The market reporters are way off, they usually have a bull horn or speaker to remind traders that the boards (at the exchange reflecting the pit prices) are off. The Dow boards are always way off. The only way to get REAL "Real Time" Quotes is to be reading the hand signals in the pit.
So I should hire someone to intercept hand signals? If I do, I'll make them wear one of those multicolored jackets too...and yell a lot...walk around the office yelling at everyone...yelling about shorting winter red wheat and going long the bund. With all due respect Chitown, that ain't gonna happen. I need a 21st century method of getting reliable prices, via proxy if need be. This is nuts. Bring me the Eurex.
Visited the NYBOT yesterday after not being there for 12 years. Saw Cotton go crazy called limit up in the AM but settled limit down! Trading frenzy shows how important locals are in adding liquidity since it looked like the locals were just stepping away due to the craziness. Trading was a lot of paper vs. paper so the ticks were flying 10,20 even 50 ticks, sorta like IBM trading 1-$2 at a clip! I doubt that prints were being posted on those trades, once in a while the man in the bullhorn would say this print is coming down since broker has 500 lots to buy 4 ticks higher. As a screen trader, it would be crazy to base technical studies off of pit contracts. I guess that is the reason seats in the pits still command a premium - there still is a big edge onthe floor. 1
there are some real time squawk boxes out there for SP500 futures , as well as NYMEX crude oil they also slightly lag the screen prices it seems
Is it true to assume that if I trade Globex's NQ and ES, it is useless to watch the pit contracts (ND, SP), because they provide no predictive value (they don't move before the NQ and ES)? Thanks 50
Thats a fair statement. Because of the faster trade reporting the mini contracts (ES/NQ) were the tail that wagged the dog. Now that so much volume has moved electronic - the mini is the dog that wags the tail (pit). SP pit traders watch ES for direction. ES is now the source of price discovery. The only caveat is the occasional stop cascading that will screw up your charts. This now occurs less and less as more volume moves to the mini and institutions learn how to trade it. The wider tick size in ES .25 vs. .10 can also make for some charting and technical analysis differences.
Chitown is right. In fact some of the off floor traders are on headsets to the pit traders in their group arbing the price lag. For quite some time one pit was running about a 12 second lead to the reports. ktm if you want true price you have to have a visual on the pit. In fact the price will/may be different in different sections of a large pit.
The statements about the CME clerks typing in the orders, the off-floor traders arbing the emini/full contract spread and the emini leading the pit (sometimes) are true. The guys in the pit watch a 15 min bar chart of the emini. A large portion of new traders (traders growing up with video games) are encouraged to trade with a Globex terminal watching the SP pit. This is not my opinion, just what was told to me by the ADM's operations director at the CME when I was there with a small group last month. Cheers.