Regarding reversals after 10 points profit: I have found that my entries have about a 80% success rate, which means I pick good entry points about 80% of the time. My problem is exits. I can take regular small profits, but I often miss out on huge profits. For example, last week, I took 8 points profit in one trade, and it went up another 40 points. Last night, I took 15 points in Germany, but it went up 90 points after that! Yet, when I start thinking about those huge profits, I start losing money. So I've either got to stick to small profits or figure out a way to pick exits better. If you have the secret for picking exits, I'm all ears.
I'm not exactly sure what you are saying about margins, but here's my response FWIW:
The margin for Germany is 0.20%, and for Spain it's 0.50%, so...
$100 on Germany gets you $50,000 investment.
$100 on Spain gets you $20,000 investment, or $250 on Spain gets you $50,000 investment.
But margin rates don't make any difference, unless you are using much of your total capital in one trade, which would be madness. Margin is just a deposit to protect the CFD provider. Stops can be adjusted to make the bet on Germany and Spain exactly the same. For example:
If you use $100 deposit to buy Germany, then you win $100 for 19 points, and lose $100 if it goes against you and hits your 19 point stop.
If you use $250 deposit to buy Spain, then you get $100 for 20 points, and lose $100 if it goes against you and hits your 20 point stop.
So it's the same profit or loss for Germany and Spain and any other index regardless of the deposit. The number of points required for $100 profit is similar - 19 vs 20 - because the indexes are similar at around 9,456 vs 10,371, and you've bought the same amount of each ($50,000).
At the moment, it works out at $5.26 per point for Germany vs $5.00 per point for Spain. That will be the same for all CFD providers - if you buy $50,000 and it goes up or down buy $100, that's your profit or loss. Your deposit doesn't enter the equation. The deposit (margin) is just to protect the CFD provider in volatile markets.
What really costs is the spread and the variation between the CFD quote vs the real market (and overnight holding costs, which doesn't apply if you're a daytrader). But even an excessive quote can work for you. I've seen CFDs at much better value than the real market.
Here's the screenshot of the ticket for Germany and Spain. The deposit is $100 for Germany and $250 for Spain. In the Spain ticket, I just adjusted the stop and take profit to match Germany. The only difference is margin, which doesn't influence profit/loss, and spread (1.0 vs 5.0), which does influence profit/loss:
