Any Index Futures Spread Traders here?

J

J_Smith

If anyone here trades Index Futures Spreads on US or European markets, can they please reply as I have a few questions in relation to IB TWS charts and if the charts are really that reliable.

I have been looking at them on and off for a bit, and now ready to do some trades, but with the wrong info, or interpreting the info wrongly, I know I am on a road to nowhere!

No salesmen or gurus, please, just plain old dumb traders who take on risk for reward - preferably some old ones, but younger ones are not ruled out:)

Thx.

J_S
 
Index Futures spreads or SoyBeans Futures spreads. There is no real difference.

I trade Volatility futures spreads using IB TWS, I don't really have any problems with it.

What issues are you specifically having with IB TWS? Best to post your questions here for the benefit of everyone, but keep them specific so you can get specific answers.
 
Thx for the replies guys - will post some charts tonite as tied up most of the day.

The questions might look stuipid to some, but that really doesn't bother me, as I lost a good bit of money I had made in the past trading index options, all because I did not fully understand at the time what I was doing - that made me feel real stupid, so I don't give a damn how stupid I may look by asking,!

My main problem, as of now, is the spread chart with TWS - if I select "trades" to display, it looks like you can easily identify the trading range that the spread moves in, but if I look up the time and sales to verify the trades, I do not get confirmation, so, it appears to me the charts are not showing what actually happened, which to say the least, can be a very costly error if traded.

Sorry no chart to post now, will post one asap.

Thx.

J_S
 
What I've found is that even if you plot trades for the spread chart, it actually shows the spread between the last trade for one leg and the mid for the other leg. I find this if one of the legs doesn't have any active trades for that day.

I trade pretty active spreads both in futures and CFDs so generally I don't see this problem.
 
Ok, let's start at the beginning, and all we know is that the chart shows the price of "trades" when set to trades.

First glance at this chart shows a very easy trading range to trade - but surely it is not that simple - so let's try and work out why so, before we throw away our money - me that is!

Point noted on RT's last post - thx.

Buy when it hits -9.00
Sell when it hits -7.75

Gona clean up trading this chart!!!

J_S

Screen Shot 07-01-16 at 12.21 PM.PNG



RTH

Screen Shot 07-01-16 at 12.12 PM.PNG


Outside RTH

Screen Shot 07-01-16 at 12.24 PM.PNG
 
So before I start making a fortune trading the range, let's check the bid/ask history to see where prices were at?

We will go back a week to make sure.

Starting to look a bit hairy fairy already - if the Ask is not up at -7.75 then how can I trade it, or are we getting a load of trades going off outside the Bid / Ask?

Or is it just the way the charts plot the "trades" as per RT's post?

J_S

Screen Shot 07-01-16 at 12.30 PM.PNG
 
Let's go back a month and have a look what happened with the big drop recently, to see if we can make any sense of the charts?

J_S

Screen Shot 07-01-16 at 12.45 PM.PNG
 
If the booktrader gives the right info for the spread, then why can the chart not do the same - is this another example of IB's silly way of doing things, or are all brokers the same when it comes to charting index futures spreads?

J_S

Screen Shot 07-01-16 at 01.04 PM.PNG
 
You are right about the chart being misleading. If you want to see the real trading range dont use synthetic spreads on ib and instead check out the es exchange traded spread for sep-dec. Youll see the moves are a lot less dramatic as they appear on the synthetic. Youll most likely never get filled on those movesthat are far from the mean price. And if you do get filed you nost likely will be hung on the opposing leg or get slippage. Its largely arbed out imo.
 
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