help - natural gas on i/b

id like to build a position in natural gas if/when it bottoms/bases.

i have an i/b account and have been trying to research my options - but am really struggling. any insight would be greatly appreciated.

i see the futures contracts - but they only go out two months?

i found the indexes - but they trade in 460, 000$ units???

what are my options to speculate in this market through i/b?

thanks

mark

 

Use QG for now and wait for NG (coming sooner or later).

www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=60996

 

thanks xenia

what is qg?index quote is for c447.45?

and futures also only go out 2 months??

 

is that for 50 units of nat gas??

 

There are NG futures for every month and they go out to 2011 (at least). They are typically dead from April thru August.

A short term play might be to buy calls that expire around early April. I'm expecting some sort of bounce in response to this huge sell off. If that occurs you could exit 1/2 your position and cover your cost on the remaining 1/2.

For a longterm buy & hold, I'd look at stock in NG companies.

 

But can you trade these at IB? I am not so sure. All I saw on my screen were Feb and March.

 

IB only offers Feb and March contracts on both emini oil and nat gas (IB deals only in electronically traded futures--a major shortcoming, imo).

 

QG (eMiNY, electronic):

NYMEX does not list more than 2 months; this might change in the future.

QG is 25% contract size of NG, see www.nymex.com/emi_overvi.aspx

 

ohmigod

i hate nymex and i hate i/b. please bear with me here guys.

if i buy 1 qg at 447.00 - what am i buying and how much does it cost?

nymex quotes mini as trading size 2,500 million British thermal units (mmBtu) with minimum contract size of 50 contracts??? sow how does this =$447.50 or is one contract 100*447.50??i asked i.b and they basically told me to fuck off...

thanks

 

I don't know what the QG index is (the one that's $441), although it looks it's the price of 50 million BTUs.

QG e-miny futures are for 2500 million BTUs. The quotes you see for natural gas that are around $8.79 are for 1 million BTUs; so the QG e-miny futures have a multiplier of 2500. So, one contract controls around $22000 worth of natural gas. Your trading platform ought to be able tell you how much margin it requires; mine says around $4200 initial margin, $3200 maintenance margin.

That nymex page doesn't say the minimum contract size is 50 contracts, it says the maximum transaction size is 50 contracts.