Quote from gam1111:
Don Bright said in his chat sessions few weeks back" equities follow futures because broker dealers and institutions trade with VWAP and large share size that is hedged by futures".
Any body understand what he was saying about the how VWAP and large size is hedged with futures?
Aaron,Quote from Aaron:
Near the close a mutual fund, say, finds out that it has had a $10 million inflow of new assets during the day. First thing the manager does is buy futures asap. The reason for buying quickly is to avoid the possibility of the market shooting up overnight and the manager missing out on the gains and underperforming his benchmark. Then the next day, at a modest pace (possibly using VWAP orders) so as to get good executions, the manager will gradually move from futures to the equities he thinks will outperform.
I believe Mr. Bright's hypothesis is, if industrywide there is a big inflow of assets, first the futures will go up and then the equities will follow as the assets are redeployed.
Quote from nitro:
This is VERY interesting info. Are you saying that the next day the manager will exit his futures position and at the same time, do the same dollar amount per stocks he is interested in?
Quote from WinSum:
A majority of mutual funds does not allows investing in Futures Instrument as disclose by their prospectus.
Futures Contracts. The fund may use futures contracts to manage its exposure to the stock market. Buying futures tends to increase the fund's exposure to the underlying instrument, while selling futures tends to decrease the fund's exposure to the underlying instrument or hedge other fund investments.
Net realized gain (loss) on:
Futures contracts (329,092)

Quote from Aaron:
What is your source? I don't think this is true. The mutual funds I've looked at allow futures. Read the prospectuses carefully -- it is often just a single line. Here's the quote from Fidelity Magellan's prospectus, for example:
I don't see any futures holdings listed in the schedule of investments in Magellan's annual report, but I did find this in the Statement of Operations:
That number is in thousands... This one mutual fund lost $329 million in equity index futures.
Since futures are a zero sum game, the rest of the market participants must have made $329 million. Did you get your share?
Or a better question: "What do you have to do to get your share?"
Quote from def:
VWAPS are labor intensive if you are manually doing them. What some may find interesting is that we (IB) don't have any minimum sizes.
_http://www.interactivebrokers.com/html/tradingInfo/orders/vwapOrders.html
_
