How many people?

Some traders often equate liquidity with
trading volume, concluding that only markets
with the highest actual number of contracts
traded are the most liquid. However, for some
contracts, the Chicago Board of Trade has
a market maker system in place to promote
liquidity. For contracts with a market maker, a
trader or firm designated as the market maker
then makes two-sided markets (both bids and
offers) for a specific quantity.

:cool:
 
Quote from scriabinop23:

i'm not currently set up, but tradestation from what i recall offers a 'trades' field that shows the total number of transactions per day (additionally you can derive the same from getting a tick datafeed and doing a linecount). Then you can figure the average trader may make an arbitrary number of trades per day -- maybe 6-20. Then of course there are longer term hedgers who only make one trade per day, so they may not have as much of an impact.

You could probably guess the number of people actively trading it by the correct magnitude this way.

ie, from 7am to 5pm yesterday on the ZN (10 year bond) there were 17365 actual transactions at a volume of 1298904 contracts on exchange. Thats an average of 74 contracts per trade. Therefore the MAXIMUM number of intraday players on that contract yesterday was 17365/2 (open and closing trade), or 8682 people.

If the average trader was making 6 total trades [3 buy, 3 sell], then it is 2894 intraday traders at the most.

And of course, a certain percentage of activity is not intraday. But at most there are 8500 or so people in the world trading ZN intraday.. More likely 1500-3000.
More...


I dont have Trade Station and TOS does not show me the # of transactions..
Any idea on that?
 
Interesting. I've not been able to find a good reason to trade the YM since I switched over to trading futures. The other 3 SIFs seem to work well...

- ER2 - biggest bang for the buck
- ES - handles size & in the middle for $$ efficiency
- NQ - most TA compliant but worst bang for the buck
- YM - originally had CBOT issues - now they're gone (hopefully). When I last checked - bang for buck was in the middle (similar to ES). Fairly low volume and not-great TA compliance left me with no pervasive reason to trade this over the other three....

Why trade YM?

R
 
Quote from RL8093:

Interesting. I've not been able to find a good reason to trade the YM since I switched over to trading futures. The other 3 SIFs seem to work well...

- ER2 - biggest bang for the buck
- ES - handles size & in the middle for $$ efficiency
- NQ - most TA compliant but worst bang for the buck
- YM - originally had CBOT issues - now they're gone (hopefully). When I last checked - bang for buck was in the middle (similar to ES). Fairly low volume and not-great TA compliance left me with no pervasive reason to trade this over the other three....

Why trade YM?

R
More...


I just started day trading. Learning from books. And posts here.
Several books Ive read mentioned the general trading population on ES is more sophisticated and has more experience than traders on YM

So I am starting on 'the bunny hill' to use a skiing analogy
 
Quote from mgabriel01:

I just started day trading. Learning from books. And posts here.
Several books Ive read mentioned the general trading population on ES is more sophisticated and has more experience than traders on YM

So I am starting on 'the bunny hill' to use a skiing analogy
More...

Interesting analysis. 10000-18000 people are probably trading the YM in the entire world AT MOST intraday. Perhaps the number is lower. YM is definitely a little guy contract. Avg trade size distributes heavy to 1 and 2 lots per trade.

I analyzed two days (the 28th, and a high vol day, the 30th [FOMC]).

Enjoy. Its an Excel Binary file. Has your tick data too.
http://krausecomputer.com/ymtick.zip
 
Quote from scriabinop23:

Interesting analysis. 10000-18000 people are probably trading the YM in the entire world AT MOST intraday. Perhaps the number is lower. YM is definitely a little guy contract. Avg trade size distributes heavy to 1 and 2 lots per trade.

I analyzed two days (the 28th, and a high vol day, the 30th [FOMC]).

Enjoy. Its an Excel Binary file. Has your tick data too.
http://krausecomputer.com/ymtick.zip
More...

Whats fascinating is that YM versus ZN (ZN being a much deeper market) is made up of opposite market participants generally. YM are your small speculator, and ZN [witnessed by trade size alone] are likely more professional (bank, financial, and hedging volume). ZN's contract volumes are near 4x as much. Similar amount of total trades across both markets, but a lot more cash flying in ZN.
 
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