Day trade Emini index futures Nasdaq 100 S&P 500

What do you need to day trade Emini : Hardware

Having a stable computer system is crucial to your trading success. Imagine what would happen if your computer hangs in the middle of a trade. What happens if you suddenly get disconnected from the internet? Accidents do occur and these scenarios are very possible, I have encountered an internet disconnection while trading. Such scenarios are potentially lethal to your trading especially when the market can move against you in a couple of minutes in the case of day trading.

Besides making sure that our equipment is up-to-date and reliable, care must also be given to the planning of a backup system. For example, I have 2 internet connections just in case one fails and I always have my laptop on standby should my PC hang in the middle of a trade. This section covers the necessary precautions and minimum set up you need to start trading. It is important to remind ourselves that making money through trading is our ultimate aim. It is easy to fall into the trap of delaying setting up your trading system because you want to fine tune your computer system. Have the basic reliable set up and get ready to go!

Although there are no hard and fast rules to your hardware configuration, I recommend the following minimum configuration.

CPU :	at least 1GHz
Memory RAM :	at least 512MB ( charting software is memory intensive)
Monitors	at least two 17 inch XVGA monitors (resolution of 1280 X 1024)
Graphics Card	Any graphics card capable to support 2 monitors, usually one monitor will be connected via analog cable and the other monitor connected via digital cable. Hence it is important that one of your monitors support digital output.
Internet Connection	Cable or ADSL, try not to connect trough wireless since wireless connections are prone to instability.

A minimum of 2 high quality monitors is needed in order to display all the charts and order management screens. If you only have one screen, you might ALT-TAB in windows to switch between the different applications, however, there is not really much reaction time when the market is moving and I strongly recommend have at least 2 monitors to display all the necessary charts and applications.