Example: on January 19th GE 992 records ER2 27636 records ZB 12714 records DAX 27186 records ES 37996 records (These are the records in my database as received for trades from TWS. As you know, TWS does not report every single tick/trade) As I concentrate on all actively traded futures, you can easily see my problem with GE: peanuts. Any further comments? Thank you! nononsense
are you talking about Mar05/Mar06 spread? How does that work now that Mar05 is basically 20,000 bid/offered all day and doesn't really move? Why not just trade Mar06 outright and hedge with Mar05 if it all starts to go wrong? trying to get more info about how these spreads behave...remember I'm just a humble outright guy!
so you're talking about the actual number of trades executed on a daily basis in each contract?...I'm not familiar with tws...either way, the volume over all ED months is over 1million on most days recently...as far as I know ED is the most actively traded future on the CME so I think it might qualify....if you look at the market and watch it over a busy period, while there may be fewer actual trade points than say the Emini or even the 30yr, there is plenty of opportunity...as I have said numerous times on this thread, ED provides an opportunity to do big size and take advantage of small moves (500 lots half a tick is over $6000 usd)...having said that, it is still a very technical product.
note that zb is also fairly low. its also interest rate based. value is more definite compared to the others, so u wont see the ranges u will in other futures. there is more certainty - if such a thing exists - so u wont see the sort of price discovery u r used 2. so there wont be as many price/time opportunities. given that ge is a shorter time span than zb (ge = only 3 months) and that clever money is concerned with long term survival - change is magnified in time - as you will see in zb vs ge, and also ge front vs ge back months. in other words, long term interest rates (zb) will change/magnify more so than short term rates (ge), as short term rates are tied to current conditions. is that clear? this is only my view - others may know more
im not sure i get this. taking m6-m5 (june not march ) is hedging. i see it better for a position trade due to the reduced margin - and so more size i can afford. as you say, m5 dont move much so i will be giving up a tick or 2 in total profit (if any!!!) for twice the size over a longer term time horizon. im no expert in this either though! im playing small until i sort it out for good. like u say - i need to study the individual legs and spreads more.
Thank you Fred, I simply had never looked seriously at GE. Having concentrated on the higher volume futures for such a long period, GE is for the time being out of my reach. I realize that with sufficient skill and preparation GE could be highly rewarding. I must add that ZB trades very nicely for me. I will keep on reading this thread with interest. Good luck in Eurodollars, nononsense
Forgive my ignorance. Who's old Goldie? Thanks for feedback. It appears to me that if curve steepening comes back in vogue, the Z05 and H06 contracts will be the key months to be long. Front spreads finally narrowed. Gosh its been a while. Finally managed to buy back the U05Z05H06 fly at 6.5. Its been a 2-3 week wait. I'm thinking of less commission intensive ways of trading EDs. Can I ask outright ED traders, how do you guys trade the outrights?
well....If it looks like its going up, BUY IT. And if it looksl ike its going down, SEL SELL SELL!!!!!! Dont be a fool and ask people who have put there hard earned time, risk, and money behind finding a way to make money trading about how they do it. And anybody that is willing to give up their information is nothing better than a blithering ninny. Answer to your question: put your balls up and FIGURE IT OUT!!!!
Goldie=Goldman...just my own ad-libbing...just meaning that he was big seller of Sep05 and may have been buying Dec05 as a flattener unwind... as for outright trading, while I agree somewhat with ds and his outburst, I think I could be a little more diplomatic about it...so what exactly do you mean 'how' do we trade outrights?