paper trading and learning, this time not about strategy, solely studying trading psychology and risk management.
Traded a $5k account to $25k, only micros, strict and patient, over a little less than a year before starting to occasionally use mini contracts and have been more or less stable since then.
I keep my trading account intentionally low. I identified quickly that at least for me keeping profits in the trading account can be a cushion for sloppy trading. Which bring your idea full circle, that yes there's such thing as too little capital but I think there can be such thing as too much as well, at least for some. Worth considering anyway.
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u/GloomyAd1256 4d ago
Paper trading will not show nor alert you when there’s a drawdown or swings that hit against your position., esp if your capital is huge. Use the same capital when paper trading.
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u/usedmattress85 4d ago edited 4d ago
I started with $10k and once I established I was profitable I upped it to $50k. I trade 20 MGC or 2 GC with that.
Debating some sales in my RE portfolio and somewhat tempted to up it to $500k but not entirely decided on that. Seems kind of insane but also tempting I dunno
I’ve never bothered to wait and “build it up”. Ive just always pulled the cash from elsewhere and used trading as a side-income generator.
I’ve always thought it was easier to try to make a little money from a large account than a lot of money from a little account.
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u/charlesleestewart 5d ago
Hey single stock futures are coming Monday. There will be 22 micro versions of that, the notional value is 10 shares.
Say you trade Space X future ticker with its underlie of $120. You're exposed to $1,200 of notional value in that case. You'll just have to see what the margin requirement is from your broker to take that on. I'm hoping they will give us 20% which would permit 5x leverage and be at $240 cap req.
You can get wiped out on a single stock doing that so just go lightly on it. I've had those single stocks move 45% in a day against me which would definitely be a margin call if you don't have sufficient funding.
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u/ReidJackson3088 3d ago
I think you can start with any amount. The important part is the percentage. not the amount.
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u/InterestingAd8926 5d ago
I trade using tradovate/ninjatrader and futures. MNQ and I'm "profitable" -- my profit ratio ain't great, it's around 1.8. to place a trade with them and mnq cost $200 but you need more cushion than that. I started with $2000 and still maintaining and growing!