Point value will be 5 € and trading starts 28 October 2015 https://www.eurexchange.com/blob/1976326/c5edab214f2feed8f74dc297b406c5a9/data/er15173e.pdf
Do they charge a reduced clearing rate? If they don't, no one will trade these things except very small retail accounts that maybe should not be trading futures anyway.
I don't see a problem here. For example, current Eurex commissions are 4 EUR/roundturn at IB. Seems reasonable even for a Mini-FDAX with notional value of around 50,000 EUR.
You are looking at notional and you should be looking at RT breakeven. I'm also referring to Eurex clearing fees not commissions. If the mini is 1/10th the future, and there are not lower clearing and commissions, you are paying 10X fees to trade.Good for the broker and the exchange but not you.
The Mini will be 1/5 of the regular DAX future. Regarding the breakeven point, that's true. And it will most likely also attract undercapitalized traders. Regarding this it's not different from every other instrument out there. But it will also appeal to traders which have enough capital to trade the Mini while maintaining reasonable risk management but not the regular sized contract.
I'll take the other side of that bet. I think in 5- 10 years the mini will displace the big, just as happened in SP / ES.
No one is going to trade the mini Dax. Most of the futures exchange volume is institutional, they love big contracts. The only reason the ES trades more than SPX is because the CME won't allow SPX to trade electronically during RTH, a savvy move by them, but annoying for us who like to pay as little in fees and commish as possible. It forces institutions to pay more exchange fees to trade ES instead of SPX. If SPX was allowed to trade electronically during RTH, ES volume would drop a ton.
I was in Eschborn earlier this month and was briefed about it. But if you think you know the exchange's client base better than they do, hey, good on ya.
The DAX isn't like the S&P where you can make a smaller contract and have tons of liquidity. The DAX isn't even close to being the most popular Eurex contract. The Eurostoxx 50 volume trumps it by a mile, even adjusting for contract size. Eurex just wants more exchange fees, if they really wanted to look out for the customer base, they would charge 1/5th the exchange fees for a contract that is 1/5th size. Even then, clients would still not like it because commish goes up 5 fold. If the Eurex really wanted to help clients, and be magnanimous, they would make a Eurostoxx 50 contract 10 times bigger and accept the same exchange fees. They will never do that of course. Just like the CME will never let SPX trade electronically during RTH.
The mini DAX is 20% of the big contract - but the exchange-fee is 50% of the big contract. Also spreads are like 1 to 3 full index points with little liquidity. Its only day 2 but it looks like its another one of the many Eurex DOA products.