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Can I trade ZN Future with zero spread?


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Can I trade ZN Future with zero spread?

  #1 (permalink)
www123
Casablanca + Morocco
 
Posts: 4 since Jan 2020
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Hello,
I’m new to this forum. I want to post a help question but not sure if I do it the right way. Anyway my question is : can I trade ZN Future with zero spread ?

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  #2 (permalink)
 kiwi 
Gold Coast
 
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www123 View Post
Hello,
I’m new to this forum. I want to post a help question but not sure if I do it the right way. Anyway my question is : can I trade ZN Future with zero spread ?

I'd suggest that your question form is fine.

But your question betrays a misunderstanding. Any broker must somehow make a little money. Most do it with a commission to cover data, exchange fees, and their costs, but some do it with an expanded spread or a biased spread (spread betters). But there is never a zero spread - there must always be 1 tick between the bid and the ask (offered buy price and offered sell price). Momentarily it will be zero if someone buys at the ask or vice versa but then it returns to a 1+ spread.

A broker like interactive brokers or ampfutures will offer a minimum REAL spread and charge you a commission for each trade.

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  #3 (permalink)
 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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kiwi View Post
I'd suggest that your question form is fine.

But your question betrays a misunderstanding. Any broker must somehow make a little money. Most do it with a commission to cover data, exchange fees, and their costs, but some do it with an expanded spread or a biased spread (spread betters). But there is never a zero spread - there must always be 1 tick between the bid and the ask (offered buy price and offered sell price). Momentarily it will be zero if someone buys at the ask or vice versa but then it returns to a 1+ spread.

A broker like interactive brokers or ampfutures will offer a minimum REAL spread and charge you a commission for each trade.

What you are saying about spreads could apply to forex, but not ZN futures.

Futures brokers do not make money on the bid/ask spread. They do not trade, they do not hold the other side of your trade (which would happen with some forex brokers).

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  #4 (permalink)
 kiwi 
Gold Coast
 
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I'm guessing you are from that tiny part of America where people call themselves Americans Kevin.

Elsewhere, the various bonds, notes, indexes etc are available from spread betting brokers. Most are probably accessible from Casablanca (one of the places in the world I've never been and might visit AC www123).

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  #5 (permalink)
 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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kiwi View Post
I'm guessing you are from that tiny part of America where people call themselves Americans Kevin.

Elsewhere, the various bonds, notes, indexes etc are available from spread betting brokers. Most are probably accessible from Casablanca (one of the places in the world I've never been and might visit AC www123).



OP asked SPECIFICALLY about ZN futures. That is traded in Chicago on CME exchange.

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  #6 (permalink)
www123
Casablanca + Morocco
 
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kevinkdog View Post
What you are saying about spreads could apply to forex, but not ZN futures.

Futures brokers do not make money on the bid/ask spread. They do not trade, they do not hold the other side of your trade (which would happen with some forex brokers).

Yes my Future broker have commission + 1 tick spread on ZN. Since many weeks I found a strategy on demo account that have very high win rate catching only one tick and paying only commission (demo account don’t have spread, only commission). The commission is only 20% of one tick profit (my profit is 15,625usd*0,8 for 1 contract). So do you think we can found a strategy to Buy at Ask or Sell at Bid to avoid that one tick spread on my real account ?? I can see that sometimes Ask=Bid on ZN contract. Can we build strategy around that??

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  #7 (permalink)
 tr8er 
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www123 View Post
Yes my Future broker have commission + 1 tick spread on ZN. Since many weeks I found a strategy on demo account that have very high win rate catching only one tick and paying only commission (demo account don’t have spread, only commission). The commission is only 20% of one tick profit (my profit is 15,625usd*0,8 for 1 contract). So do you think we can found a strategy to Buy at Ask or Sell at Bid to avoid that one tick spread on my real account ?? I can see that sometimes Ask=Bid on ZN contract. Can we build strategy around that??

not sure what you are talking about, Ask = Bid will never happen if you are trading futures, so you cannot build a strategy on that

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 matthew28 
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kiwi View Post
I'm guessing you are from that tiny part of America where people call themselves Americans Kevin.

Elsewhere, the various bonds, notes, indexes etc are available from spread betting brokers. Most are probably accessible from Casablanca

And spread betting brokers make their money off the spread. When I used a spread betting platform you could only trade on the aggressive side of the spread, not the favourable side, so clearly a spread betting firm in no way provides the option to trade with zero spread

You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
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  #9 (permalink)
 
matthew28's Avatar
 matthew28 
United Kingdom
 
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www123 View Post
Yes my Future broker have commission + 1 tick spread on ZN. Since many weeks I found a strategy on demo account that have very high win rate catching only one tick and paying only commission (demo account don’t have spread, only commission). The commission is only 20% of one tick profit (my profit is 15,625usd*0,8 for 1 contract). So do you think we can found a strategy to Buy at Ask or Sell at Bid to avoid that one tick spread on my real account ?? I can see that sometimes Ask=Bid on ZN contract. Can we build strategy around that??

Beware of sim trading success scalping because the simulated fills can be unrealistic and give optimistic fills ie. the platform fills you before your order in the queue would have traded if it was real and had been entered in to the exchange.

"So do you think we can found a strategy to Buy at Ask or Sell at Bid to avoid that one tick spread on my real account ??"
If you entered a market order you would buy immediately at the Ask/Offer or sell at the bid. On a futures platform you would be placing orders the other way round to ideally buy at the Bid and sell at the Offer.
With a decent futures platform it is very easy to place an order on the Depth of Market (DOM) or Price Ladder to try and buy the Bid, or a tick further back or whatever price you like. Your price goes in to the queue of orders at the Bid and it fills if you are lucky and enough volume trades. It is a trade off as if you buy the Offer with a market order you get filled straight away, but if you place an order to fill at a better price on the Bid you risk missing the trade. As a scalper you will miss trades but also as a scalper going for very small targets, the spread can be a large part of the price move so you don't want to give it up. If going just for a tick then you work a short exit on the Offer once filled.

Futures are good for scalping because they are exchange traded so everybody sees the same price and order book, and commissions can be low and exchange fees round turn costs low on European exchanges, or reduced on US exchanges if you are successful and start to trade high volume.

You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
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  #10 (permalink)
 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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www123 View Post
Yes my Future broker have commission + 1 tick spread on ZN. Since many weeks I found a strategy on demo account that have very high win rate catching only one tick and paying only commission (demo account don’t have spread, only commission). The commission is only 20% of one tick profit (my profit is 15,625usd*0,8 for 1 contract). So do you think we can found a strategy to Buy at Ask or Sell at Bid to avoid that one tick spread on my real account ?? I can see that sometimes Ask=Bid on ZN contract. Can we build strategy around that??


You are likely successful at this because it is a sim trading artifact.

The only people this might work for is some of the HFT hedge funds that are essentially market makers.

I would not spend much time of this idea, it almost certainly is impossible for retail traders like us.

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