Hey guys. Wondering if any of you guys have some info on trading these products. Ever since the ICE started charging pro rates to everybody I kind of just wrote them off. However, that was then and this is now. Having made some serious progress with quantitative trading and especially figuring out how to keep costs low and get the needed data and api stuff working the way I want, I'm starting to think that there is a whole suite of products over here that could be HUGE for trading ideas. I'm thinking spread/scalp/swing and cross hedge here. Couple of questions: Can you compare the liquidity and margining considerations with CME and ECBOT index futures for me? (pretty familiar with SPAN) How would you rate the tradability of the ICE product line and/or EUREX futures vis a vis CME and ECBOT e-minis? Talking about these, specifically. https://www.msci.com/us-equity-indexes https://www.theice.com/fangplus Seems like it might just be worth it have ICE, EUREX, and CME/ECBOT going. Hell maybe even OSE/JSE stuff too. Thanks in advance.
Your question is quite broad. Based on my experience I could answer for the few futures I have traded on those exchanges. Dax future is similar to NQ future : very liquid, nevertheless quite noisy. Spread of 1 tick (0.5 pt) most of the time. Eustoxx50 future is similar to ES future : very very liquid, less noisy than ES. Spread of 1 tick almost all time. MicroDAX : far less liquid than regular DAX but not an issue for retail traders. Spread of 1 tick (1 point) most of the time.
As for the US contracts, it seems like the FAANG+ is the only one with any kind of volume and it's only like ~2500 contract per day. ICE has expensive fees and it would seem like they don't have anything comparable for US index exposure. Seems hard to justify the costs unless you want to trade FTSE 100 and 250. EUREX seems like the one to add instead of ICE from what I'm can gather. Just like you said, very liquid index futures for less data fees than ICE.
Pay the attention to Euro Bund future on the EUREX. Very good balance of liquidity and daily range, much better than US t-bond future. For details https://www.eurexchange.com/exchange-en/products/int/fix/government-bonds/Euro-Bund-Futures-137298 If you like low risk and slow motion this contract is very attractive.