DIA or YM / YJ ?

[SethArb]

I am curious if anyone has a better experience with trading

the DIA (Diamonds) vs the YM / YJ stock index futures?

I tried daytrading the YM this week and after tallying my losses
in it realized the spread was too wide and it was too thin
vs the DIA to trade ( I know the Futures have better tax treatment ) ,but I also find I can scale in better with DIA

 

[chasinfla]

lets see. one goes through an AMEX specialist, the other is electronic, is that right? What's the question?

 

[SethArb]

also trades on ECN's and NYSE specialist so it is more competitive

than it used to be

 

[chasinfla]

ok that's right. I have a friend who trades Q's and Spiders via ISLD.

 

[trdrmac]

I don't know what sort of set ups you trade, so this may not matter but SPY trades about 12M shares per day on most ecns and NYSE and AMEX books. The spread on DIA is a little higher, but still tradable.

I met with some traders recently who trade the e-minis and they seemed pleased with the executions and minimal slippage.