Please participate in the poll and feel free to explain, by way of a post, why you favor your chosen index market over the others. Let's get a discussion going.
Try to exclude the ER2 from the list of traders with more than 5 years of experience since that contract was illiquid.... At the end of 2003 the average daily volume was less than 30,000 contracts I started to trade it on december 2003 Lorenzo
Thanks for your post. Sorry, I was not sufficiently clear. When I wrote more or less than 5 years of trading overall, that does not necessarily limit the total experience to the currently preferred market. Therefore, someone could have been trading for, say, 10 years, and presently prefers ER2 to any of the other index markets. I should have been more clear.
I've been sorely tempted by the ER2 in the past - but now I value much more the truly great symmetry the ES has
Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll. Frankly, I'm more than a little surprised that only two people of the 33 who responded thus far favor NQ (with me being one of them). Not that I'm troubled, but I am somewhat puzzled. I used to trade ES almost exclusively until earlier this year, with NQ being a distant second choice. Presently, I no longer trade ES at all. In my own experience, and in the context of my own trading method, I have found that I am more easily able to exit an NQ trade that is not working out at closer to even than I am able to do so with ES. Stated differently, I am better able to scratch a non-performing NQ trade. There is no denying the glorious moves that ER2 offers, however, I find it somewhat less reliable than NQ for my own purposes. Even so, I am closely following it and may soon trade it along with NQ. We'll see. As for YM, I don't see what it offers that is any better than the other choices available. (Of course, that's just my opinion.) So here are two questions: 1) Why are you disinterested in NQ? 2) What is the attraction of your chosen market? Specifically, what does it do for you that the other index futures markets do not?
1) Why are you disinterested in NQ? Not so much disinterested, just more interested in the ES at 12.50 tick vs. 5.00 tick. 2) What is the attraction of your chosen market? Specifically, what does it do for you that the other index futures markets do not? ES due to massive liquidity and less whipsaws in my opinion. I like the NQ as well, but prefer the ES for the above reasons and I had to pick one, I would take the ES currently.
Fair enough. I actually prefer the smaller NQ tick because it is proportionate in size to its larger, pit-traded contract unlike ES vis-a-vis its pit-traded counterpart. But whatever works, eh?
thunder - yeah, I guess to each his own. I've read the many posts here about how the ES is a sham or something b/c of the arbing from it and the pit traded contract, and that's all well and good. I personally could care less as I can get the most move per tick there (US indexes) and trade as many contracts as my heart desires. Like I said, the NQ is a great contract as well and if the ES was not an option, I would take the NQ.