Corn vs. mini-Corn

N

Neodude

Hi,
I'm trying to get some opinions on the cbot contracts. Is anyone trading one or the other? How is the action off the floor (electronic)? Are the spreads tight? Does it move, or does it stagnate once the floor shuts down? How about the fills?

Any tips or advice on things to watch out for when trading these contracts would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Neo
 
Quote from Neodude:

Hi,
I'm trying to get some opinions on the cbot contracts. Is anyone trading one or the other? How is the action off the floor (electronic)? Are the spreads tight? Does it move, or does it stagnate once the floor shuts down? How about the fills?

Any tips or advice on things to watch out for when trading these contracts would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Neo
More...

The electronic Corn is not a "mini". It's the same 5k bushel as the pit. The screen and pit trade "side by side" during RTH. The trade is quickly moving electronic. Pit volume is a bit skewed because Corn trades a ton of spreads and the spread trade is dominated by the pit. "Outrights" though are very quickly migrating to the screen. Yesterday 76k traded on the screen vs. 141k open outcry. Obviously the screen and pit have the same market and it's tight for size.
 
Quote from Pabst:

The electronic Corn is not a "mini". It's the same 5k bushel as the pit. The screen and pit trade "side by side" during RTH. The trade is quickly moving electronic. Pit volume is a bit skewed because Corn trades a ton of spreads and the spread trade is dominated by the pit. "Outrights" though are very quickly migrating to the screen. Yesterday 76k traded on the screen vs. 141k open outcry. Obviously the screen and pit have the same market and it's tight for size.
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Thanks for the reply Pabst, you have cleared somethings up for me however, I also see a mini-Corn contract listed on cbot's website, which has a tick size of $1.25 vs the big one which has a tick of $12.50. Is anyone trading these minis to a significant extent? I see that the margin rates for the big contract are already very low. Is there enough interest in the mini for it to be tradable? It seems to me that even though the margins are even lower on the mini, the very small tick size would make it harder to break even on commissions when scalping.


Thanks,
Neo
 
Quote from Neodude:

Thanks for the reply Pabst, you have cleared somethings up for me however, I also see a mini-Corn contract listed on cbot's website, which has a tick size of $1.25 vs the big one which has a tick of $12.50. Is anyone trading these minis to a significant extent? I see that the margin rates for the big contract are already very low. Is there enough interest in the mini for it to be tradable? It seems to me that even though the margins are even lower on the mini, the very small tick size would make it harder to break even on commissions when scalping.


Thanks,
Neo
More...

Neo,

Mini corn is thinly traded and only in the pit during the pit hours (9:30- 11:45), whereas electronic corn is traded about 20 hrs a day. Really not enough interest in the mini unless you were going to trade with only limit orders, and even then, the daily or weekly movement may only net or lose your position 50 - 100$, because of its micro size. You are right about commissions (which would be higher than electronic trade comms., since you have to go to the pit) eating into your profit or loss.
 
Had a go on ZC today that thing is becoming really liquid on the screen, the volume is surprising 300-500 lots bid/offer with a solid book, no bid offer spread it traded about 20k lots in the first half hour of the afternoon session. Quite tradable flow at present not too many games in there yet.:)
 
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