Another possibility that has not been mentioned is the S&P500 "big" traded at the CME. It's 5 times the size of the ES and 25 times the size of the SPY, so that would keep your transaction costs down. It's also pit traded, in a futures options pit (which is what I'm used to), so the comments and suggestions I've made in this thread are probably more accurate for it than for the SPX. If the firm where you have your account agrees, you can definitely call into the pit and talk directly to a broker. IB might not let you do it, but the smaller futures firms will if your account is big enough.
this might seem like seem like a stupid remark, but it's only meant to help: why don't you stick to what worked in the past, you can easily up your size in the dax and eurostoxx to a tenfold of what you are doing now imo. The phrase, 'never change a winning team' comes to mind. Good luck on your endaevours however.
True but because of the market downturn (low levels) they don't work as good anymore as they used to. Trading US markets have several advantages: (1) lower fees, (2) the best option market in the World and Last but not Least (3) It's getting difficult to combine it with work.
yep, the markets are changing and imo the US options market is the biggest, cheapest, liquid and most transparent in the World, so for me it's easier to adapt to it.
There is some decent information on this thread, but a great deal of misinformation. The S options are meant for institutions. That is why people on ET have problems with it. It is like saying I want to go into Charlie Trotters and expect to pay McDonalds prices. It doesn't cater to you by design. If you have a decent account size, open an account with XFA or Lakeshore or a myriad of other brokers with presence in the S, and they will work an order for you in the pit and get you as close to the mid as humanly possible. The wide B/A spreads you see on the screen means nothing. In the pit, the spreads are far far narrower. If you have large size, many of the orders are shopped first by calling upstairs MMs (all the big ones in the pit also have a presence upstairs) and that often gets you an even "better" price, normalized for size. The S could have gone electronic many times - there is no real reason it can't from a technological point. It was up to the members and it was voted down in full Hybrid 3.0. It is the crown jewel of the CBOE, and while many believe it will eventually go electronic, I would not hold my breath. As others have pointed out [and I have at least several times over the years] If you want a fully electronic contract version of the S options, trade the ES options. They have 99.9% correlation to SPX options, since the driver is the same. The only problem with ES options is doing e.g. 2000+ contracts at a shot, which is why the S still lives in pit traded form. BTW, there is a product that may interest people on ET but there is currently no volume, http://www.cboe.com/micro/xsp/introduction.aspx I think this product has huge potential for the retail trader. If any product goes fully electronic between the S and the XSP, it is the XSP. IWM RUT NDX options are all good products, but nowhere near what the S is. nitro
Do the EuroStoxx50 and DAX options have customer priority on their order books? Are there any non-U.S. options that have customer priority?
Could you give us more inside regarding trading SPX? I understand if you trade 10 lots or so the SPX is not market to trade but if I trade 100 per leg I'm an average SPX trader (the average contract per trade is around 90 for 2007). will I receive better quotes trading 200 or 300 lots per leg? Why don't IWM, RUT and NDX don't come near SPX? They don't have the liquidity as SPX but if you want market exposure for IT or Small Caps it's a great place to be. Sorry for all the questions but I'm curious about the statements you made.
ESTX50 and DAX options are traded on EUREX and they use First in, First out. Click on the link below and you'll find all the information you need EUREX http://www.eurexchange.com/trading/market_model_en.html