Quick question for anyone that has experience with or knowledge of trading single stock futures (http://www.onechicago.com/). Do these trade 24 hours at all, and if so is it possible to trade them directly after earnings reports while the stock market is closed? Basically I'm asking if you can take advantage of upside/downside surprises with them. Thanks for the help, Tyler
What you are asking is: "if i do this , how surprised will i be when my account blows up?" You are welcome: Be advised, trading is a tough game, expect tough love answers when you ask raw rookie stupid questions.
No. If you read the Onechicago site (did you?) check out the contract specification for SSF, they clearly show the trading hours for the contracts, which pretty much mirrors market hours. Nothing special about SSFs after-hours that I am aware of.
You'll find your move in the electronic index future where your company's listed. Then, though, you won't know precisely what news spurned sentiment; and, overnight trading is illiquid -- if you're trading with tight stops you'll likely get stopped out before a direction is settled on due to the increased volatility. 6-8 point bar moves and healthy retraces from it aren't uncommon. Needless to say with loose stops pre-market trading can get out of hand in more ways quick than you even want to think about. But if you must: Electronic Trading Venue: CME Globex Trade Hours Mon/Thurs 5:00 p.m.-8:15 am (All E.S.T.); 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.; Shutdown period from 4:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. nightly; Sun; Holiday: 5:00 p.m.-8:15 a.m. Mini Symbols: YM (DOW) ES (S&P 500) NQ (NASDAQ 100) ER2 (Russell 2000)