I Done Bought Me a SSF!

At the current level of my account, I could have traded 120 shares of QLGC using full 2:1 margin.
I traded the equivalent of 200 shares, with margin room to spare.

At the moment I'm up $100, which is nearly 5% increase. Have a sell order in for $33.75, which will give me $150 if I get it.

Volume is still:

February: 15
March: 12
April: 40
 
N = NQLX, N,O = Both Exchanges, O = OneChicago

Financial:
N: CE CI FNM FRE WFC
N,O: AIG AXP BAC C CD JPM MER MWD
O: ONE GS

Technology:
N: AAPL PSF
N,O: AMAT CSCO DELL IBM INTC KLAC MSFT MU NOK NVLS ORCL QCOM QLGC SBC SEBL TXN VRTS
O: ALTR BRCD BRCM CHKP ELX HPQ LLTC MOT MXIM NVDA SNDK SYMC XLNX

Drug, Biotech, Medical:
N: SGP
N,O: AMGN BMY GENZ MRK PFE
O: BGEN CEPH IDPH

Communication, Media:
N: YHOO CMCSK
N,O: AOL DIS EBAY T VZ

Retail, Consumer:
N,O: BBY HD JNJ KO PEP PG WMT
O: DD EK KKD MCD MMM MO SBUX

Automotive, Aircraft, Materials, Energy:
N,O: BA CVX F GM HAL HON XOM
O: AA CAT GE IP NEM NOC SLB UTX
 
Quote from hii a_ooiioo_a:

Yup. But of course, e-mini is e-mini. With SSF we can trade any specific stock, with no stinkin PDT rule!

With my current account level also I could not trade more than one e-mini. No scaling in and out, and no "market neutral" strategy.
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actually with $500 per emini (es or nq) you could have trade 3 contracts.
 
That link isn't working, so I don't know what you're trying to point out.

Well, I had fun dipping my toes in today trying SSF for the first time. I should have sold those two contracts at $33.60, instead of waiting for my $33.75 order to get executed. I was up over $100. But making a profit wasn't the major concern today. I was just getting a feel for the whole thing.

And I liked the way it felt. I've traded almost nothing but options until now, and there are several advantages of SSF over options. The bid/ask spread and the 5¢ increments with options make it much harder to make a worthwhile profit within a single day on most options, even without the PDT limitations. And then there's the time-decay worry. With SSF I can take advantage of small spontaneous movements of several cents, which I could never profit from with options.

And buying puts and calls on the same stock at the same time to be market neutral just doesn't work as it does with SSF. My one surprise was that the SSF only seemed to trade between 9:30am and 4:00pm, and I had thought they were supposed to trade from 9:15-4:15.
 
glad to see somebody is playing these things, they seem pretty cool. I too played options and the time decay and the spreads ate me alive so I had to stop. I think my next speculative foray will be to play SSF's one at a time and see what happens.
 
Quote from dojibear:

Mind boggling! I don't know how one could day trade the SSF with volume from 10 to 40 contracts ..... :confused: :confused:

Cheers!! :)
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Volume doesn't make a difference as long as there is a market. Hii, perhaps you can comment on the size and width of the bid/ask spread throughout the day.
 
The bid/ask on QLGC SSF was generally 6-8 cents, while the bid/ask on QLGC stock was 2-4 cents. The bid/ask would roll back and forth alot as the stock price moved, and if you put in a limit price better than the one shown there was a good chance of it getting hit in one of those moments.

Bid/ask volume was usually 10-30 contracts. Since I only traded 3, that was plenty for me.
When I trade options I'm often the only one trading a certain contract that day too.
 
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