Trading gold futures today I noticed that e-minis showed a bias compared to the normal COMEX contract. For example the COMEX bid/ask would be 6 at 7, and the e-mini would show 7 at 9. This upward bias seemed pretty consistent and I'm wondering if it couldn't be used as a kind of small vs large hands indicator. I'm sure it's been tried before. Anyone here thought of this, use it or try it before?
Or, especially with gold, is it possible that smaller traders as a whole have an almost permanently bullish bias? After all, gold attracts a certain (often paranoid) crowd...
I would agree with that comment. The emini will obviously draw more retail traders/investors. Your observation seems similar to getting a real time pulse on the small trader positions that you have to wait 3 days to get from CFTC on the COT report. You could quantify that, and try to construct yourself a realtime small trader postions index where bullish extremes are bearish and visa versa. You won't have to wait until Friday afternoon to see what the little guy has been doing all week.