Bringing this thread back. It seems not many people in the USA are trading the E-mini Nikkei 225 on the Osaka Exchange.
It looks to be the perfect instrument for people working 9-5 who need a highly liquid futures contract to trade after work. Anyone trading it? IB seems to be the only broker offering it. What are some other brokers who offer this product? Can you get data from CQG? What are the costs associated with Asian markets?
The following user says Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
I've traded that instrument for a while, many years ago. It's totally not worth it, unless you live there, and are able to open an account with a local broker. IB's commissions would eat you alive. If I remember correctly, DTN IQ feed used to have the data feed for it too.
Thanks, Schaefer. Can I ask you which data provider you used, and how much it cost? I am looking to trade the N225M intraday.
I looked up the commissions on IB's site, and it seems it is only 80 Yen roundturn (roughly 65 cents). On their website, it says:
"Our Fixed pricing for futures in non-US markets charges a single flat rate per contract or percent of trade value, including all commissions, exchange, regulatory, clearing and carrying fees."
Were there any additional costs associated with trading this instrument other than data and the 80 Yen commission?
Well, when I traded back in 2007 - 2008 through IB, it was around 300 Yen per round trip. I used IB's data feed to trade, but I think, I've used IQ feed for demo, as well. Not sure, IQ feed might have been for Taiwan STW. I'd rather trade STW, or HSI Mini, if I were you. Osaka Nikkei mini is good for swing trading.
Wow, 300 Yen does seem a bit ridiculous. No wonder you hated this instrument!
Why do you think it is not good for intraday trading? Liquidity is enormous, apparently close to the ES, and that should make for a great day trading instrument.
I'm not sure how the volatility looks like right now, but back then it was pretty much watching paint dry, and with high commission rates, it was a no win situation for me.
The CME mini Nikkei 225 product is not very tradable - very low liquidity. The Osaka Exchange product is highly liquid and is the real deal. As for deciding which product to trade, you should be looking at liquidity as one of the most critical features.
Sad but true.Some got Topix ( Gain futures for example ) but rates are 2x times higher then IB.Exept Newedge and few other - but they got extremally big requirements.This is so irritating - 90 % of brokers says - You can trade any market in the world but it must be CME ICE or Eurex.Ridiculous,there is so many almost the same liquid markets but no one provide them...
I wish we could trade Korean ETFs through Interactive Brokers, like the KODEX 200. That would be awesome. As for futures, I am currently trading only the KOSPI 200 and the Mini Nikkei 225 through IB.
I must say, after my initial skepticism, I'm growing to like to the Mini Nikkei 225. It is great for scalping with limit orders, as the ranges are often well-defined. Despite what people often say about it, I find that it offers plenty of volatility, at least for my needs.
The following user says Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
Kospi somethimes is the best place...but it was changed in last years.Till 2012 it was top of the world - volatility,clear charts easy to read and liquid like ocean.Now... If they make nice day once per week its good...Nikkei 225 from OSE is better.Its most liquid (10 times more then NIY and NKD and Nikkei from SGX) and also its easy when you want to scale position.Low tick value,probably cheapest futures to trade,listed most of the day - that makes it great place even for novice or small traders ( who cant trade ES ).And what ? No one offer it...
How come you don't want to trade the N225M through IB?
And yeah, I agree that the N225M is an awesome instrument, for professionals and beginners alike. I still think the K200 is extremely liquid and makes great moves. For new traders it might be tough, though, because of the large tick value.
I'm so frustrated after looking a new broker for ,,exotic'' markets.I was even trying to find a local brokers,like KGI (Thai) or russian...but i was too scared.Trading in emerging markets is so ,,easy'' compared to ES/NQ that it is worth risk itself - but not political / colapse of a broker.As a result I will take my profits becouse US Dollar is so strong compared to my currency and trade my local futures (FW20).So ridiculous - second best year of trading ( after 2008 ) and I need to go to basic ;/
Have you tried checking out eSignal for data? Besides that, I think if you need tick data you will be out of luck for the most part, unless you get an Asian broker that offers that sort of service.
For me, the IB data is fine since I am trading off of 5 minute charts.
True ! I will move to Asia next year.My friend was move there already,and he will use Philip Futures SG.For me best choice as I find now is to take a profits and back to trading next year.Becouse US dollar is so strong I got time to check this out.Definitelly it is best time to get into emerging markets for these who want get a lot of profits...
I'm currently trying to figure out a good minimum scalp size for the N225M. I'm thinking either 3 or 4 ticks. A lot of people scalp for one point on the ES, so I'm trying to compare costs.
Percentage cost of scalping for 1 poing on the ES: ($12.50 spread + $4 commission) / $50 = 33%
Percentage cost of scalping for 3 ticks on the N225M: (500 yen spread + 80 yen commission) / 1500 yen = 38.7%
Percentage cost of scalping for 4 ticks on the N225M: (500 yen spread + 80 yen commission) / 2000 yen = 29%
I think if scalping for 3 ticks, the win rate needs to be unrealistically high. Scalping for 4 ticks is tough, but with scaling in, I think it is doable. The problem with the N225M seems to be that the range is often very small, so scalping with limit order entries at the extremes is probably the most reasonable thing to do in this market context. The massive liquidity tells me that this is exactly what the market participants are doing, whether they are institutions or retail.
To do that much better will be ,,full'' topix futures.0.50 index point tick,low commission also - and you can scalp for one tick.Or trade Nikkei vs Topix.
Extremely expensive commissions from AMP. Pretty much stealing out of your pocket. Interactive Brokers is far, far cheaper. What I would do is use AMP CQG for data and place trades through IB.
The following 2 users say Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
That's great that you informed them of that. I'm glad they lowered it. However, for people trading high volume, IB is even cheaper when you get further up the volume tiers. The only downside is the poor data feed...
The following 2 users say Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
"AMP Futures is excited to announce Asia's Most Liquid Futures Contract (Mini-Nikkei 225) is now available for Live Trading.
Mini-Nikkei 225 is the most liquid futures contracts in Asia. The notional value of one contract is 100 times the value of the Nikkei 225. It is a tenth of the contract size of Nikkei 225 Large Contracts.
When comparing the daily trading volume to any US Futures Markets it is very close, if not larger than the ES (Emini SP500).
This is for all trading platforms connected to AMP/CQG datafeed - NOW Added by Default to ALL AMP/CQG Demo Connections.
The Price for trading is very inexpensive, now one of the cheapest available markets/contract at AMP. Base Cost is only 40 YEN per side/contract.
Any Trade Routing Fees, Platform Fees (per contract or Monthly Platform Fees) and any Monthly Exchange Data Fees will STILL be charged."
This looks really interesting since it is only about $5 per tick and you can trade it at night. The only downside is that you have to get data from the Japan Exchange (JPX) which costs $29 per month.
The following user says Thank You to jodistrict for this post:
"Free markets work because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or incentives for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can"
Those of you who are considering other indices besides ES, and those who have stopped trading the TF, may consider the Mini Nikkei 225 that trades in Japan. Trading: 7pm - 1:10AM CST-Chicago time then after hours - re-opens at 2:30am - until 12:55PM …
The following user says Thank You to steve2222 for this post:
If you load the 5 minute chart, how far back does your data go? You probably have to tweak the chart settings to load the maximum amount of data, because a default chart load probably is for a few days or something like that. But I don't use MC so I wouldn't know.
MC.Net demo - The farthest back I can chart (1M, 5M or 1H) is the open of 3/21/2016 Sierra Chart (WebAPI - I assume the FIX API is the same?) - is midnight of 3/10/2016 (same timeframes as above).
Just wanted to update you on my email exchange with AMP. They have clarified their pricing structure to me via email. Here is the email exchange that happened. Blue is me, Red is AMP. They seemed to be first saying that they will match 80 yen flat rate, and then when I pressed them about volume tiers, they then switched to say that they can match IB. But anyway, glad to have this cleared up. In short, if you are trading through AMP, you can ask them to match IB's rates. If you are a low volume trader, ask them to go 80 yen roundtrip. If you are a high volume trader, ask them to match IB's volume tiered pricing structure. You will have to provide $10K initial funding either way, however.
Hi,
I am a customer of Interactive Brokers, and I am wondering if you
would be able to match Interactive Brokers' commissions for the Nikkei
225 Mini (Osaka Exchange). Your website states: "We will MATCH or
BEAT any Written Commission Quote!"
Here is a link to the Interactive Brokers futures commissions page:
As can be seen, the Nikkei 225 Mini commission per side is just 40 Yen
(currently about 37 cents). Would you be able to match 40 Yen (all
included) per side?
Yes, we did exactly match interactive brokers commissions for the mini Nikkei - without charging any inactivity fees or having any monthly volume requirements. Just like IB, if you find your account with the least $10,000 - it will be ¥40 per side.
I see you have a new AMP account number. We look forward to supporting you reach your trading goals!
add only 0.25 commission if less than 10K
Hi,
IB's commission is not dependent on account balance. IB's commission is maximum at 40 yen each side. It gets even lower as you increase volume. Can you match IB's commission to be maximum at 40 yen and lower as you increase volume? I am charged a maximum of 40 yen each way currently at IB.
Thanks.
IBs minimum account balance is $10'000 - this is their general rule.
do you have a current account at IB or comparing?
Hi,
Yes, I currently have an IB account. The account minimum to activate was $10K. However, there is no account balance minimum following account activation, as long as there is something in there to cover your monthly fees. The $10K amount is actually a deposit minimum to activate, and is not equivalent to minimum account balance to maintain the live account or to achieve those commission rates.
As I showed earlier, commission at IB is maxed out at 80 yen roundtrip, period. This is an all inclusive maximum fee, and as you go up in volume, the commission is reduced appropriately. This is for all account types and all account balances, regardless of whether I have $2K in my account or $2 million. Adding $0.25 each way is absolutely unacceptable for an instrument with such a small contract value. We are talking about a roughly 70% increase in commission costs here. That is a massive cost increase.
If I activate my account with AMP and provide sufficient cash to cover margin requirements for the Nikkei 225 Mini, AMP should be able to match IB's commission as per your guarantee that you will match any written commission. Is this reasonable, or is this something that AMP will not be able to match?
Thank you.
yes, we are the same > if you initially deposit at least $10'000 we set your pricing to AMP Flat - I will set your account to AMP Flat pricing now, regardless of your account balance.
Happy Trading!
Thank you for your response. What about increase in volume? 80 yen is the maximum that IB charges, and the commission gets even lower as the volume increases. Would you be able to exactly match IB's tiered commission?
you understand the difference on how IB quotes their pricing between the 2 options? FLAT includes all fees vs Tiered is Commissions + exchange and regulatory Fees
And the Volume Tiered they require 10 mini Nikkei to equal 1 contract of volume > so the 1st volume tier reduction is actually after 10'000 min
IB's Notes: For the purpose of determining the monthly volume tier, each mini future contract will count as 1/10 of the volume of one standard size future contract, i.e. for every 10 N225M / MJ / MNTPX / JPNK400 futures contracts traded, the monthly volume will increase by 1.
So yes, if you trade 10'000 N225M per month we will match the IB volume tiers and reduce the cost by 7 YEN.
Happy Trading!
The following 5 users say Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
Good to see you got this sorted out to your staisfaction. I will be interested in your updates as to your experience with trading the mini contract.
I think AMP's last response in red is very important. I found I had to read the IB pages several times to properly understand the implications of Fixed vs Tiered and the discovering the 10x volume multiplier on this mini contract.
I do find AMP's pricing structure much more straight forward to follow.
For me it is not really an issue as I always have more than $10k in my AMP account and I cannot foresee me trading anywhere enough volume of the miniNikkei per month to get to IB's next tier down.
The post above of mine and the one before it by mangolassi are a continuation of a discussion that got started in another thread that was not specifically about the miniNikkei, so the points raised risked getting buried there.
I am a huge advocate of trading the Nikkei 225 Mini (on the Osaka Securities Exchange) if you have a small account. One tick is only 500 yen about $4.50). It is highly liquid, with daily volume sometimes surpassing the ES. It trades from 9AM to 3:15PM …
For me it is incredible - there is still a lot of people who want to deal with AMP.They act against this forum,against many traders,they put people in court when someone say anything bad about them - and people still whant give them money.Impressive
The following user says Thank You to Tommip for this post:
Can I ask a question from an volatility trader's POV?
Nikkei is not volatile enough compared to what? SPX? DAX? At least in terms of IV as expressed by NKvi it's been significantly if not vastly higher than SPX and DAX in 2016.
I thought the conventional wisdom was that Japan always falls further and faster than the other major indexes.
The following 2 users say Thank You to suko for this post:
It has plenty of movement for day trading. Believe me - I primarily trade this instrument, and it behaves similarly to the ES. Some days may be dull, but that is the same with the ES or other index futures. People weren't complaining much when the ES averaged 10 points. I try and equate 1 ES point with 4 ticks on the N225M. I also consider 4 ticks to be a minimum scalp target. 10 points * 4 ticks = 40 ticks on the N225M to be equal to around 10 points on the ES. 40 ticks * 5 yen = 200 yen move on the N225M. So, a 200+ yen daily average range (each tick is a 5 yen move on the index) is more than sufficient to trade this instrument. Of course, the average daily range is bigger than this. Just look at a few charts going back a few months, and you will see for yourself.
The following 2 users say Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
"Free markets work because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or incentives for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can"
500 point's move on NK mean that it is a 100 tick's.Average is much lower.Compare it with Dax or Dow - 200 point's in DAX mean ... 400 ticks (0.5 point move). For some Eurodollar (GE) or 2y bond are great with few ticks per day while other's like Dax with his wild behavior.Personally I like something in the middle of that - and Nikkei is good on this.
The following user says Thank You to Tommip for this post:
Hi, given you use SierraChart, is there any chance you could post your .scid file for the mini contract?
I use the TT feed with SC and AMP don't provide the mini contract via TT and I don't want to change my Live datafeed to CQG just to play around with miniNikkei.
If I could get your .scid file for the current front month (and maybe the previous front month as well), I could have a little play around and see if the mini will be useful for me.
1st, this thread is not about me but about the mini nikkei
2nd, you probably know already but this move is far out of the average.
3rd, if you trade it and like it etc, good for you. If you read correctly I never said it was a bad instrument, I said it was not enough volatile in ticks for me.
peace, happy trading
The following user says Thank You to CoinCoin for this post:
Haha relax dude, I was just having a laugh. Yesterday's move was crazy!
"Free markets work because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or incentives for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can"
I don't think you are missing much. A three day weekend and the market closed three days next week. Market is probably not going to be normal until after next week.
Math. A gateway drug to reality.
The following 2 users say Thank You to traderwerks for this post:
Well - I don't want to rub salt into those wounds - but it's "Golden Week" in Japan and so next week half the country will be on vacation (although Monday isn't an official holiday Tue-Thu is).
Showa Day is just the start of it.
If you have any questions about the products or services provided, please send me a Private Message or use the futures.io "Ask Me Anything" thread
The following user says Thank You to Jigsaw Trading for this post:
LOL, that's alright, I still have to decide if this is where I want to learn to trade or not. You're video hit the nail on the head for me ( 8 - 5 job and wanting to learn to trade).
Thanks for that, BTW!
The following user says Thank You to LDog for this post:
Astute comment: "half" the country, as in the "helots have to work."
FYI there are three periods like Golden Week in Japan -- New Year's, Golden Week, and Obon in August. There is also a new one called Silver Week, which is sometime in September.
The following user says Thank You to suko for this post:
I remember one guy coming over to do 2 weeks consulting and he spent the whole of the first week trying to get the Japanese managers to agree on what should be achieved in the 2 weeks.
It's like swimming in a river there. When westerners get there, their natural instinct is to try to do things the western way, in effect to swim upstream. It's only when you give up and go with the flow that it becomes enjoyable and you get anywhere.
Great place to live. Shocking place to work....
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The following user says Thank You to Jigsaw Trading for this post:
I stopped posting on here, since it wasn't really helping me to keep posting online. But I have 5 minute charts on here from roughly early December 2015 to early February 2016.
The following 3 users say Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
How technical is that instrument compared to CL or FDAX if you can tell? Does initial balance, market profile and VWAP etc cant be applied successfully?
Thank you, I'll check that instrument out, made the AMP subscription already, but not sure about historical charts, cause I'm using NinjaTrader. Will see tomorrow when the market opens again.
NinjaTrader has spotty coverage on Asian futures and they do not have much on their historical servers ( if any ). You can import data and display it that way.
Math. A gateway drug to reality.
The following user says Thank You to traderwerks for this post:
Got my live Nikkei feed today from AMP, no history whatsoever. By the look of this, reminds me of ZB bonds trading. It can sit in small range forever, and suddenly move fast and aggressive. Will need to figure the way to trade it, but seems to me scalping the edges of big moves bars will make sense, to use the stop losses of late buyers/sellers.
Great to hear AMP having added it.
Just trying to chart it but am not a fan of MC. Ideally I'd wanna chart it on NT. IS this possible through AMP/CQG?
Also does the chart look exactly like the NKD on cme? My fav platform is TOS so I could chart it there and execute on an AMP supported DOM with the OSE Nikkei, if they are identical.
According to the jpx website, all index futures will extend their trading hours starting on the 19 July
Any ideas on adapting initial balance setup to the new opening hour? 1 hour IB from pit session, 1 hour from new 8.45 futures open or 15 mins IB from the new open?
VWAP seems to work well when the opening IB has a good directional swing
There is decent reaction on market/volume profile levels & single prints from the DOM, dont ignore the night session profile.
Also there are a couple of old trendlines on 1 hour timeframe that sometimes bounced to the tick
as for the price action in DOM, sometimes it can take out 5-7 prices in less than a second and it wont revisit the prior prices so it is recommended to put a hard stop somewhere. Havent spot spoofing & flipping action so far. Recently there was a couple of times I saw about 1.5k large limit order chasing price but both got taken out & thus initiates some momentum against their direction so dont frontrun them.
Thats all from my 4 weeks observation based off a sim account
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Waiting an age for this product to be historically available on NT. No news from NT yet on it.
Would any of you kind people trading off the DOM be able to upload a video segment of the open on a liquid day, tues-thurs I'm assuming are the better ones.
That would be amazingly helpful for me and perhaps others to gauge it's tradeability for short term strategies.
You should get a demo of Sierra and CQG and check out the depth, because I doubt anyone would take the time to make a video while they are trading. Plus NT is lame anyway.
The following user says Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
This is an excellent question, and something I have been thinking hard about (not necessarily about what you are talking about, but about the importance of the first 15 minutes from 7/19 and onward). I think we will have to see what kind of volume the new first 15 minutes will show. I expect that we will see low volume until the OSE and TSE open for trading at 9:00. If that is the case, then we might as well ignore the first 15 minutes in the same way most people ignore the entire overnight session of the ES prior to the open of the NASDAQ and NYSE.
Could anyone recommend me to any good volume profile analysts for this nikkei contract? Looking for something similar to the daily analysis Futurestrader71/ DionysusToast / Verniman's provide. Any good twitter follows?
I think anyone trading Nikkei futures of any sort should look at charts of the USD/JPY pair and understand the close relationship this index has with the dollar/yen relationship.
Also the news schedule of the BOJ is critical to know when trading this, and any major US news that has a large effect on USD such as nonfarm payrolls, FED releases etc
The following 2 users say Thank You to Japhro for this post:
daily chart of Nikkei index vs USD/JPY, see that it correlates strongly to the USD side, and anything that happens to the dollar tends to get reflected in Nikkei price. There are short periods where dollar is not dominant in Nikkei and it roughly follows what other major indices are doing, but generally is you follow the dollar you can trade the Nikkei.
The following user says Thank You to Japhro for this post:
This is true of any market, not exclusively the Nikkei. High impact news reports are avoided by most traders. The USD/JPY pair action is not a primary cause of movement on the Nikkei. There is correlation, but you should not be watching the USD/JPY chart to understand movements on the Nikkei, especially if you are intraday trading. The key is to avoid trading on high impact news for at least several seconds to minutes. You can literally show the same correlation with several other instruments altogether - it doesn't mean you should be watching all of those charts to figure out what's going on. "Correlation doesn't imply causation."
If you are worried about slippage, then do not trade during high impact news. For a discretionary trader, it is extremely difficult to gauge volume during these events. During normal market activity, if you are worried about slippage, you are trading huge size. I'm sure the N225K can handle several hundred contracts in a single order with little or no slippage, but I'm not trading this sort of size. If someone else can share their experience trading huge size on the N225M, that would be helpful.
The following user says Thank You to mangolassi for this post:
Who trades that size lol RTH limit bid & offer average size is between 200-400 & 300-600 the high side
As for news its pretty light really, the worst you get is about 150-250 at the nearest price on Kuroda's speech
except BoJ rate decision & recently Brexit, you only see 20-50 limit orders each side. Everyone is hitting at market
but really the contract is so cheap the big guys can level through mountain & canyon of hidden orders easily with size
The following user says Thank You to Lunarus for this post:
Indeed - its probably cheapest futures in the world.80 Yen per RT with 500 tick... Costs take less then 20 % of tick value.If you make large volume it take less then 15 %...
I still think the K200 is extremely liquid and makes great moves. For new traders it might be tough, though, because of the large tick value.
- Apr. 29 Showa Day
