Come on - a guy who swings 1,000 lots doesnt understand liquidity? During summer-time? IMHO, hes trying to judge if he can spike the market and if an arb house is sitting here who will grab his size, lay it off on ES and then bid the market in his face. If he wants to try and spike the market, let me know - I'd be happy to get in ahead of him and jump out for 20 points.
Hi Tomcole, I never traded e-minis, and I do understand the importance of liquidity, that is why I asked my questions. I am not interested in spiking the market, what I need is to be able to do is to get in and out of positions when ever I need, since this is one of the requirements of the strategy that I use. If I do decide to trades the indexes, it will be a while before I approach 1,000 contracts, but I do want to know ahead of time if it is even feasible for my plan. My rule is - always start small, and as you become profitable and comfortable with instrument, only then slowly increase the size. redduke
If you're able to trade size, and know volume comes to volume, please proceed full steam ahead, damn the torpedos!
Based on my experience, trading size in the market that you do not understand and never traded is one of the fastest ways to lose the money. Patience is a virtue, especially in trading. redduke
True - but if you ask some of the arb houses for support, I'm sure they'd take the opposite side of your trade as an arb, since you appear to be a directional trader.
What do you mean by getting arbitrage house being involved? The idea of arbitrage is to be on both sides yourself, and then profit from small variance, but arbitrage requires huge funds and there are not so many opportunities available. I might be wrong on the numbers of opportunities since I never did it and do not think that I will. redduke
If you are prepared to accept some slippage in getting your size done, some folks will take your trade, if the cost to lay it off in another market doesnt exceed their carry cost. Your comment leads me to think you have never traded more than a few lots.
Like I said before, I never traded a single lot of index futures, but want to explore the possibility of using these instruments. Thanks for the suggestion.