Guys: Volatility is sky high right now, some of the highest in the last 5 years. Throw in an exchange change which undoubtedly left some stubborn holdbacks on CME and it should be no surprise at all that TF is jumpy as all get out. I would advise making no judgment on TF liquidity right now, give thing some time to cool off.
A skilled ER2 trader could average +5pts daily over the course of time. +3pts minimum average, with relative ease. Emphasis on the "skilled" part. Only limitation ever was size. At times, filling 10-lot or bigger without partial fills and slippage was an adventure. Had to play around with staggered entries, chase some partial fills completed, etc during low volume periods. I see no reason why TF won't be at least that good if not better. It may actually be better than ER2 was for a number of reasons. We'll see. If the TF will consistently fill 10 - 20 contracts seamlessly, that's akin to trading 50 ES or 100 NQ contracts in $$ movement comparison.
TF update So far this morning my TF trades were: short 686.50 trailed out 681.50 | +5pts short 688.30 trailed out 686.30 | +2pts short 686.00 trailed out 682.00 | +4pts 5-lots turned, no slippage, easy fills both sides * It's entirely possible that the TF will trade much purer and cleaner than ER2 has since 2004. Keep in mind the cross-margin exchange spreads and arbs on CME are done. Now the TF may trade within itself = IWM without being heavily arbed against the other indexes. In other words, smoother & straighter potential swings. If that's the case and O/I lets us fill 10 ~ 20 contracts with ease, we will utterly and completely dominate that market, milnarf. Pretty excited about what I see ahead... now we only need time to tell for sure.
Yes, I agree Austin great job! The only problem is when you get a signal you have to take it cause the Russell will run 8 points in this market and you miss it. And if you see consolidation get out cause it can chop hard in a 3-4 point range for 15-25 minutes. TF dec volume 163k today, less 31k spreads giving a net real volume at 132k at 12:15 est.; open interest now at 474k and should be in the mids 500k tomorrow. This is roughly where the old ER open interest was at contract expiration indicating all the big boys have made the switch over.
I'm having some serious slippage issues on TF on trades that would have been straight forward on ER2. Im watching level 2 and the fill prices bounces around in increments as high as 5 tick all the time. That's causing me serious slippage. I can't believe something that had such a smoothe price movement on CME is so chaotic on ICE ! If this doesn't resolve soon, I will have to go to something else. This sucks. BTW, to clarify, I was trading 3 contracts with stop market entry (which slippled 2 ticks) and a limit exit which fills 1 AT A TIME ! What's up with that ?