Just curious if anyone is doing well daytrading the index trackers SPY, QQQ or DIA instead of trading index futures ? watching them for a while I can see nice market maker/specialist 'magic' blowing stops and the like. On the other hand it looks like less risky than futures but probably less rewarding too. vpineomatrix
I ahave been trading the Cubes and Spiders for about 2 months and have been doing well with them. I have 7 set-ups that I use to enter a trade. I have not yet traded index futures, although I do plan to in the future...so I can not give a comparison between the two. The one thing I will say is that the cubes can ometimes hve very slow execution speeds which can make slippage a problem..... PEACE, Commisso
The qqq's trade really great through island. The problem is that the largest moves you can catch intraday are around 1 pt. And to make it worthwhile you need a few k shares. It is much more profitable I think to just thrade the nq or em futs. They are just as liquid, and you have much more leverage so little moves pack a large punch.
It is sure futs help thanks to leverage. On the other hand, you can use margin with the cubes and soon with increased margin room, it will become more rewarding. Why not futs ? Well, I prefer futs, but I must consider all traders. Trading the futs often means open another account and split your capital. It is that way at IB, my current broker and I have several accounts because of that. The advantage with the QQQ is then obvious : there are stocks, so you can trade them just like any other stocks in your regular account. With increased margin it will become interesting. I think it is already interesting, since you can get several moves in all directions during one day. When I do this, I even use the nasdaq futures as an indicator. QQQ tends to move after them [there is usually an initial following on ISLAND, matching the futures, but soon after you get a reaction. That's when I go in following what the futures told first]. This lag is often key to a great entry for me. A lag is like seeing the future [while watching the futures! ] you can profit from it. But only for a portfolio not too big, otherwise you need to buy too many shares at the current of Nasdaq 100. With a larger portfolio the futs is the way imo. vpiNeo
On QCharts it is CME:NQ01M for naz emini and CME:ES01M for s&p emini Obviously the month part of the code rolls with the contract. I do not remember if there is a fixed symbol for the 'current' contract which does not change with the month.