I will vote for this. I hope you make this happen. I have seen so much benefit for new traders from the micros. There are quite a few journals here on FIO which may have not been created if it were not for the micros being available. Not to mention the great people who are now participating daily here on the forum.
I have used the micros myself to test strategies with real money which I could have not done with the full size contracts. This has been a huge benefit for me.
Thanks for the push to make this happen!
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
The following 6 users say Thank You to Silver Dragon for this post:
I am with you, but I am not signing up to Twitter just to vote - sorry. But show CME this post as I would trade a CL micro.
While you are at it, get the CME to fix up the currency micros so they are properly 1/10th the full contract with the same tick size. If they did this for several of the currency pairs and promoted it fully I am sure they would attract a few of the Forex traders being ripped off with OTC/bucket shop/CFD providers.
Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future - Niels Bohr, Danish Physicist
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I voted no. like mentioned in the past, we already have more than enough derivative products. that will lead sooner or later to major problems.
I'm a strong believer that certain markets are not suitable for everybody. if you're a beginner, start with stocks/etf first. only after you have a good understanding how financial markets work, then you could advance to options. and then maybe you're ready for futures. but certainly not from the beginning.
just imho
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Seems to be tick by tick with ES. I have not seen anything that would stop me from trading. I think CME did a great job introducing and making the micros work.
K
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For Tastyworks on the MES its about 1-tick of slippage every few trades, its no big deal, and this seems to be the consensus I've seen from other traders as well. There is no need to be concerned IMHO because the benefits outweigh the slippage/fees.
Cheers!
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True. I think of MES as learning tools, that one should eventually move you over to miniz. And in a learning tools, you would want it to be challenging.
K
The following 4 users say Thank You to kareem40 for this post:
I can respect that. However, I'm not looking to create "more" products. I'm pushing to help deleverage the existing ones. Opposing this is like opposing ETFs. The specs are the same. Only the size is 1/10th so that folks who are learning can do so at the lowest cost possible. There is clearly a huge demand for micros seeing as the volume of the Micro-Indices has been explosive. Also, in futures, people don't have to deal with the rules that exist in equities. Anyway...I have seen more people blow up trading CL than I care to admit.
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I really pushed the M6E when it was released. Did a live trading webinar on it with them to help bring a spotlight to it. I saw it as a better alternative to trading minis. I'm with you on that.
It isn't worth my time to push them more than I have on anything micro. I have never traded Forex and never well. I would consider anything that is not traded on a central exchange which is agnostic to fills, a total rip off. I mean when traders trade Forex, they are trading against their dealer's book and they can see everything. Like playing poker while my opponent can see through the table and read my cards.
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I think the MICROS ( minis, currencies) and possibly the "new exchange" that is coming up with smaller products as well can be a great alternative for FOREX traders to finally trade on a centralized exchange
PM with any questions about Cannon Trading (800) 454-9572 (310) 859-9572. Trading commodity futures, forex and options involves substantial risk of loss. The recommendations contained in this post are of opinion only and do not guarantee any profits. These are risky markets and only risk capital should be used. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
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I'm actually not connected with Terry Duffy. He is the Chairman and CEO of the exchange and probably has much better things to do than to hear me squeak.
I actually am meeting with one of the many directors next Wednesday and will start the process of finding out who the key people are who can influence the approval and create of the Micro-CL. I'm guessing I would end up talking with someone at NYMEX which is not here in Chicago, but will do my best to get things going.
Cheers!
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I believe the liquidity in MES is excellent. Just keep size at or below 2 to start out and slippage is not likely to be a factor except if a news event takes place. The spread is tight and runs in line with ES. The other products are a bit thinner, but still manageable if you accept the added risk of not getting filled well on a big move. These are just my opinions. I check CTBookmap in the morning and it looks ok on calm nights.
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Thank you. So you do think there's enough activity during the night session to trade the MES or ES? For those of us who just can't trade during RTH due to having 9-5 jobs.
From watching it on CTBookmap and so on, I believe that it is feasible to trade it at night. I see that I have a typo in my prior response where I said keep size below 20 when I meant at or below 2 contracts at first in MES. I will go back and fix that.
Here is the rub: Most of the bigger moves in this volatility actually took place overnight. This creates significant risk in that your stops may not trigger where you expect. If you attended the webinar I did for FIO about the Micros, you might remember the details associated with this phenomenon. Again, I would keep my size low and use hard stops in there. The risk here is $1.25 per tick per contract + costs, so you can be involved without being way over-leveraged as with the e-minis.
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Another option is to consider the Mini Nikkei contract. It trades on the Osaka exchange (OSE). This is *not* the low liquidity contract that trades on CME. It routinely trades volume comparable to the ES, and is quite thick (for what that means these days anyway) with several hundred on the book at each price. It is a bit less than $5 per tick. AMP offers this through CQG and also IB offers it I believe. It opens at 8pm Eastern, and often some decent moves are seen between the open and lunch time (10:30pm Eastern).
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Yes, I’ve actually looked into this. Issue is I recently purchased a lifetime NT8 license which I’d rather use and it seems like there’s no way to trade the Osaka Exchange Mini Nikkei 225 on the NT platform. AMP and NT no longer work together.
Trading with a platform you like is an important factor. I also have a lifetime NT license that I abandoned about many years ago and would have given it away if it were compliant with the license agreement. I won't bash NT too bad here, but will just say that if your software is the limiting factor preventing you from exploring various markets, at least look at other options.
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First post in a long time and getting back into the early morning day trading the MNQ with renko , MACD, RSI and a volume chart. Want to know if there might be an indicator you might like for pivot or trend trading. Maybe a different setting for the RSI or MACD. I have been through all of the courses, but I am not a math genius or super computer maven.
Thanks for your feedback.
I've done the same, taken all the major courses, read the books, tried dozens of indicators. I have come to the conclusion that indicators are helpful in some instances, but for day trading, price action has been a better help. I liked the books by Anna Coulling on price action and presently I'm taking Al Brooks' video class on price action and really like it. The goal is to be able to combine the indicators with price action to be able to find the higher percentage set ups. I hope this helps.
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I do. Both the ES and MES have good volume during the night time but you need to be aware that volume is lighter, know when Asia opens, Europe opens etc.
There are more than a few good contracts to trade "after hours" you just need to observe behavior/volume and get a feel.
I like crude oil, gold, Aussie dollar early evenings, bonds very early mornings.
PM with any questions about Cannon Trading (800) 454-9572 (310) 859-9572. Trading commodity futures, forex and options involves substantial risk of loss. The recommendations contained in this post are of opinion only and do not guarantee any profits. These are risky markets and only risk capital should be used. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
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Hi Josh, just want to probe a little deeper, your comments on NT8.
I am not associated in any shape or form, biz wise or otherwise, except
that I've also purchased a Lifetime MultiBroker license several years ago.
In spite of occasional unforeseen irregularities with its output performances,
many of which because of my own demanding setups and such, NT8 appears
to be worth its lifetime fee.
With the exception that though you may have multiple brokers,
and multiple datafeeds programmed into your buy or sell order,
like in my case, for example;
when desiring to liquidate your multiple positions, individual traders must
get out of bundled positions with each broker SEPARATELY, ONE BROKER
AT A TIME, INDIVIDUALLY;
which many times, due to emotional excitement of listening to the cash register
ringing, I was under the impression that all positions with all brokers were
already closed....
But the sound of the cash register ringing intermittently told me that there were
some live trades still going on, behind the screen somewhere, somehow....
My point is, it is terribly inconvenient to have to close out positions with each broker,
manually. But if you forget which I did on several occasions, you are doomed....
My curiosity is in what you said: ....would have given it away if it were compliant with the license agreement.
Would you mind enlightening live traders using NT8, as to the specific reasons?
And particularly, what do you mean by... if your software is the limiting factor preventing you from exploring various markets....
I was specifically referring to the comment that someone wasn't able to trade the MJNK (mini japanese yen, the most liquid futures contract in Asia) because it is available on the Osaka exchange, and this is only available through a few brokers, which someone said NT was not able to support.
I'm sure I have many past posts on FIO about why I use what I use, and why I don't use NT anymore; as I said, this thread isn't the proper place to revive any of that discussion
Thanks for turning my attention to this. That petition is a bit dated and I need to be able to go in with the names. After some thought, I've decided to start a new petition.
PM with any questions about Cannon Trading (800) 454-9572 (310) 859-9572. Trading commodity futures, forex and options involves substantial risk of loss. The recommendations contained in this post are of opinion only and do not guarantee any profits. These are risky markets and only risk capital should be used. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
MNQ volume is around a half of NQ volume. But MES = 1/4 (1/5) ES volume. Even if MES volume is greater than MNQ. Can someone explain why? MNQ is better for HFT because it has cheaper tick?
There is more movement price wise on the MNQ than on the MES...the NQ has more volitilty than does ES...but it is easier to get burned with the NQ than the ES....also...the price movement is why I like the MNQ....and with the micros you can play 2-3 contracts without a big down payment...50 vs 500....trading a single lot is very difficult to make money...so multiple lots allows you to fade in and fade out of a trade...much better chance to make money...
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Absolutely love the micros and wish they were around when I started roughly 6 years ago. Likely would have saved me a lot of money as compared to leveraging es contracts.
The following 2 users say Thank You to twomanytimeframes for this post:
How bad is slippage in the micro contracts? I've stayed away from Gold futures but the micro contract looks appealing. I also trade the major forex pairs. I'm wondering how bad the slippage is in those micros as well.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom
- Anais Nin
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The NQ is a larger contract, higher margins than the rest of the indices. I think the MNQ is more attractive to many retail accounts of less than $10k since the NQ can move 40-50 points in minutes sometimes and just too volatile/large for smaller accounts. The MNQ allows traders to actually place stops/targets based on the chart and not so much as a function of $$
PM with any questions about Cannon Trading (800) 454-9572 (310) 859-9572. Trading commodity futures, forex and options involves substantial risk of loss. The recommendations contained in this post are of opinion only and do not guarantee any profits. These are risky markets and only risk capital should be used. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
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The spread is pretty tight almost all of the time. It gets very think and may show a wider spread on news or eco releases, but it is completely tradable, in my opinion, as a replacement for the ES at a reduced risk.
Look at it this way: If you are trading big enough in the micros to worry about slippage, then you really should be trading the equivalent eminis.
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I agree.
In addition to that, considering the $ value per tick, the relative commissions are much lower in the ES than in the MES, which would be another reason to switch to the ES once you trade more contracts in the MES.
The following 3 users say Thank You to Henning993 for this post:
Truer words were never spoken. I was advising someone who wanted to develop a system that took profits after 1 tick/point moves and trying to make him understand the futility. And that was without commission.
I have had dozens of systems that were great, until applying slippage and commission.
~vmodus
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I was on their site yesterday (I am not a client) and recall seeing pricing there for the micros. It will depend on your monthly volume, as with most brokers.
Commission + routing + NFA + Clearing = cost per side * 2 = RT cost. You may have to do the math.
Yes, there is a full margin break with 1:10 and partial breaks in between.
PM with any questions about Cannon Trading (800) 454-9572 (310) 859-9572. Trading commodity futures, forex and options involves substantial risk of loss. The recommendations contained in this post are of opinion only and do not guarantee any profits. These are risky markets and only risk capital should be used. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
I have listened to the various reasons people have given for trading the Micros. At first pass they all seemed worth considering.
But....as I have looked into the viability of trading Micros I can't help but notice that the commission cost is on the verge of being absurd.
I would expect that commission costs would be slightly more just because it is a reduced size. Just like you expect to pay more on a volume basis for small single serving box of cheerios over multi kilogram bulk bag at your local grocery store. That is standard marketing.
But....Whoa! When the industry norm for ES commissions is around $5/rt.....how can they justify MES rt commission rates of up to 10X that amount?
I made my first MES trade the other day (to test out a strategy with some skin in the game...as they say).
I made 11 ticks....which was ok....
My statement came back with an all in commission of $5.24.....!?!
Let me see......MES is 1/10 the size of the ES.....so that would be like paying an ES commission of over $52...!
So if I wanted to trade the MES regularly I would have to make at least 5 ticks on every trade just to cover commissions.
Guess I can scrap that scalping strategy I was thinking of trying out
With that in mind I can not figure out what the point of trading the MES would be.....other than insuring that your broker's kids can afford to get the best College education available.
All the hype around the MES when it came out suggested that it would be the "Best market innovation in years".
But, like they say, the devil is in the details.
The following 2 users say Thank You to refine for this post:
Wow, that really surprises me, what brokerage do you use?
I trade Micros from time to time as well, and I pay only $0.96 RT commission with Ninja Trader Brokerage...
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
The following 2 users say Thank You to Daytrader999 for this post:
Yup, it's quite difficult to overview all these different kind of rates offered by brokerage firms.
I'm sure that my particular commission might be undercut by several firms, but I won't change brokerage only to save a few cents...
And perhaps it might be worth a try to touch base with @mattz of Optimus Futures, just in case you want to switch to a really good company.
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
The following 2 users say Thank You to Daytrader999 for this post:
You don't have a good fee structure with your current broker/clearer. Look around, you can trade it for $0.98 per turn including Rithmic/CQG fees.
This has nothing to do with the micros. I lobbied for this product from back in 2012 and I believe it is the best thing to happen to futures traders in recent history.
Trading: All Micros, especially the ones that move
Posts: 2,381 since Feb 2017
Thanks: 16,384 given,
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No question the micros are more expensive to trade, relatively speaking... but yeah, if you're paying more than $1.00 RT, you're getting hosed. Look around, there are more than a few high quality brokers deserving of your business.
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Regarding trading micros, it is a lot safer if you get it wrong you wont blow up your account , but i have heard that trading the E mini requires a substantial amount of money in your account to make the numbers add up.
Hi,
I am trading both micros and minis in different accounts. I am trading micros in my own accont and minis for TST.
I think trading micros is a lot more difficult that trading minis, however trading micros is really a great learning experience.
The problem that I have when trading micros is this: imagine that I have a position with 2 contracts and I am up 100 USD.
This means that any contract gave me on average 5 points, which for me it would be ok as a first target, so I should at least scale out and take 50 USD.
However I look at it and I think that market might go further and give me another 300 USD, so I keep the position open. Basically 50 USD mean nothing to me, and I don't care (which is not a good mindset because my account is around 3000 USD so 50 USD actually mean alsmost 2%). When I ask 300 USD I am already set for failure because I am asking the market to give me 30 points per contract which is a lot. Basically I have a target beyond sigma (read further)!!!
This problem makes it clear that there is a psychological trap. With ES-mini the 100$ would be 1000$ and I would have a good incentive to cash in. This is also why with ES mini once you start to increase size you start to lose money, because the incentive becomes bigger and bigger and it's more and more difficult to let a runner run and thus you screw up the risk-reward.
With micros you have the tendency to ask too much to markets, I have done some simulations on matlab and the problem is quite evident. If you build a model in which price increments are distributed according to normal distribution with a standard deviation "sigma" then your stop loss and targets must be within sigma. If your target is beyond sigma the system simply does now work.
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Doesn't sound like that much but add it all up and the total cost for trading a Micro means that it not cost effective when using most scalp strategies.
I was amazed to see that I got no hits when searching for "diversification e-micro".
Despite the higher commish and fees, I would think the huge advantage of the E-Micros is the ability to trade multiple symbols at one time.
Does no one here believe in diversification to reduce risk when trading futures ?
