Noted. those mini/micro things have been around for a few decades. yet the volume is so pathetic. I will wait for a few centuries and see if the volume increases significantly.
Yes, I know, but the bond and the yield are not perfectly correlated (the convexity issue) and the yield doesn't have the longevity needed for me to trade it yet.
Thanks for posting that news, I had not seen that announcement. Things have changed greatly with Micros over the years. Quite some time ago there was a micro CL that totally flopped, and when I suggested to CME to create one there was the mention of that failure fact and skepticism. But the futures markets evolved and attracted many smaller traders, and MCL took off and I see over 100K volume some days. Granularity is very important with Micros. Looking at the specs Micro Copper is intelligently designed, with a $1.25 tick size, I suspect in time it will do fine. MGC has done amazingly well, partially due to its $1 tick. Micro Silver on the other hand has a $5 tick and perhaps that has held it back a bit amongst some smaller traders.
so far .... contract / volume / spread HG / 3650 / 0.0020 point mini HG / 17 / 0.0180 <<<< launched many years ago horrific spread due to horrific volume micro HG / 59 / 0.0020 <<<< launched a few hours ago horrific spread due to horrific volume let's see how the micros perform in a few week's time.
I've been watching the micro Copper futures, but even if I wanted to trade them, when I preview an order in TWS, Interactive Brokers tells me "Your order is not accepted. This product is only limited to certain test accounts." I wonder how many people would like to trade these but are not yet able to. Perhaps when it is available to more people, the spreads will get tighter.
You make a valid point, I also cannot trade it yet as well, and there are probably many others. That is often the case with new micro contracts, brokers wait until there is sufficient volume in their opinion and then activate the micro. Today the volume is already about 700 on the micro copper, and the volume on the mini copper is one contract! By comparison the micro is already a smashing success; in time it might do fine. Many of the other micros certainly have.
Wrong mister. Not all small size contracts are doing well. That include nikkei, CAC40, copper. Even the small traders prefer to trade the big size contract.
Note my use of the word many in my post; I did not use the word all! FYI, I have been successful in the futures market for well over a decade, with zero margin calls and nary a major drawdown. One reason is that I use leverage wisely, and sometimes futures traders blow up due to not using size carefully acccording to volatility, etc. I often use micros, especially in my Roth IRA, where they are usually perfect for my needs. From my perspective MANY micros are quite successful and very usable: All 4 CME stock indexes, at least 3 currencies, oil, gold, even Bitcoin does alright. There are plenty of days where the volumes on ES and MES are pretty close. I also like the mini VIX. I am glad they all exist. Each to his or her own thing! It remains to be seen if micro copper will do well, after all many futures traders don't even trade copper anyways. Regardless, I applaud CME's experiment.