I've recently started Intraday swing trading/Scalping QQQ's to supplement my waning daily stock swing trades, and am wondering if there is an advantage to going with the eminis vs. the QQQ's? I currently trade 1000-2000 shares of QQQ's and get in and out on the penny (no slippage). Are the eminis just as liquid, and can you do the equivalent of 5,000 shares of QQQ's without any slippage in the mini's? I notice the spread is .25, does this hurt or help if you are going for .10 - .20 cent moves in the index? Do people trade the Nasd emini vs. the QQQ's because they lack the funds to buy the shares or are they truly better?
ddefina: my personal experience with IB was quicker execution using their futures trading platformthan the stock platform, so that is a consideration you must take into consideration.If you use limit orders you will have no slippage on the NQ's
ddefina, I would like to help you, but I only use QQQ when trading the ndx. But there was an excellent thread on that subject just some days ago. I don' know where it is, and don' t know how to look for old threads. Maybe someone will help you to find it back, as it was really good. Try to ask people how to find old threads, I'm also curious to know how they do it. tempula_99
Dave, Here's a thread with about 10 pages titled: "Should I be trading emini instead of QQQ?": http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4390&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
Click Search in the upper right corner, in the main grouping called "Forums Search Engine", fill in Search by Keyword (note that you can do more advanced boolean searches). Then in the main grouping called "Search Options", click Search titles only. You won't always find what you're looking for on the first try, so go back and try different keywords. Hope that helps.
ddefina, I trade both the Eminis and QQQ actively...have been for a long time. The Eminis are very liquid. Yes, they did become "more popular" for daytraders with small trading accounts. However, many traders I know that got slap with the PDT rule were already trading the Eminis or using the Eminis as their trade signals for stocks. Thus, switching over wasn't tough at all for them. I know a few guys that make good money trading only 5 contracts eventhough they have the capital to trade 10x more. It boils down to what type of trader you are. Me...I love Japanese Candlesticks and the Eminis are easier for me to interpret than the QQQ's especially in the first 2 hours of trading. All those long upper and lower candlestick shadows in the QQQ's bothers me more than the Eminis. Depending upon the trade setup in the morning...I've never had any problems executing 1 contract to as many as 40 contracts. Last of all, I use different trade setups while trading the QQQ's from those while trading the Eminis. There are some candlesticks patterns very repetitive in the Eminis that are not so repetitive in the QQQ's and vice versa. Nihaba Ashi
I am the guy that started that thread that went to 10 pages of replies. Thanks to all the people for the helpful comments. I am happy to report that I have made the transition from trading QQQ to emini. It is SO MUCH BETTER its hard to believe I ever wanted to trade QQQ. I used to trade 9000 shares of QQQ 2 or 3 times a day. Now I can do the same thing with just a few contracts. My trading costs have been cut in half, the liquidity is so much greater, and the interface I am using (j-trader) I find very good for doing this type of trading. FYI, I decided to go with e-local as the broker and so far, I am very satisfied. They pick up the phone in one ring and always have answers to all my questions, they really seem to know their stuff over there. Do yourself a big favor, stop trading QQQ immediately and start trading the emini, you'll never go back to QQQ.