Hi all I was wondering, what do other active traders in Australia and NZ trade? What do you trade - HSI? SPI? Japan stocks? European stocks? Australian stocks through expensive brokers? I'm trading US stocks though becoming sick of being up so late - often until 2am - much later with daylight saving. I trade them as the comm is so low through IB, while Comsec in Australia is $20/trade. Would be interested to hear what you trade please, and who you use for broking and charting. Thanks in advance! Rod
I trade ES, and use IB and Esignal. Used to trade the SPI, 10's and 3's. Also trade Aussie CFD's on a multi day/week timeframe. I'm a noob at that though. I used to sit up all night. Gave it away for most of this year then started again a few weeks ago. Made myself sick - on one occasion working 30hrs straight. What a crappy existence. I am not sitting up now - have just started using Ninjatrader to manage the entry and breakeven stop. I get up at 3.30 AEST anyway so I then make adjustments at that time. When daylight saving changes soon I will be able to manually manage my trades because I am up from 5-8am during the US afternoon.
As an Aussie, I see no point at all in trading the US markets due to the time frame. As I see it: Access to futures in our day time: Nikkei, SPI, Hang Seng along with all the other asian futures contracts. Access to stocks in Sydney, HK and Japan. Evening access to the European markets including DAX, FTSE, Eurostoxx, Bund, BOBL, Schatz etc I'd much prefer to be able to go on dates etc than sit up all night to trade in a bigger market.
Use IB/SierraChart/NinjaTrader Trade HSI only (+some EOD stuff while i sleep) because of its great hours (for a Queenslander). Would also trade SGXNK, SPI if desperate, and euro, bund, estx, dax and maybe jpy if really needed something else.
Is this for the leverage only, or are there other reasons why you prefer the Australian CFDs to direct ASX trading? Whenever I've looked at the Australian version of CFD's the commissions seem to be too high if you are daytrading, and the interest rate seems to be too high if you are swing trading or position trading.
ASX stocks are difficult to short sell (due to regulations or whatever). CFDs make this easy. Right now the commissions are definantly reasonable but still not as good as US stocks - this is an area bound to benefit from the increased competition coming on to the scene. For position trading the interest rate is generally cashrate + 2% on long and you earn cashrate - 2% on short positions - so if you can't beat that as a position trader - you probably weren't cut out for what you're doing. Anyway CFDs are a godsend for australian stock traders, it'd be good to see IB come down and offer a direct-market acccess CFD service - An API on ASX CFDs would definantly be a popular thing. The IB customer service in Australia is complete shit though - just had to say that.
OK, so leverage and short selling are the two benefits. Any others? I've been looking at direct ASX but not CFD's. Disadvantages I see, are unable to pay in full so always have an interest charge; not all ASX stocks are covered; commissions are high (although I guess they are for ASX stocks also); and not full participation in corporate actions; not useful if you want to trade stock options. Also we don't have an Australian desk. You would be speaking to HK, Switzerland or the US. Most of the Australian day, calls go through to HK. In HK, telephone pick-up speed averages under 10 seconds. If you ever get sub-par service then please send the details directly to myself and I will investigate directly.
Hi Kiwi I want to trade the HSI minis - though can't find inexpensive charting service for it (nor for Aus SPI). Does IB provide sufficient backfill? Not a fan of Esignal's prices, and Ensign's Iqfeed doesnt have it. Webstation from Telerate does, though costs $375/mth.
Interesting - thought I was the only crazy one - I had a fulltime job also. Ninjatrader is good advice - thanks - will check it out.