you can still put in iceberg orders in exchange supported spreads and you can place limits and cancel them so just because an order book shows liquidity has no bearing on if it "REAL" or not that is all i meant by real or not. is it actionable liquidity and the only way to find oout is to trade below them and see if it triggers. sweep it.my guess is they cancel
Opinion here: Any type of trade you plan to implement needs to take liquidity into consideration, whether it’s an outright position or any other type involving more than one leg. On one end of the scale, there are examples of futures spreads that are more liquid than that of both the separate legs combined. On the other, there are spreads whose liquidity would make it a challenge to enter/exit. This is the case for straight futures contracts as well. It’s misguided to disqualify spread trading outright by citing a blanket liquidity concern. It’s also misguided to disqualify spread trading simply because they involve more than one position and therefore incur more than one fee. Fees are a fixed cost that should be considered in any trade. Why would anyone ignore a worthwhile strategy only because they involve more than one leg? Look at the uncountable possibilities trading options spreads that may have two or more legs – vertical spreads, straddles, strangles, ratio spreads, butterflies, condors. There are also numerous two-leg and multi-leg futures spreads recognized by the exchanges – more than all the straight futures contracts available for trading combined. The CME recognizes one futures spread of 999 Bloomberg Commodity Index Futures against various quantities of 16 other futures contracts, including 23 Henry Hub Natural Gas, 24 Corn, 12 Crude Oil, 7 Live Cattle and 9 Copper. As far as the “true risk,” of a spread, or the potential for “blow outs” referenced in the reply above, risk is inherent in all trades – including in straight trades.
Futures can be boring yes, try forex trading for some action. And to further take the boredom away, give scalping a shot I have been a scalper since 4 months now after trading stocks that didn’t move much. Forex trading is intense, you move away for half a minute and boom! Your account is blown haha happened with me with fxview, thankfully there was just $657 approx. in it. Now I am trading 1 minute charts with ig and stay put and use stop loss all the time.
What I've found so far: 1. Minimum tick size is 0.00025, and the tick value is $2.50 2. NYMEX margin is currently $126 per contract. 3. Trading cost (commission, exchange, ... etc.) is same to regular Nat Gas futures cost. (It's NOT mini sized cost). 4. AMP Futures doesn't allow this spread trading while Advantage Futures allows it. I think its trading cost is too expensive considering its very narrow movement range. Disappointed. Anyway, it looks very liquid. The following picture is taken right before (Asian session.) Any other feedback?
BINGO and you will find this over and over again with spreads!! I am not sure how much size you are trying to move but i doubt the natural gas market is too small for you. wait until it goes against you big time! think about this. if only one side is moving then you are in an outright futures and there is no reason to be in spread. this is what causes massive damage to spreaders becuase they have so much invovled with the trade they get married to it even more than outright futures traders like me. imagine you put on 30 and you paid 60 lots in slippage and fees! you better be right!! it is very expensive to be wrong in spreads.