who are these people buying and selling ES everyday ? outright speculators? those that trade underlying stock? those that trade non-underlying stock? those that trade other contracts/instruments? retail or institutional?
no takers? ok maybe I should rephrase... who are the biggest traders of the world's biggest contract??? who moves the ES?
Hi Catalyst, I'd think a good chunk of ES trading is done by speculators. It provides, IMO, one of the most comprehensive, liquid, markets for day/swing trading. Be cautious tho, from my estimation, ES often trades quite differently then a lot of stocks.
Hi EminiInsider, Thanks for the reply! I don't have any experience with trading stocks, but I do agree that the ES moves very differently with reard to some other futures contracts I've been observing... Yup no argument that it is super liquid, but was just wondering what kind of chunk is made up by speculators cuz we don't really hear much of big players trading this contract (exclusively or otherwise). You trade the ES yourself??
If you look in my posts at the very first post I put up on here, I started a thread called the worlds biggest SP Traders. I believe those four have the most influence over that contract. I also trade the ES, and it's just my observations from having traded it a while.
You can get some rough info on this from the CFTC's Commitment of Traders (COT) report. Their classifications are pretty broad though.