The damn NDX is now under 800, and personally I wouldn't care because I am not a long term investor. But this is driving up my trading costs. I trade emini Nasdaq and the cost to trade them has now doubled since I began trading them when the NDX was sitting around 1600. This really sucks. How much more does this damn thing have to go down before the CME will realize people cannot afford to trade at these levels. It is time for the CME to cut its rates in half. This is only fair because 800 is about 1/6 the value where it traded at its all time high. That means the costs to trade the emini are now almost 6 times as high as it was to trade an equal dollar amount when NDX was in the high 4000's range. This must end, the prices the CME are now charging are outrageous, given the current level of the NDX. It is time for the CME to slash its rates, either that or increase the emini Nasdaq value to $50 per contract from the current $20. How much more can investors endure? Must it sink to 200 before they take action? Emini trading volume (and QQQ volume) will dry up as the NDX sinks lower and lower.
Given historical fair market value as reflected by the P/E, the NDX has quite a ways to go. If it weren't for that doggone earnings thing...!
A short term solution is to switch to the mini-Dow. The CBOT has waived all fees through the end of the year. Interactive Brokers and FFasttrade (and I'm sure there are others) are passing on the savings to customers. A long term solution will come from Eurex. Since disbanding their a/c/e partnership with CBOT they are now free to offer dollar denominated contracts. You can be sure they will. (Eurex has significantly lower fees.)
Any timeline on when that Eurex thing might happen? I love trading the nasdaq emini, but the costs are getting out of hand as the cash index sinks. I am willing to trade any kind of futures product that mimics the movement of the NDX cash index, the lower my costs, the better.
This is something I have been noticing too. What is irritating to me is the min tick on NQ. Since we have smaller daily ranges now, the min b/a spread as a % of the daily range has increased. Maybe this is helpful to scalpers, but not to me. $5 would be nice.
I have never traded the full size, never really considered it. Isn't it more difficult to trade? Don't I basically have to be standing on a Chicago trading room floor to trade full size contracts efficiently?