FlashBoy, you wrote in your previous post: "I actually usually place a limit order one tick above the current price." I don't see how 996.25 or 996.00 is ABOVE 996.50? You following me here? Get some coffee man -FastTrader
thanks for the replies. but what about my original question. at what level do you start having problems getting filled.. over 100 contracts or has noone gotten high enough to know..
If the offer was at 996.50, according to your previous post, your bid would be 996.75 or 997.00 to be "above" the offer. -FastTrader
Fast... you're right.. I apologize.. I am making this the longest thread on the board with all my typos.. what i should have said was one tick above/below the price depending on whether I'm buying or selling.. meaning I want to get a better price than where its currently trading.. so offer at 996.50... buy limit at 996.00 bid at 996.50.. sell limit at 997.00.. sorry for the typos guys..
Look at the ES bids and offers. If there's 500 offered at a price, you can almost always fill 100-200 at that price with no slip.
Still confused as hell about how you're trying to enter trades. but I'll answer your quesiton for you anyway. I used to work for a firm trading futures and options, and I used to do the execution on the minis. Let's say that the mkt is 996-996.25 100*100, if I had 150 to buy, I would put in an order to buy 150 at 996.25, generally I would get the 100 offered, and i would be the first 996.25 bid and get filled on the rest working that bid. Occasionally when the minis were taking off, yes there would be slippage of up to 1/2 pt on the balance, but in general they are liquid enough that you if you're the first and best bid you'll be filled. That being said, and don't take this the wrong way, but if you're trading 2-3 right now, it'll probably be a different story by the time your trading 100-200 at a pop. Hope this helps. Vega
"I sometimes miss out on trades this way.. especially the good ones.. " I do know of traders who trade 100+ contracts and they don't buy at the bid. These traders buy using limit orders above the market. They also watch the bid/ask volume ratio, waiting until the bid vol. is larger than the ask vol. Using your numbers, if the offer is at 966.50, enter a limit order at 966.75 or 967 (or whatever is your max. number). This way you'll get filled, most if not all, at 966.50 and you'll be in the trade if you really want to be. I think that this order strategy pertains to breakout trading or buying support. Why miss a good setup trade just to save 1 tick?
Flashboy, I think I saw on another thread you stated you had $4000. Isn't 2-3 contracts taking a chance ?