Originally posted by Pabst
Agreed. You can trade equities retail at 4x, don't see a lot of reason for a product to succeed at only 5x. Why would a fund or institution be compelled to use SSF's?
Most funds hold overnight because they are too big for super short term, thus 20% should really be compared to 50% overnight requirements.
One of the biggest edges I can see is the major savings on interest.
When you trade stocks on margin you are paying interest to your broker. When you trade futures not only is there no interest, you can actually EARN interest on the tbills sitting in your account as collateral.
Thus the difference from negative interest to positive interest, even at low levels, could easily be a four to five percent profit swing. Too big to be ignored.
Also, internet stocks were notorious for hiding behind low float to beef prices up. With single stock futures, you can short the daylights out of something without having to go borrow it first. If some horrible piece of news comes out on AOL for example, the hedgies will be able to make a beeline to the phone and shoot the futures all to hell without the rigmarole of borrowing a single share.
Come to think of it, there is an information edge too. You could put on a massive stock futures position via electronic market with less fear that brokers and traders are exploiting the tipoff that comes with order flow.
I hope they make it, will keep the game fresh and interesting.