lol no it's cool. i'm just annoyed by the feeling that someone who knows something about me (that i don't know about them) is getting a piece of me at times globex is definitely more transparent than the nyse, but the information still isn't a level field. someone's laughing their way to the bank wrt retail ignorance, just a feeling
I worked at the CME and depending on the product you traded you could see the clearing codes. I don't think it provided that much of an advantage, but if you saw goldman come in and start buying like crazy, you might try and be on the same side. But if a big player is trying to force some price level to hold you could just infer this from the price action. Overall I thought that info was more distracting than anything else. When a lot of people were complaining about the "flipper" in the Emini S&Ps his clearing code was 990 and you could watch him getting filled on both sides of the bid/offer. It was interesting when I saw huge size go to see who did it. 5yr
just to chime in... My understanding about this is/was that alot of guys at prop futures firms do have access (or did have access) to the Clearing Codes for other clearing firms and or Class A Inactive Clearing Members. Furthermore, the entire "990N" episode arose due to the fact that prop traders at Kingstree were actively monitoring the activity of this one clearing entity and his/her actions on the bids and offers in the ES in 2003-04. I have also heard from guys that they can distinguish (or at least claim this to be the case) between retail and professional(i.e. prop traders) clearing codes and will take appropriate action based upon this. Trdr2000 frequently posted late last year about the Clearing Codes and what the tendencies would be in the pre-market for these entities. Granted, during normal market hours it would probably amount to a heck of alot of worthless noise AT TIMES, but at other times, there might be some useful info if ur into the nuances of each tick, etc, etc... BTW, there is a recently revised Clearing Codes guide on the CME's web site that has each firm, entity, prop group and their corresponding clearing code. Senor Zen
Hi Avid, I hope you are well. I'm a member of both the CME and CBOT. Clearing codes are only provided (even on X-Trader) for those fills that you get. They just show the clearing code for the clearer on the other side. It doesn't specifically show who it is. So someone like Fortis, who has several customer prop groups under them, will only reveal that they are the clearer even though Fortis has many different firms it clears for. Self-clearing firms are more obvious, but, again, you can only see this if you are on the other side of the trade. One would have to accumulate the audit-trail of the fills for his entire group of traders to see what is happening at those times. Gelber (990) has quite a few big traders, so it is hard to see what is going on. I think the tape gives better clues.
thanks everyone for sharing your insight. FT71, i had no idea these were only available to members on their own trades, that makes a big difference. thanks . .comparing that to 5yrtraders experience, i guess in larger groups people can compare notes, and get a better picture. i can't imagine it truly being worth the effort to mine these for some sort of quantifiable edge but i do sometimes wonder which trades are associated on my chart during thin days thx ppl
I don't know that they are only provided to members. I doubt that. My objective was to let you know that this information is only provided for your fill and not for every trade. In other words, if you happen to get filled a price, you will see who the counterparty is. Hence, there is really no way that I can think of right now to use that information other than to say, "Hmmmm.... that was Gelber's order that just ran me over." Who at Gelber? Don't know. Was he getting in or out of a position? Don't know. I just know that the clearing firm will take my money and pass it to Gelber, for example. What you can do is use feelers (as I discussed in other threads) to test out the size that is sitting there. For example, you are in the ER2 and there is constantly this 100 lot going up and down the screen that never trades. If you happen to get close enough and that size is best offer, you can lift him for 1 contract to see who it is. One day there might be usefulness to doing this, but for now I don't see the point. If there was some logic or deduction that can be made from clearing codes, then the exchanges will be forced to remove them as other traders will want to protect their method. I still believe that traders should spend more time watching and reading the tape to see what is happening rather than what the depth of market looks like and who is fake and who isn't. Best wishes.
I see all the clearing firms codes on all my trades as well with RCG as my broker, I don't even use Xtrader. Knowing the firms on the other side of my trades does not provide me any valuable information.