Just how liquid is the ES!?!

[Chicago_CTA]

OP -

before any planned major news release, like ISM, Unemployment, Jobless Claims, Home Sales, CPI, Retail Sales, etc., the order book thins out DRAMATICALLY so that it's only 100-300 bid/offered ten-deep.

I think the liquidity is there for those lucky few who can point and click 2000 @ a time. They just use LIMIT orders and hit the liquidity.

I doubt someone who moves 2000 ES on a click is here reading this and would post their experiences.

...But my point is I believe the liquidity is generally there in ES.

 

[gmst]

Quote from Chicago_CTA:

OP -

before any planned major news release, like ISM, Unemployment, Jobless Claims, Home Sales, CPI, Retail Sales, etc., the order book thins out DRAMATICALLY so that it's only 100-300 bid/offered ten-deep.

I think the liquidity is there for those lucky few who can point and click 2000 @ a time. They just use LIMIT orders and hit the liquidity.

I doubt someone who moves 2000 ES on a click is here reading this and would post their experiences.

...But my point is I believe the liquidity is generally there in ES.

good point. yes liquidity is there if you hit it, T&S window does show trades > 1000 contracts per clip.

 

[RangeTrader]

My main chart is showing the Merkel spike event. There were large blocks on the ask to the upside that vaporized instantly when the spike hit the market.

Automated market making + Alogo's are half the market.

Quote from Chicago_CTA:

OP -

before any planned major news release, like ISM, Unemployment, Jobless Claims, Home Sales, CPI, Retail Sales, etc., the order book thins out DRAMATICALLY so that it's only 100-300 bid/offered ten-deep.

I think the liquidity is there for those lucky few who can point and click 2000 @ a time. They just use LIMIT orders and hit the liquidity.

I doubt someone who moves 2000 ES on a click is here reading this and would post their experiences.

...But my point is I believe the liquidity is generally there in ES.

 

[Bob111]

Those large blocks on either side of the market are an illusion... If this data is correct... They are just algorithmically placed and when the market actually moves toward them they disappear before they get filled.

I've been saying this for many many years..and you talking about most liquid futures contract..imagine what's going on on stocks..


http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3560174&highlight=SEC#post3560174

 

[the1]

I would agree with all of this, especially L2. It's completely useless.

Quote from RangeTrader:

The market just skims through places where there was previously 2000-3000 contracts waiting at the bid or ask merely hitting around 250-750 contracts on it's way through the prices...

If my data feed is correct...


Sometimes the market even spikes through areas hitting only 50-100 contracts...


Interesting that the liquidity that "appears" to be on either side is nonexistent.
The real liquidity is all market orders and the limit orders being pushed in at the bid or ask right around price. The rest of the book is mostly fake...

The bottom line of all this is... There isn't much reason to have a L2 up anymore unless it's your favorite way to enter orders. You can do the exact same thing by dragging and order up/down on a chart without a L2.

 

[gmst]

Ammo gives us a good reason for the occurrence of this phantom thickness of ES in the first post on this page.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=210472&perpage=20&pagenumber=7


"Algos can, however, quite effectively game Pro-Rata order matching IF they can comply with the price-to-fill ratio messaging policy. However, they all incur risk of ruin. In order to game the Pro-Rata, you have to be capitalized enough to place large order sizes in order to get filled on a much smaller allocation"

 

[masterm1ne]

To answer the question,

... its liquid enough to make a good living trading and that's all I and most people care about.

 

[ChkitOut]

dude come on, if there are a million contracts at every level how the hell do you think the market will ever move a 1 point or 2 points or 3 points in less than 5 hours? lol

 

[TheBlackHand]

Quote from gmst:

Ammo gives us a good reason for the occurrence of this phantom thickness of ES in the first post on this page.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=210472&perpage=20&pagenumber=7


"Algos can, however, quite effectively game Pro-Rata order matching IF they can comply with the price-to-fill ratio messaging policy. However, they all incur risk of ruin. In order to game the Pro-Rata, you have to be capitalized enough to place large order sizes in order to get filled on a much smaller allocation"

ES is FIFO. Only STIR products are pro-rata