Hello all, Does anyone know of any futures that trade with decent volume in the evenings (central time)? Thanks, - The New Guy
Trade the Forex market which is open 24 hours. The only thing is the leverage play in forex is higher so there is higher probability of your tail getting burned faster than in the futures pit. If you have the dough, then play the FOREX market without the leverage i.e. $100K more per contract and try to make 2% a month...........not bad for part time evening work.
Forex is very hard to trade. Most retail brokers are essentially british spread betting firms in their worst form. The spread you see is likely the spread on the spread on the spread. Don't discount trading US futures during these hours. There is not as much action as during the day but ES and ZN trade at a rate that would have been considered liquid 10 years ago. You could look at Yen futures but I think the degree of difficulty is very high. I have never traded KOSPI options but they are super liquid during the hours you looking at. I have looked at it a bit and a long option strategy before the lunch break and it seems to work well. Also premiums seem fairly high to you may want to look into some short theta spreads.
"Japan: 6-12 CST with a break from 8 to 9:30 CST" Is there good volume in Japanese futures, if so then any numbers? Good Idea though, I think Japanese market is only 2nd to the US.
Here is a link on KOSPI options http://partners.futuresource.com/fbm/2004/030904.htm By the way, Zftrader, spread on forex is anywhere from 3 to 5 pips which I thought is reasonable..........do you have something extra to add from your experience. I have never traded FOREX but it seems it is getting popular in the media.
Right now I have got one pip spreads on the euro and yen with my Interactive Brokers account. I am just concerned about people getting mixed up with those forex firms that are basically thieves. If you trade FX with IB it is a fair system that leaves little to be desired but that doesn't make it any easier to trade. Forex is hard to learn. To me ZN, ZF and ES are so liquid and easy to trade that I think that I should steer people in that direction. As long as you don't let any of those stupid textbook trading ideas get in your head (the trend is your friend etc) you can do fine if you just look at the charts with an open mind. You would be amazed at how much money can be sucked out of the market trading one contract against on long option to limit risk. You just can't come into the market thinking 'If I follow the rules and do the right thing the market owes me money", you have to look at the market with an open mind and take what it gives you
you might want to consider gold and mini gold futures ... recent overnight ranges have been good however the volume is not so great as in say ES or ZN and on occasion there can be slippage in the CBOT gold futures that is worse than it should be.