I know that GC rolls over every month, but the popular contract doesn't seem to be the front month. For example, I believe that the Feb 10 contract is currently the most popular contract and has been for Dec. Is there a specific rule to use to know which contract is the most popular?
Very good question! I was wondering why too until I found a nearby topic: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?&threadid=186382
1) When in doubt, look at the open interest. 2) Re-read what was posted in the link mentioned by the previous poster. He appears to know what he's talking about.
There are 5 liquid front-contract months (both in gold and silver) and these don't change from year to year. Best to stick with them and avoid the thin months (this applies to both the full contracts and the minis): GOLD: Feb (G) Apr (J) Jun (M) Aug (Q) Dec (Z) SILVER: Mar (H) May (K) Jul (N) Sep (U) Dec (Z) Note that they only overlap for the month of December.
Thanks everyone for the answers! I did my own analysis as well and compared the various volumes for each contract per day and empirically came up with the same answers, namely the Feb, April, June, August, and Dec contract had the highest volumes. Interestingly, the CME web site also lists October as another month, but it seems like December has more volume than the October contracts. I'm not sure why that is.
No, I am not: my broker called me the 1st of december with the advise to stop trading the december Gold contract. He assumed that I did not want any physical delivery, which starts at the 1st as well ... :eek:
I don't like the bid-ask spread on the mini sometimes but it seems to tighten up when there's action. When I run my charts I run them off the /GC becuae sometimes they "shut down" these minis and it seems to throw off my charts a little. I wish there was more liquidity/volume in the mini but, alas, I think everybody gravtiates to the /GC to play with the bigboys. I spend a fair amount of price watching betwixt the two and they're never really off by more than .02 .