Will Single Stock Futures trade after-hours and pre-market like regular futures? Will there be Options on Single Stock Futures also? Would relatively large volumes of Single Stock Futures trading on a specific stock potentially affect the volumes and price movement of that stock's underlying shares? What advantage might Options on Single Stock Futures have over purchasing Options on the Stock itself? For instance, if a stock is trading at $25, and jumps to $28, then for $500 you could purchase a SSF contract at 5:1 margin, and make a profit of $300 when the stock reaches $28. But you might be able to purchase a Call Option at strike price 25 for $250, and double your money when the stock reaches $28. Wouldn't an Option on the SSF at strike price 25 make about the same amount of profit as the Stock Option (except for much lower liquidity causing a wider bid/ask spread, reducing your profit levels)? I can't quite figure how Options on SSFs might give any advantage over Stock options. Well, except that they wouldn't be subject to daytrading limits (as of now, at least), and also maybe the SSF Options would trade slightly extended hours (ES Futures options trade 8:40am-4:15pm, at IB anyhow)
I think there are still a whole bunch o' questions that everybody has on these still unananswered. I think the hold up is due to software issues. I would sit on the sidelines after they go live to see how things go before jumping in.
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Ok thanks. I guess that answers that. Too bad, my biggest interest in Single Stock Futures was that I might be able to trade after 4:00pm, when news that moves stock prices so often comes out and options aren't traded to allow me to take advantage of those movements. I guess SSF's won't be traded then either. They still should have the advantages though of shorting without uptick rule, and unlimited daytrading.
From 1Chicago .."The initial product launch, which will trade with December 2002 contracts as the front month, include: Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Best Buy Co. Inc. (BBY), Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (BRCD), Citigroup (C), Dell Computer (DELL), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), General Electric (GE), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Hewlett Packard (HPQ), Home Depot Inc. (HD), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Nokia Corp. ADR (NOK), Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Philip Morris (MO), Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), SBC Communications Inc. (SBC), Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB) and VERITAS Software Corp. (VRTS)." Does anyone know what the ticker symbols for these will be on both RealTick and IB? Thanks