I've recently expanded my futures trading to include gold. I looked at the ZG and GC contracts, and went with GC due to the higher volumes. (BTW, is there some other reason that I should consider the ZG?) The problem I'm having is that I would like to buy some way-OTM puts for protection. However, I'm having trouble getting quotes for puts on either the ZG or the GC contract. The ZG doesn't surprise me, because the open interest in options there is miniscule. But I don't understand about the GC options. My broker doesn't seem to report bid/ask on many of these, and the ones that do show b/a have a quantitiesof 0 shown. I understand that these options trade in the pits. Is that the reason? If so, since I've never traded anything that trades in the pits, how do you go about getting quotes? Compared to this, buying puts on the ER2 contract is a piece of cake. But maybe I'm missing something..... I hope.
call your trade desk and just ask the trading desk for bid/ask quotes. I cant stand the fucks that work where i trade,and they make me feel like a total dumbass but who cares it's reallyh your only option
It now looks to me like I can get electronic quotes for options on the ZG contract during regular session hours. The spreads are horrible, but I expected that. I may try to buy some puts tomorrow and see what happens.
the only thing keeping the floor open might be options as it looks like the days of huge pit volume are over ( note - the volume figures are for both futures and options ) -COMEX electronic volume on CME Globex averaged a record 225,320 contracts per day for March 2008, and represented a 125% increase over 100,163 contracts per day in March 2007 electronic volume. COMEX floor-traded average daily volume was 46,682 contracts for March 2008.- MARCH AVERAGE DAILY VOLUME Venue 2008 2007 COMEX floor 46,682 51,603 COMEX electronic 225,320 100,163 THREE MONTH ROLLING AVERAGE DAILY VOLUME (For the period January through March) Venue 2008 2007 COMEX floor 47,828 55,808 COMEX electronic 204,899 90,438 www.mondovisione.com/index.cfm?section=news&action=detail&id=73991