Gaps don't make a contract bad for daytrading although they might make it bad for a particular style. HSI has huge gaps but is great for day trading (with my style).
I guess these gaps are during the 'live' session and not just over lunch? I wondered what you consider huge? I'm used to the DAX slamming and jamming on pretty thin volume (not a gap exactly) but find I tend to trade less emotionally with something a wee bit more sedate. It is the slamming around coupled with a relatively high $/tick value that can be scary. Oh the other thing is do they (gaps) tend to fill? Seems common that pops in the US/European Indexes most often do giving good opportunities both ways (Friday for example) Cheers, Nick
The gaps on HSI are an issue only if you do not close out eod. Most of the time the daily range is actually lower than the indices on American exchanges.
but since 4th quarter of 2005, lunch break gap of HSI have been increased significantly. Once with a 200 points lunch break gap, and it is in the opposite direction of the morning trend. so be careful
Also look for a very thin basing morning or pattern completion and beware of cash equity shorts numbers which come out at lunchtime (or news).
Yes, the lunch time gaps can be significant, but if one is trading American indices and goes to lunch at 11:30 EST and comes back to the screen at 1:30 or 2:00 (during the so-called Dead Zone), there can be some pretty significant gaps there too. I don't know, at least in those terms, if the HSI lunch time gap is all that greater. I was speaking about overnight gaps. Sometimes they can be a couple of percent, depending on how the US markets were the previous day. I tested some volatility breakout (based on the open) systems on HSI and found them to be less than impressive.