Just for fun, I took this screenshot from TWS at 2:36pm EST today: Full-size futures on the left, Micros on the right. Edit: That's the bid/ask - I should have said that.
I just had a look at CME's micro contracts again. Apparently bid/ask-spread has improved since the last time i checked a few months ago. Looks like its mostly 1 tick now too, in the EuroFX atleast. Used to be pretty bad.
this argument about spread or slippage 'cost' is academic Market orders can result in a +/- over/under the Last price/trade result depending how the price may have jumped in the moments after the B/S/C button's been clicked when a Limit order is used there's no spread involved, one's filled, or not, at that price with lower volume one either accepts the Market order fill one receives or anticipates the price and enters a Limit order prior to the price reaching one's order price the same holds true for fx trades as well as the 125,000 size futures contracts I've previously posted charts of price moves during the NFP release and when 'large' orders have been filled. one never knows in advance if a large order's about to enter the market and the result may see a 20-30 pip range on a 1min bar. I've also posted a 12K+ ES trade during the last hour of trading that caused no price move except the next price went 1 tick lower. but the price range can suddenly widen without a 'large' order being the cause of expanded range. if one happens to have entered a trade at such times then the result can be very good, or . . .
one thing about fx via Oanda I Will note is that one can trade via Oanda 24/365 but they're not staffed between the Fri C and Sun O I'm writing this because at 12:30pm PST checking euro price I see in the Oanda MT4 there were a couple of trades made on Saturday, and from the 1.32145 Fri C, the price has dropped 32 pips the only problem I have with the 24/365 is sometimes there's a trade on Saturday and sometimes not, so sometimes there's an 'extra' Daily price bar on the chart, as well as there being a Sunday price bar trades on these days of course go thru all timeframes I suppose if you're a Gannist this doesn't make any difference since I believe Gannists include weekends and holidays in their analysis, however my analysis is based on the 5 day trading week only, so I use an Alpari NY MT4 demo for analysis regular Sun/Mon start time for Globex M6E is 3pm PST, errrr, or is it 2pm ??? AMP list 5pm as 'Exhcange Hours' what I don't know and haven't tested is if there's any +/â difference between the 5 day v 6/7 or 7 day trading week price now down to 1.31754
It's a nice feature to trade over the weekend but most of the time it's not very advantageous to do so. There's often no movement, and when there is (interbank dealing starts earlier than 5pm EST on sunday so you can see price movement as early as noon EST) the spread is too wide (illiquid times) to make anything from it short term. It's not like you can catch someone's order sitting on the inside quote, the quote has to pass through your order, so the wide spread can't be captured either. What's nice though is being able to enter or exit positions as the fundamentals change in the market. If a war action starts on sunday morning and you know your position will be slaughtered you can flatten out before the rest of the world wakes up.
just thinking about trading the M6E overnight, there is an 'excess' margin available with which to daytrade the Oanda margin to day or overnight trade 12,500 is $$328.75 , whereas the M6E margin is $100 , so 3 x 12,500 contracts could be daytraded for $300 at $3.75 a pip not sure if one has to close the trade first to access all the margin, or if being in a new trading day the margin is simply available
Spread has become pretty tight for M6E (and also M6A) during regular sessions as more and more people are trading it. FX futures in general are a bit more expensive to trade than spots. It is especially true for these micro contracts. As someone pointed out, you are looking at 2 pips miminum/RT. So for short term trades, I would stick with spots. But for longer term trades (if you intend to hold your positions for weeks, months or even through expirations), it's a different story. Often what people forget to compare is the overnight rollover rates. With spots, whichever retail shops you are with, there is no way you could get anywhere near what futures offer because there are always arbitrages going on to ensure you get the fair market and hence best rates. One more advantage to these micro contracts is that they are not susceptible to quote rigging by bucket shops (Onada included). In non-regular hours, you might not see a tight spread, but you can usually still get a fill by giving up a pip or two. Also, all your trades are cleared centrally. For some, this is what makes them sleep better at night.