Quote from ScreenLocal:
Hi guys,
I used to trade EURONEXT equities.
The reason why european stocks aren't interesting. Is because they simply don't move. 99% of the stocks on euronext move like msft qqqq siri etc...
There's not a lot of volume, except of royal dutch and a few others (but then again, they don't move either).
There are no ECN's. There are market makers of course as there are in ANY market. But they don't have an ID like in NASDAQ stocks for example.
The orderbook looks like:
20.21 9821 x 20.22 7236
Technical analysis doesn't work at all. Except on timeframes longer than the Daily.
A 5 point move, which is normal on a lot of stocks intraday on the NASDAQ/NYSE, you'll only see on the daily or weekly chart on 99,999% of the EURONEXT stocks.
There's a boat load of options volume on many stocks though. I know some guys who make a market in options and they make serious money on a daily basis.
And then, if you wanna have a good, fast and reliable system. Costs are way higher then a broker in the US.
I used prop trading software. The monthly fee was 1500 EURO (about 1875 USD).
Commissions were 3EUR per trade. Whether you took out 100 shares or 20,000.
I don't know of any broker, prop firm in the US asking 1875 per month for the trading platform only.
In europe you do get the direct connection to the exchange.
But 90% of the brokers in the US have these direct connections to the exchanges and offer it for free.
Just my 2c,
-SL
PS.: Stamp tax is only in the U.K.