Greetings -- At the moment, the only Asian index future offered at my broker is the S&P Asia 50 contract. I've looked at the CME site, downloaded the S&P brochure for the contract, and just started paper trading it to see how it acts. I bought one SP5Z7 (Dec) contract for at $4040.50 today at 1530 ET. The current contract price is showing $4164, which is a paper gain of $3087.50, since each point is $25. ($25 x 124 point move as of 2145 ET) Sure, that's a nice gain, but I want to do my own analysis: Yet I can't find *any* current time and sales information for this contract...the price simply does not change/move like any of the other futures contracts I trade here in the States --- meaning I am unable to find any volume information on how many contracts trade or chart the intraday price action --- the closest I can see is the static chart on the CME website, but it's very basic....and there's no current time/sales info as far as I can tell, and that's the same info I get on my own broker's site. Does anyone have any insights on this contract? I'm Googling and looking, but I'm pretty much coming up empty on this. Or else I'm missing something very basic and haven't realized it yet. Thx in advance
Rick, There's really virtually no volume in this contract. I checked the CME website, and they list the entire open interest of this contract at only 40 contracts. Obviously, that is incredibly small and virtually untradeable. Have you not noticed the Nikkei 225 futures traded on the CME? They are traded in both dollars and yen, and are liquid enough for most specs. I would be surprised if your broker did not offer these contracts, as they are far more common than the Asia 50. Hope this helps.
Retail traders have to stay away from this sort of contract trade something with liquidity include looking at some of the ETFs on the Amex (less leverage) if your broker wont offer them change brokers
Ok, then it wasn't me --- there really isn't any liquidity on that contract. At least I know I'm not crazy when I saw the lack of volume! Supposedly we're getting N-225 and HSI futures next month, which will suit me just fine. Thx for the clarification, all!