I wouldn't recommend daytrading the ED but you will get very tight spreads and totally instant fills if you call the floor, or if your trading desk calls the floor. There is also more movement in the out contracts, ie the Dec'03 rather than front month. Unlike most other contracts, the out months have enormous volume and tight spreads.
I really hate holding an outright position overnight. But I could accept holding spread overnight. Does it mean, I can only trade spread of ED ? Is this practice common? Is there a spread called TED? Is it still available?
At the time, I was still interested in trading on the floor. He felt that ED would be a bad place to start for a small trader. A lot of big paper is moved thru this pit. If you are a small trader you are going to be overlooked by floor brokers. If a floor broker gets an order for 500lot, he wants to do the whole thing at once(he will look at large locals he frequently works with first). If they don't want the trade or just part of it, then he will start splitting it up into smaller blocks of a 100 to move it. He is not going to bother with the new guy trying to do a 5 lot. If you do get some of the paper it is only because none of the bigger(read "smarter") traders did not want it. As far as daytrading off the floor, in any pit traded contract, I would just forget it. You will get chewed to pieces.
I'd add Lumber and Oats to that list. REALLY illiquid. These markets are great for position trading as they trend really well when they take off. Horrible for day trading of course. I day traded everything when first starting out. Now I will only daytrade electronic markets. Won't go a near a pit unless its long term. Jay