It's probably a little late for this, but if you look at the NYMEX website's information about their e-miNY Oil and Gas contracts: "The contracts are 40% of the size of the standard-sized contracts and are financially settled at the settlement price of the world's two most actively traded physical commodity futures contracts." I think the closing price for QM is directly related to the closing price of CL. As far as Holiday's: http://209.67.30.245/jsp/resources/holida_schedu.jsp Scroll down to the bottom: "Early closing on the business day preceding the holiday: Energy markets, including OTC clearing, close at 1 P.M. Metals markets close as follows: aluminum and palladium at 12 noon; copper and silver at 12:05 P.M.; and platinum and gold at 12:10 P.M." You were trading the Energy markets. Banker
Thanks Def, I will keep my eye on them for a while. I don't need as much liquidity as ES or NQ. Banker
In looking through some intraday charts on the contracts, I had to put some of them on the scrap heap. The 10 year T-Note, Mini Eurodollar, E-Mini Euro FX, and the E-Mini Japanese Yen are too illiquid for me to use even in longer term trading. It looks like I will have to open some other accounts to try and capitalize on those markets and other markets which interest me. Mini Gold, Mini Silver, Mini T-Bonds, E-miNY Natural Gas, and E-miNY Crude Oil will stay on my watch list for possible speculating with my IB account for now. Banker
I find the slippage to be obnoxious even with E-Mini NQ...... I am back to trading ES so far the best contract interms of liquidity
I've traded the mini FXs, EDs, and gold. The EDs are excrutiatingly illiquid. I once had a spread against the big contract that took me days to get out of! With the mini FXs, most of the time, it's just the arb/MM making a wide market around the big contract's 1-3 tick spread. These have gotten more liquid over time, though, and there seems to be some hidden interest in them some times. Gold is similar. The spread isn't too bad at some times of day, and there currently seems to be some trading interest in it outside of the arb/MM. You can always put up your bids/offers and move them around, but for the most part, you're relying on someone else that has/wants an opposing position to want to get out/in at the same time, or you have to cross the "big" contract by a few ticks to get done. This is probably too much to give up. A couple of suggestions: Watch the quotes for the "big" contract to make sure you're not getting hosed. Unfortunately, for the metals and energies, you can't get these at IB, and they're rather expensive elsewhere for someone who is playing in a small account. Don't chase across the big contract just to get the trade on. If you can't put it on at the price you need, then you'll have to skip it. Of course, you don't have this luxury when you're trying to get out, unfortunately. This works better if you're trading style is contrarian, since you'll be opposing the natural interest. This seems harsh, but save up some money and trade the big contracts, which are quite liquid. Of course, you can't do this with the metals and energies at IB either, since they are not electronic.
I have been practicing at night with Hang Seng and Sydney futures. The Australian product is pretty illiquid. The Hang Seng is less so and seems to have some decent swings. Gauging the open on the Hang Seng is, well, kind of fun. Also, no matter how many times you tell yourself the 7:1 or so exchange rate, it is unnerving to be up or down 7,000 HKD. When I started, Def mentioned that these are discussed on IB chat around 9:00 pm. though I have not checked in there. The reason why I'm doing this is sort of a test of news or event driven trading - their news and their interpretation of our news from "overnight" as delivered to them on CNBC Asia and in their morning papers and how it interplays with my interpretation of what should be a market moving event and my experience with having actually traded futures here all that day. The other question I am looking at is whether, having roughed it up all day with NQ, YM, ES in "our" markets, is trading their futures market somehow easier? CNBC Asia is a much more serious operation in its programming than our CNBC. I've mentioned it before elsewhere that at least once a month it throws free money at me here with some story or another. Geo.
5287, The Austrailan markets pretty much die down from Christmas to the second week of the New Year. Volumes have been about 1/3 of normal. (keep in mind it is not only the holiday season but also the middle of the summer down under). Liquidity is actually quite good in the SPI. Markets are usually 1 tick wide and it is easy to get in/out of trades. So if you've been looking the past 3 weeks you may want to give it another shot. HK on the other hand is much more volatile and I've always have been able to see trends better there. However, if you are wrong it can get ugly very fast. just my 2 cents.
Thanks for the tips on SPI. Also, to my untrained eye, trends on HK are definetly easier for me to see. For example, one that seems to stick out to me is the lower low or higher low in the first hour and a half or so BWTFDIK. The plan that was made for me requires that I must be able to trade the open on HK. Twice in the last weeks when the index would clearly open lower, my short entry was too low and I enjoyed some pretty good price improvement. Geo.
Thanks for sharing Alanm, I'll look into opening up an account somewhere that will allow me to trade the big contracts. I like operating in liquid markets. Banker