Can someone please quickly explain what "ES" stands for"? Is it something different than the S&P 500 index? Thank you.
ES is the symbol for the S&P 500 e-mini futures contract. And, yes the ES is worth $50 a point, which is 1/5 the value of the big contract. PLJ
ES is an all-electronically traded futures contract that trades on the CME's Globex system. To get ES quotes, you need a data feed or broker that offers them. I use eSignal for e-mini quotes during the day. I also have a accounts with Interactive Brokers and Spike Trading that give me emini quotes. As far as the paper goes, I don't believe I've ever seen emini prices quoted in the regular newspapers, but maybe they're in the Wall Street Journal (i'm guessing here). The value is 50x the S&P 500 index.
What exactly does this mean? Thanks much for your help. Do these e-minis trade at the exact same price as the regular S&P futures?
Roger, the main allure is that they require a much smaller amount of capital to trade than the big SP contract. Also, the eminis have attracted a lot of day traders who do not have the minimum of $25k needed to day trade equities under the patten day trader rules, as the futures markets are exempt from PDT rules. In addition, even if you have an account large enough to trade the big SP contract, the minis offer several advantages...being all electronically traded (no pit), and making it easier to scale in and out (for example, you could scale into 5 contracts one or two at a time and then scale out as well instead of having to buy and sell one big contact all at once). Hope that helps. If you are interested in learning more about the eminis go to the Chicago Merc website at www.cme.com PEG LEG
Leverage is using someone else's money to buy an investment. The less of your own money you use to buy an investment, the more highly leveraged you are. Which means with say 1000 of your own money you can buy 10000 worth. So say a 5% return on position bought on 1:10 leverage will give you 500 profit which is 50% on your 1000 investment. But at the same time it works the other way round in case the position turns against you.
I will definitely go to that site, peg leg, much appreciated. Easy--1 more quicky... Say I have $5,000, tell me how many ES I can trade, and if you know, how many SPX futures can I trade with the same amount? In other words, can you give me an example of using leverage with these ES. Many thanks.
Can you trade the big S&P online? If yes, what is the symbol to trade the big S&P on Interactive Brokers?