The margins for corn and soybeans have gone up considerably lately. ZN might be a better fit for small margin and liquid market.
Not to mention those limit moves. ZN is probably a good suggestion, if your intent on the indexes NQ has the least volatility/margin of the four more popular e-mini's. BID/ASK is probably too wide for much day trading but the SSF's might be worth a look for swing trading on a smaller account.
Expect to be let down when you go from paper millionaire to blown up account. Never risk more than $100 on an single trade. This will give you 20 chances to gain experience from. ALWAYS USE A HARD STOP ! Read all of this http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/cont_detail/0,3206,1180+17719,00.html Buy, read and understand this as well before risking a dime of real $. http://www.traderslibrary.com/moreinfo.asp?item=2121&SID=&lc=gurus_homepage Any ? 's
Hey thanks for the CBOT link Volente, it's pretty helpful. For what you said about stops, I totally agree with you. It's the most crucial part of my system (I always set a mental stop loss of 10 points going into a trade)
Mental stop is worthless when it moves against you 50+ on a eco number or program trade. The last thing you want to have to do is think as you sit there like a deer in the headlights as your account balance drops 30% on one bad trade.
LOL, mental stop loss! Oh the hilarity. I'm not making fun of you man, you just haven't been to the point that volente is describing. I'd reiterate what MandelBrotSet wrote, but with the addendum that you do so only trading 1 contract the entire time. The sad part is, you probably won't listen to the useful advice here, such as hard stops, etc. It is something that most guys blow off and think that it isn't for them. However, I have hopes for you and hope you heed the advice.
And if you are trading grains stops do not work if the market opens limit up or limit down. Once I was short wheat and was up $1700 when the market closed. I had a stop "protecting" most of that profit. The next morning the market went limit up at the open. My stop got filled when the market stopped at limit up. If you have a mental stop and it moves limit several days in a row then you're really hosed.
If you want to trade YM go for it, just make sure that you'll be okay if you lose all your money. Since you are only 17, you'll have lots of opportunities to make more money in the future (not necessarily in futures). I don't know how many different strategies/set-ups were used when you successfully paper-traded but identify 1 or 2 most profitable strategies/set-ups and just trade that till you are consistent, then it is up to you if you want to add other strategies. I have been successfully doing it for few years but it is 1 set-up only. There are few days where I just sit and wait but it is better than losing money. Good Luck.