Online Broker that offers trading on MINI-SPX

Hi guys,

Could you please recommend an online broker that provides Indices trading? I’m looking to trade Mini-SPX. The feature I’m looking for are, cheap commission rate (say $3 per side per contract), no spread that eats into my profit.

(I had a look at http://www.interactivebrokers.com but couldn’t find anywhere on their system demo, where I could trade the Mini-SPX. If they do offer the indices trading, then it would be great if someone can point out how I could go about finding the trade screen)

Thanks, looking forwards to some suggestions.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX.

aussiebuggaa said:

Hi guys,

Could you please recommend an online broker that provides Indices trading? I’m looking to trade Mini-SPX. The feature I’m looking for are, cheap commission rate (say $3 per side per contract), no spread that eats into my profit.

(I had a look at http://www.interactivebrokers.com but couldn’t find anywhere on their system demo, where I could trade the Mini-SPX. If they do offer the indices trading, then it would be great if someone can point out how I could go about finding the trade screen)

Thanks, looking forwards to some suggestions.

Click to expand...

By SPX do you mean S&P 500? If it is, IB have it- Symbol is ES, front month is Spetember currently.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX.

professor_frink said:

By SPX do you mean S&P 500? If it is, IB have it- Symbol is ES, front month is Spetember currently.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Frink, but is it normal index or the Mini-index? Seem like ES is the normal index which would cost me $500,000USD / contract which I couldn't afford
- Just for clarification, I'd like to trade on the Mini S&P 500. thanks.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX.

aussiebuggaa said:

Thanks for the reply Frink, but is it normal index or the Mini-index? Seem like ES is the normal index which would cost me $500,000USD / contract which I couldn't afford
- Just for clarification, I'd like to trade on the Mini S&P 500. thanks.

Click to expand...

ES is the mini contract. Currently it has a face value of just under $77,000, and a tick size of $12.50 per quater point

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX.

professor_frink said:

ES is the mini contract. Currently it has a face value of just under $77,000, and a tick size of $12.50 per quater point

Click to expand...

Thanks, Frink. You're absolutely right. I apologize.

About the $77k for face value, do I have to deposit this upfront or is there a margin for the buy the contract?

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX.

aussiebuggaa said:

Thanks, Frink. You're absolutely right. I apologize.

About the $77k for face value, do I have to deposit this upfront or is there a margin for the buy the contract?

Click to expand...

It's all good, no need to apologize

With IB, you'll need about $4300 to hold it o/n, less if you want to daytrade it.

On the IB website, you'll be able to get all of their margin requirements, go to the trading drop down menu, then margin, futures, and it will be listed on that page.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX.

professor_frink said:

It's all good, no need to apologize

With IB, you'll need about $4300 to hold it o/n, less if you want to daytrade it.

On the IB website, you'll be able to get all of their margin requirements, go to the trading drop down menu, then margin, futures, and it will be listed on that page.

Click to expand...

AWESOME!! Thanks for your help!

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX.

aussiebuggaa said:

AWESOME!! Thanks for your help!

Click to expand...

No worries mate. Good luck with it

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

Hi there folks,
I'm interested in hearing if the trading of the E-mini's is as good as the 'spruickers' say it is?
Also I'm wondering if the 'training' and support programs that you see on offer are any good (i.e. are they value for money? have you attended any)?
Cheers; looking forward to hearing any opinions.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

Hey lapoomba, I've been PAPER trading e-mini for a bit and on average, I'm getting about 4-6 tick return profit (after all gained and losses). That’s $200-$300 profit / contract. Not bad considering I’m only doing it during the morning session only. This could be more or less if I (paper) trade just before the opening hour to get exposed to the opening price hikes (roughly 10 points jump yesterday during the opening minutes). So that’s about 3 hours of trading, which means you just have to stay up and trade from 11:30pm to 2:30am AU. time. What really appeals to me is the momentum on the index is quite strong which makes it relatively easy to ride the wave, (much better than stock base security IMO). Also the volatility is quite volatile so you are guaranteed your can make (or loss) money $$.

I have not been to a training school so couldn't give you more info on this, but I’ve watch an introductory video (came with Smart investor Magazine), which got me interested in e-mini. However, you’ll need to pay $7500 for the classes which I think it’s ridiculous considering the amount of information you can get, let alone from this forum. Great help from the people here as far as I can see. So as for training and support, this forum is great. If not enough then plenty of info you can search from Google.

So, to get started, I suggest you do the same as me. Paper trade for a while and see if you are making money. For me, I’m getting used to it now and found it much easier and more profitable than stock based trading. (I’m still a long way off from forming a solid trading strategy though, and more profit only if the below question become clear).

---

(professor_frink)
One problem I have to refer back to you (again) Frink , I had a look at the margin rate on IB site and it quoted a margin of $1750 for initial outlay and $1400 to maintain. But when I tried to buy on the demo system, it quoted me something like $55000+ for initial outlay and not much less to maintain. Obviously I think this is too much considering if I’ll be getting an average return of $200-$300 profit / contract. That’s not even 0.5% return on my money! So, is it their software demo which is wrong or is there something which I’m missing? I’d like to get this clear before I go ahead and transfer my money.

Cheers.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

The website will be the correct amount aussiebugga, not sure what's going on with the demo, I've never used it before.

Hey lapoomba, I've been PAPER trading e-mini for a bit and on average, I'm getting about 4-6 tick return profit (after all gained and losses). That’s $200-$300 profit / contract.

Click to expand...

The ES is $12.50 a tick/contract. A 6 tick profit(1.5 pts) will be $75USD, not 200-300. Are you sure you have the right contract?

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

professor_frink said:

The website will be the correct amount aussiebugga, not sure what's going on with the demo, I've never used it before.



The ES is $12.50 a tick/contract. A 6 tick profit(1.5 pts) will be $75USD, not 200-300. Are you sure you have the right contract?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I was meant to say 4-6 points. 1 tick = 0.25 points so, on average my gained would have been roughly 4-6 points (not ticks), on paper trade. Thanks for the correction.
----
I was just reading the other posts on this forum and so many people are saying IB trading system is great. But so far, with the domo, I’ve found it quite hard to use with not much Technical Analysis tools/chart (pretty much none). I think I need to get the real stuff, their demo sucks, unless they’re the same then I seriously need to consider buying my own trading software. But they claimed to have all the features on the website, so maybe their demo is just not up to scratch!

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

aussiebuggaa said:

Sorry, I was meant to say 4-6 points. 1 tick = 0.25 points so, on average my gained would have been roughly 4-6 points (not ticks), on paper trade. Thanks for the correction.
----

Click to expand...

Ok gotcha.

aussiebuggaa said:

I was just reading the other posts on this forum and so many people are saying IB trading system is great. But so far, with the domo, I’ve found it quite hard to use with not much Technical Analysis tools/chart (pretty much none). I think I need to get the real stuff, their demo sucks, unless they’re the same then I seriously need to consider buying my own trading software. But they claimed to have all the features on the website, so maybe their demo is just not up to scratch!

Click to expand...

Yeah the charting sucks that comes with TWS, but you can feed the data into quite a few different charting packages. I use Amibroker and quotetracker for charting with IB's data, you could also use Sierra chart or ensign as well. You can also get some order management software too. Buttontrader and zeroline trader are 2 that I know of that will do this(although I think there are more).

You can basically set yourself up so that you don't really have to deal with IB's workstation at all.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

Hey Ausiebugga,
Thanks for the reply; i'll give the 'google' way a go and start paper trading for a few months to see how i go...
I use the TWS platform from interactive brokers (although i have an account with a Melbourne based broker) for options and stock trading. Its OK for that, but your're right about the lack of charting on their platform. I also find it anoying that its not available on the weekends (my version anyway?!).
Good luck with it all.
Cheers

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

lapoomba said:

Hey Ausiebugga,
Thanks for the reply; i'll give the 'google' way a go and start paper trading for a few months to see how i go...
I use the TWS platform from interactive brokers (although i have an account with a Melbourne based broker) for options and stock trading. Its OK for that, but your're right about the lack of charting on their platform. I also find it anoying that its not available on the weekends (my version anyway?!).
Good luck with it all.
Cheers

Click to expand...

Hey lapoomba (or anyone with IB account), since you already have an account with IB, could you please do me a favour? If you could please try to trade 1 contract on mini s&p500 (ES), and check for the initial margin required? (don’t accidentally click on Buy confirm though!! ). Although Pro’Frink told me it should be the same as on the website, but I just need someone to really confirm it before I shoot off my money next week. Thanks so much and good luck to you too with your trading.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

Someone just starting out or someone already trading US markets they
need to choose which market they want to start with, whether you are
going to trade the ES minis or the DOW minis, the spread of the market
is extremely important. For example, why the DOW minis and not the
ES?

The spread of the contract is a major factor when trading. The wider
the spread the worse it will be for any trader because it limits our
money management.

The ideal markets when trading is a spread of 1:1.

Markets for example are the SPI (Australian futures), Dow minis, GBL
Bund, Eurostoxx50, Russell, DAX many others.

Trading the ES places you at a disadvantage because of the spread, and
in fact, it could put you as much or as far as 60%, because of
the increments between the two when you compare the Dow minis and
ES.

The Dow minis moves in 1 point increments, whereas the ES moves 1 point
in 4 point increments, so when you are trading the DOW you have 6
more places to place your stop or profit objective compared to the ES.

This is very important for any discipline trader using discipline stops or
even profit objectives.

· 1 point in the E-mini S&P = 10 points in the Dow minis
· 1 point in the E-mini S&P = $50; 10 points in the CBOT mini-sized Dow = $50

So the values of the two are pretty much the same, and when you look
at the movements of the ranges, again they are very similar over the
course of the trading day. When you factor in the spread you can see
what a disadvantage is when trading the ES.

By trading the Dow minis, the trader is essentially cutting the spread by
60 percent. In theory trading the DOW minis will save you over your
trading career because we have 6 more places to trade within the
same value area compared to the ES.

When we look at the results and compare the DOW and ES-minis, because
of the spread and factoring in slippage of 1 tick each side, the ES has
a greater slippage of around 15 USD per trade.

In saying that, I run pure automated systems that are identical on both
the DOW and ES (swing based) and I get greater returns on the ES
than the DOW, and that might be due to the fact of ES rotating more than
the DOW within the day session.

So it might be better starting off in the DOW because of the spread and
in time work out which market gives you bang for buck based on
your systems and trading style.

Frank Dilernia.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

Hey Frank.

Thanks for the insight. However, I have been reading your post many times over to gain a better view of what’s going on, but it just doesn’t come clear.

Ok first of all. “The Dow minis moves in 1 point increments, whereas the ES moves 1 point in 4 point increments, so when you are trading the DOW you have 6 more places to place your stop or profit objective compared to the ES.”

Why 6 places more? I think its more like 2 and a half points advantage for DOW for every tick ES moves? (Calculate based on the tick price $5 for Dow and $12.5 for s&p).

What are the normal bid/ask spread on the mini-Dow and the mini-S&P500? If the spread are usually one tick apart then the above assumption should hold.

“By trading the Dow minis, the trader is essentially cutting the spread by
60 percent.”

Once again, I am lost where you get the figure from.

“and I get greater returns on the ES than the DOW”

I guess it should be making more $ on ES if your system is profitable since, the tick size for ES is bigger than the DOW. And from my observation, on the same time period, ES movement are usually greater than the DOW (up and down).

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

Hi Aussiebuggaa, you still around??
Just wondering how you're going with trding the e-mini's, and what system you're using?
I've tried with the IB platform, but seem to not be getting the consistant results.
I sat in on a 'free' training webinar last week, and they use contract tick charts not time based charts. Is this what you use?

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

lapoomba said:

Hi Aussiebuggaa, you still around??
Just wondering how you're going with trding the e-mini's, and what system you're using?
I've tried with the IB platform, but seem to not be getting the consistant results.
I sat in on a 'free' training webinar last week, and they use contract tick charts not time based charts. Is this what you use?

Click to expand...

Hey lapoomba, strangely I have not logged on here for almost 2 months and when I did, you are looking for me. Talk about perfect timing.

Well, consistency is not easily obtained when trading in such a fast moving market like the E-minis. That’s why I signed up with one of the online course (home study). They have a live trading room you can join and watch them trades live. In fact I just signed up yesterday after I saw the performance of one of their head trader traded live in the room on Friday. It was simply amazing. (I have trialed several rooms for the past one to two months but was not too impressed with what I’ve seen so far, but after seeing this guy trades, I knew he is the one I want to be looking over the shoulder, hence I signed up the next day). After reading their course materials, I found that things are beginning to fall into places. I cannot discuss with you about their setups or methodologies because this would violate their agreement and I would be banned if they found out. I can update you one month from now how my performance has improves or simply blow my trading account. But if you’re interested to take the course or see them live in action, please let me know. I can PM you the details how to join. (Sorry I’m not sure if I’m allowed to advertise commercial information on this forum.) Anyway, their course is $2000US, one time fee and you get a lifetime membership. Other live trading room services you’ll be looking to pay $250-$500 per month. Simply put, for $2000, you’ll be paying for an education of a life time. You’ll be paying for a system that may or may not work (I think they will work). You’ll be paying for a summary of the hundreds of books you can buy and read or years of trial and errors of different methods and indicators. Anyway, let me know if you’re interested (I get nothing out of this except helping another trader).

Cheers.
AussieBuggaa

PS. You will need to work on your trading psychology in order to become consistence. Ever hesitated buying/selling even though you know the trade would be good? Ever bite your nail to hold onto a winning trade and got out early then kick yourself later for falling short? If this sounds like you then you are the one paying the price especially in the hyper, fast pace environment, high margin of the futures market. If you have not read Mark Douglas’s book – trading in the zone, I suggest you get yourself a copy NOW! Good luck.

Re: Online Broker that offer Trading on MINI-SPX

Hi Aussiebugga!
Great to hear from you.
I'd be definately interseted in hearing how you're progressing, and i'd also be keen to check out the program you have joined (its about 1/2 - 1/3 of the cost of the one i'm looking at, plus it has the ongoing trading room costs!); did i read right that theres no ongoing costs with the company you've signed up with?
look forward to hearing from you agian.
Cheers