Mechanical Trading Intra Day

I am finding it increasingly difficult to manage all the requirements of day trading and completing this blog, You wouldn't think it would be difficult but somehow it is.
Henceforth I shall only be updating as and when I can rather than every day.

On Monday we started trading with 6 contracts and got hit with a big drawdown of 8,070 on the day.
This moved us back down to 5 contracts and yesterday we managed to return 4,000 to the portfolio and again move us back to trading 6 contracts.
It would have been a much better day had it not been for EMD (S&P midcap 400). Not only did we lose over $800 per contract but $100 of that was in slippage on the entry - a

full 10 ticks. This is one of the major problems of trading EMD although I have also had positive slippage at times. It is exceptionally irritating and demonstrates the liquidity

problem against contracts like the ES and ER2.

Well time has flown by.
The recent increase in IB margin requirements has scuppered the money management on this system which is a shame.
Currently the table below shows what is required to trade a single contract on this portfolio. Bear in mind you would need at least 50% more than this to realistically trade (ie not have any margin calls as soon as something goes against you by a point) it has all gone a little Pete Tong (wrong).

the good news is the system is putting in a constant set of new equity highs. Currently equity WOULD have been 162,728 but this is with 7 contracts and clearly you cannot trade that no of contracts with that amount of equity.

Four options -
a) alter the position sizing to a much slower growth rate eg increase a contract every time you make 37,370
b) Play golf whilst the "volatility "subsides and Interactive Brokers get back to more sensible intraday margin requirements.
c) Increase your account equity as required - needs a fairy godmother or something like that.
d) Trade the underlying stocks - I have NOT checked it out this time but in the past I have found this can be quite productive. However it is far more commission intensive and much more difficult to keep a handle on.

Personally I am doing b) most of the time. US indices are still easily tradeable - it is really just the Dax that is so ridiculously priced - esp when you compare it to its stable mates the ESTX50 and The Swiss index (SMI).

The margin requirement for the dax allows for a 17% fall in the index currently - bear in mind this is intraday margins we are talking about here and in the last 5 years the biggest one day range has only been around 9% and that was not a gap. Next biggest is around 7% .
Margin 20-Jul
dax 15,052
estx 3,132
smi 6,433
er2 5,250
emd 4,000
ym 3,503
37,370

I dont trade DAX but from what i have read DAX futures trade at 25 EUR a point. And the IB margin is 15000 EUR
per contract.

15000/25 = 600 pts which is a 9% intra day move not 17%????

Yes, my mistake - I had taken the tick moves (2 per whole point) rather than a single Big point.
It's still a huge margin requirement whichever way you look at it!