Trading & Markets
Margin
The capital required to hold a futures position. In prop trading, the firm's margin settings, not exchange margins, decide how many contracts your account can actually hold.
In plain English
Exchanges set official margins per contract, but brokers and prop firms set their own intraday margins, often far lower. On a prop account, margin is effectively replaced by the contract limit: the firm caps your size directly rather than by margin dollars.
Margin still matters near the close and overnight, when intraday margins expire and positions may be force-flattened at firms that do not allow holding.
- Exchange margin on ES might be $12,000+, while a broker's intraday margin is $500.
- A prop account skips the question by capping you at, say, 5 contracts.