The Plan

I became aware recently of brokerages that charge only $500 margin per contract for /ES (S&P 500) futures. (Margin is typically 8 or 9 times this). So one can make (or lose!) 8 or 9 times the money when using this extra buying power.

I signed up for an account with one of these brokerages, Zaner and funded it with $5000.

My plan:

• Test for a week using just 1 contract ($12.50 per tick), with a goal of making a quick $100 every day.
• If that works, try it with 9 contracts, making a quick $900 or $1000 every day.
• Get out if the trade goes $50 or $60 (this week) or $500 or $600 (next week and beyond) the wrong way and try again later in the day.
• Continue work on a trading algorithm in the meantime

So far:

I just started this today, making $90.12 ($100 minus $9.88 round trip commissions & fees). P&L was just over $100 but it ticked down just as I was clicking the 'close' button.