I was very interested in trading through out the clock. Would love to start in the morning with the U.S. market, and then go with Asia and Europe through out the 24 hour period. Can anyone suggest a firm that offers futures trading in not only U.S. index futures, but Nikkei, Hang Seng, and trading on Liffe as well. Any ideas regarding this craziness? All replies would be greatly appreciated.
IB offeres index futures trading in European and Asian markets. Check it out. I am looking at some forex stuff, maybe that's worth playing.
Predictor, IB offers many electronic markets around the globe. Although I believe (and def can correct me if I'm wrong) you will have to open several accounts in different currencies to trade them. Make sure you are aware of the exchange rate risk when doing this. Some markets like the Hang Seng are better than others because of this (HK$ stable against the US$, of course I'm assuming you are stateside). Kirk Edit: Dang it! I've got to get quicker at posting...I keep repeating stuff...lol
yes, IB does offer futures in Europe as well as Hong Kong. (We are basically ready with Australian Futures and Japanese will be added soon). Multicurrency accounts are currently being rolled out where you will be also able to trade the currency and thus manage your currency risk. Details will be posted on the web site shortly. Until then, you'll have to fund in the local currency (the bank could do the conversion on the receiving end) and open different accounts. Either way you will have to fill out the appropriate risk disclosures for each market due to local regulations.
Great news about the Aussie markets def. The e-brokers down here are expensive, pluse they charge you to access their system. Do you have any idea how long it will be for the SFE? With multi-currency accounts, will there be a huge bid-ask spread for the currencies? If you want to roll your money from exchange to exchange, it can get expensive if the bid-ask is more than say 5 pips. Thanks
Didn't realize your were in Australia. We held off as we weren't sure about demand but now have a list of people who want to sign up, thus we will proceed. All the routing is complete and we have been offering all of the SFE for institutional customers. Just need to work a bit on the clearing side. Hopefully less than a few months. Multi-currency will only be offered in base currencies of USD, HKD and Euro's to start, maybe AUD down the line. I believe the idea is to faciliate the FX conversions (get you a much better deal than you can get at the bank) as opposed to providing an active trading platform.