Does anyone around here trade the FTSE 100 these days? Assuming that you can get a good commission rate, the contract appears to have some good bang for the buck. The exchange fees are pretty reasonable (50 pence/rt) in relation to the tick value (5 pounds). With those numbers, (again, it depends on what your clearing firm charges on top of that) one could conceivably make decent $$ with a tick-to-round turn ratio of less than .5 . Anyone care to comment?
Greetings, yes i do, problem is its like a robot these days, since becoming electronic it seems to have aboslutely no human element left, very few days of opportunity. I prefer the Dax, but often trade one off the other.
The volumes are higher now it is electronically traded, even taking into account the tick size reduction.
not yet, but i've been looking at ways to play $ftse off against $dax and vice versa. no clear approach yet - i should say no clearly profitable approach yet - but some hopeful signs that there may be something worth playing.
fromv what my instinct tells me, the idea should be to take the equivalent of both indexes and subtract one from the other and see what happens.v . . . .. is that not the case?
i don't like absolute numbers, i prefer relative ones. but in essence, yes, that's what i'm looking for: when are they too far apart, when are they too close together, can i deduce this in a manner that allows me to profit.
Indeed, I live and breath the spread between the FTSE and DAX, its my bread and butter trade - this is not a Day trade (unless markets are very Volatile).Some research is needed before you start diving in - the two indexe's have different betas, with the DAX being the higher, therefore, the DAX will move higher in terms of Index points during a global index rally, and vice versa. The constiuents are not balance either with the DAX weighted more in Techstocks and the FTSE in Financials, this can make for some intersting sector based moves. The two also have different closing times so a short squeeze towards the close sticks out a mile if your looking across the two. I use various statistical Arbitrage techniques between various Euro Indexe's, and as I write this current DAX/FTSE levels indicate a spread close to historical averages(simplified). Towards the back end of last week there was a good opportunity for a bet on tightening with the Spread @ 820 and model values indicating 740.. the spread has tightened to 747, and was as tight as 720 yesterday. I reccomend this trade as it forms the basis of my business, its effectively hedged against a "catastrophe", Clients are content so you can relax, and sleep well, but if your after "Hot Futures Action" look somewhere else.
You have to adjust for currency and contract size so you are trading the same size. This works out as trading more FTSE than DAX contracts. Kap, does this also negate the higher beta of the DAX?