For anyone that cares, TDAmeritrade (TOS) is suppose to be testing pairs trading for futures as I type this and might be out with a release this month. Legging into inter-market spreads has been a pain for me while I am trying to learn this craft.
Why not use the exchange-supported implieds with the futures ? Doing just intra-markets ? Implied spreads done across the exchange's order matching engine are just the cat's ass.
In terms of an execution platform, X-Trader for me personally but I have plenty of clients that use CQG-IC and CTS T4. eSignal, CQG, and some of the other more prominent charting packages will be able to provide real time quotes for exchange supported implied spreads.
Many traders that have done both well might profer the opinion that it is easier to be more consistent trading spreads. And of course, once you are truly consistent then you lever the piss out of your strategy and away you go. Most traders who are truly proficient in both strategies believe that spreads certainly "behave" and model better than singular flat price instruments. Below, the bar chart is the ES vs. NQ intramarket spread differential, and the line chart is the ES future by itself:
How's this work with regard to capturing the bid/ask? I assume it's a lightening fast fill, but crossing on both sides? May be a silly question. Un-googled.
that's one of those "pictures worth a thousand words" post plus you are for the most part black swan protected (which for a scalper can be nothing more than a power failure) beat my head against the wall scalping that ES. If I knew what I was doing back then it would have been much easier spreading es ym and nq