basic questions on ES / s&p 500

Discussion in 'Trading' started by dumb_mother, Feb 9, 2011.

  1. what do you get if you take delivery on ES futures? i'm just trying to figure out how to buy the s&p 500 without buying SPY and paying the associated management fees.

    Or is there a website that shows the % makeup of each stock so that you could just buy them up individually yourself to get make it yourself in individual stocks? i don't know much s&p 500 specifically, but i think that things are weighted based on their market caps- does this change frequently enough that you'd have to be actively managing the breakdown?
     
  2. MPK

    MPK

  3. ES is cash settled.

    Make it easy on yourself and just equal weight the 500 stocks. :D
     
  4. buying 500 stocks is gonna cost a lot in commission, while one ES contract will cost you $4-$5 round trip. Look into ES. there's plenty of info via google.


    http://www.tradingconceptsinc.com/eminitrading/what_are_emini_futures.shtml
     
  5. Wow, I always thought they dumped I Pads and little pieces of banks on your lawn if you are long S&P futures at expiration.
     
  6. in using ES you have to be willing to sacrifice the dividends though don't you? if i were trying to buy and hold, would you then say that in general until you have milllions of dollars to divvy up between the stocks, the management fee associated with owning SPY is a smaller hit than the transaction costs associated with trading each?