please can tell me why people with a normal option account with an online brokerage eg Interactive brokers or Think or Swim for eg , can't see the option chain for the 'big'standard S & P futures. cannot see a bid and ask for even ITM strikes. I'd like to trade the standard S & P futures with the E minis to take advantage of SPAN margin looking forward to your reply kindest regards
The Big S&P is floor traded only. You may not have floor data on your account. With that, you'll probably only be able to see last trades, not bid/ask as those are manually (on the floor) quoted.
Emini SP option bid/ask and model prices are generated by computer and are available on IB, symbol ES. They also use span margin.
SP is literally nothing except 5x ES therefore prices are same (quotes on the other hand, can differ obviously). If you're willing to throw up a little size every now and then just call up a broker (XFA comes to mind) the pit trades very tight especially in this market and they'll give you color on whatever is trading in there.