I made my first HSI trades last night thru IB. I am using Sierra charts so Im not much help when it comes to Ensign. However i have heard good things about it (Ensign). I had some trouble getting Sierra connected to IB as well. But with a little patients (ok alot) I was able to do it. I am VERY computer illiterate. I placed my trades thru the IBs book trader and everything works great. I get backfill data from a place called Sc Magic. I dont know if they support Ensign but they are worth checking out. Very helpful guys. i traded 5x5 last night ( 1 lots) and came out 32.50 ahead. yeee hhaaw. Anyway good luck with Ensign and Id love to hear your thoughts about the HSI. Great market IMO. jim
JimC, I like Sierra as well. Ensign is great. They have backfill on everything but the Hang Seng. As IB rolls out it's backfill it will link that. Sierra will link the backfill as well. Learning curve on any new software can be a pain. You know you can run both Sierra and Ensign. One good thing about Sierra is that they have a backfill company ScMagic with Hang Seng data. Getting Hang Seng data is a pain. Cqg does not even have it. anyone using IB ---check out ZerolineTrader!! 60 bucks a year(first 30 day trial free) and you can use the Sim for free. www.zerolinetrader.com JimC---hook up zeroline---it is better than the booktrader and cheap as chips! you can set strategies in it etc. Check it out.. best deal going IMO.
thx TGM. Im a little overwhelmed at the moment just getting everything setup so it will be a few days before I try that out but I will for sure. I went to the site and the screenshot looks great! Looks alot like TT. very nice. I use TT at work all day so when i go home at night and trade on my own account its important that the basic functionality is the same or close to TT. Im kinda slow and changing things up too much weighs on my simple mind! Anyway thanks for the link and Im looking forward to hearing everyones thoughts on this HSI beast. jim
yeah I am used to TT as well ) In the zeroline, if you go high or low it does not just buy or sell. They are stop orders. So it is a little differant than TT. Take your time to get used to it. But if you use TT you will adapt with the action buttons and like it. I have to have a TT style interface to trade anymore. I used TT since day one. Oh and Zeroline even makes the Cash Register wav sound!!!! got to like that!! I hate change as well. I was told about Zeroline and since I had an IB account open. I figured that I would try it. I did and over the last month have come to like it. You can trade stocks on it as well! Get ready for the Kospi!!! Ib is gearing up to offer these. If you boys think the heng seng moves ---look out.
Hey, Can anyone tell me the liquid hang seng contract months and when the volume rolls? Everytime this damn thing rolls out. I end up pulling up the wrong month for the first few days. I went to the damn website and looked all over ---they say it rolls quarterly (march, june, sept, dec). Well that cannot be correct or there is a different definition in chinese for "quarterly"!!! If anyone has observed the hang seng long enough to understand the damn contract months and a these roll outs---please post. I know this much. It does not trade the ordinary stock index contract months.
Every single calendar month. Front/active month is the current month. People usually don't start meaningfully rolling till 3 days before and most goes through on the morning of the roll (roll is morning of day before last business day of the month). Take the three days off if volume/the tape is important to you.
Hi, The HSI futures are a monthly contract and you typically see volume in the near month pick up around the 25th of the current month. Last day to roll is the business day before the last Hong Kong business day of the month. Check out the trading info section of this website http://www.hkex.com.hk/index.htm for trading days, holidays etc. You will also be able to find HSI futures contract specs on here as well (margin, trading hours, etc)
Thank you. I have been all over the website before and have yet to see a grid with the Contract months and the current volume and open interest in those contract months displayed. I can find the volume and open interest ---but not based on contract month. I realise now it is all probably in the front month and then moves to the next month. Thanks again.
On front ends you have to use a ladder and my experience is that only Button trader was able to cope with the speed and range of some of the moves. Also helpful to have the auto strategy capabilities - this is a market where an auto trailing stop can make more sense than acting manually (too slow).