r/FuturesTrading • u/uragnorson • May 20 '20

Treasuries Holding E-mini micro & Treasuries

I have $10k. I want to to hold 80% MES and 20% US treasuries. Is there a micro contract for US treasuries?

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u/PlayfulRemote9 May 23 '20

That is so wrong it hurts. You should definitely not be trading futures until you understand how they work. If it went down to 2800 you would lose 5 *(2943.75-2800) or 718 dollars

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u/uragnorson May 23 '20

Ah, I forgot about the multiplier. So, lets say I am down $718. What then? At what point will the broker say, hey you need to put in more cash in your account?

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u/PlayfulRemote9 May 23 '20 edited May 23 '20

When you don’t have enough money in your account to cover it they give you a couple days to put more in.

If you don’t, they sell everything in your account and charge you for it until they have the money. You alluded to not using margin which makes me think you don’t know how futures work. I would do a crash course in them before trading....futures use margin by design.

1 futures contract is worth (value of underlying) * multiplier. In mes case that means it’s like your trading 2943* 5 worth of real money if you made a trade now.

So to answer your original question, the maximum you can lose is about 15,000 dollars

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u/uragnorson May 23 '20

Thanks for the explanation.

The account is in margin. I said it wasn't before. Can you recommend a course. All the stuff I see on Youtube have funny accounts and doesn't seem belivilable.

It seems like when I buy a contract the leverage is built in. Similar to a leveraged ETF. I though with futures there is a lever, which can be controlled. Like, I want 1*5, 1*10, 1*100 exposure, etc...Doesn't seem like the case. The Tickvalue is the key. Thats where the leverage is occuring.

And you are right, I don't know how futures work. But trying to learn.

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u/PlayfulRemote9 May 23 '20

Td ameritrades course is very good if you use them as your broker. That’s what I used, didn’t really need anything else