Did volume or trading activity just vanished .it's like 95% of volume vanished compared to last year. futures contracts are dead, and why is the shilling real estate contract even on the list it has zero interest in the contract. the open interest data published by the CME is bullshit too. what a bullshit market. i think the pinksheet and OTc penny stocks are more legit and regulated for 'trading' purposes. open interest is only 50,000 contracts and over 100,000 contract traded daily and no price change...it's called a bucket shop. no contract, no currency, and no stock was purchased.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about. Maybe you should educate yourself first before you get in to trading and lose everything ...
Emini futures are liquid and very active almost 24 hours a day. Some have wider spread too but the active month is usually quite good. Are you talking about pit traded contracts?
Come on, bone, you know it is a shill exchange. Only OTC is where money is made, according to big. Do they have spreads? ROFFLE
The OTC and futures market have both a competitive and symbiotic relationship. There is no reason for an institution to go OTC and pay higher dealer fees for a broad market exposure. OTC is best used for precise exposures that don't have offsetting markets to trade in. Guess where those OTC dealers go to offset broad market risks that they don't have to bear? Only the No. 1 and No. 2 top volume product for each CME asset class can handle big institutional flows. The other products are more or less in a state of incubation. And, they cannibalise the top volume product within the asset class to certain degree. As a trader, I wouldn't touch those products with a 10 foot pole. The effort that goes into the creation and marketing of products is definitely "High Finance". Many of the staff have published working papers in journals.
Our misguided OP was referring to the OTC penny stock market. The OTC derivatives market thrives - especially in fixed income and energy. And CME Clearport and ICE LCH clears but a small fraction of it. The OTC derivatives market is dominated by Commercials and Institutional Investors. Big time.