What's the maddest, baddest, volatilest market?

trendie

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Which market, ideally forex or index, would you guys consider to be the most difficult to trade?
Market must be highly liquid, with acceptably tight spreads.

Just curious to know which market you consider challenging to trade, and approach with greater respect than other more stabler markets.
If possible, indicate why that market is demanding, whether it is prone to deep spikes, or capable of being manipulated, or prone to geo-politics, etc.

Just looking to test against a new environment.
Thanks.
 
When I read your thought at first glance I was going to reply the Natural Gas Outright futures contract. Daily ranges of a couple hundred ticks and a one lot has a tick value of $10. Was even crazier when it was trading more than $10 some years ago. If you can find some price data may be worth testing on.

As a rule of thumb though, the more volatile a market the wider the spreads will be - because anyone making markets in the product wants to be paid extra for the risk they are taking if the market moves against them quickly.

As for NG, geo politics, the weekly storage number and various other things tend to affect it. Actually, thinking about it anything energy is extremely prone to going crazy. Oil, RBOB, Heating Oil, etc.

Cheers.

Mr ian
 
I agree with mrian, the most volatile markets have wider spreads. Gold and GBPJPY are very volatile but spreads generally lousy. Trendie, The only thing that I can think of that would fit your requirements is Crude Oil. The reason all these are so volatile is price is driven by heavy doses of politics, speculators, and producers.

Any spot forex pair is difficult to trade for the additional reason of having no true volume data.

So, IMO, energy and forex are the most difficult markets to trade with reasonable spreads.

A good stock to fit the category is Apple (AAPL), except it's not a market by itself.

Peter
 
volatility keeps changing , i would go with commodities much more volatile than indices futures ( currently S&P vix under 20 ) , for forex i would check usd/pln and other exotic pairs as well ( Try , Zar ) , for futures the natural gas contract has the most volatility , the contract is smaller now , but if you compare apples to apples at the same dealing size , currently natural gas still the most volatile , then comes cocoa beans then wheat and silver .

here is a list for fx volatility :

Forex Volatility and Price Movements | OANDA Forex Consulting
 
Agree with wackypete - crude light, HO, GO outrights v vol with CL being pretty liquid. And used to trade gold dma and that was choppier than CL but with less liquidity - cld get 20tick slippage easily.

But isn't there a quantifiable way of finding out? Option vol / vol traded data over past 5 years from bb perhaps? (Obv exc fx)
 
I tried crude a couple of times and just thought it was bewildering. nat gas looks equally as absurd. i get the feeling that energies are just weird and attract a particular type of lunatic.
 
The problem I think is you specified "highly liquid". High liquidity has a tendency to dampen craziness.

I suppose Oil, as others have said. For indices, if you can trade ES the NQ (mini nasdaq) can be interesting. It often seems to act like ES on speed. In a lot of ways though I think this makes trade management easier, although you often have to be very quick on your entry.

TF (mini Russell) often has similar properties, although I wouldn't say it meets the liquidity requirement.
 
For indices, if you can trade ES the NQ (mini nasdaq) can be interesting. It often seems to act like ES on speed.

Oh, the irony!

I am currently in an NQ trade. The other minis are rampaging while NQ is acting like a heavily-sedated suet pudding.
 
Oh, the irony!

I am currently in an NQ trade. The other minis are rampaging while NQ is acting like a heavily-sedated suet pudding.

I just said exactly the same thing in the fx thread. I'm waiting for a eurusd short but it nearly stopped dead. Meanwhile aud and jpy pairs are moving nicely.

Sucks, eh?

Peter
 
I just said exactly the same thing in the fx thread. I'm waiting for a eurusd short but it nearly stopped dead. Meanwhile aud and jpy pairs are moving nicely.

Sucks, eh?

Peter

Indeed. I've reduced some risk and the trade is up marginally. But it is a bit wearing just sitting here twiddling.

I'm anxious to get done with trading today so I can watch the webinar del lulz :LOL:.
 
who says crazy volatile products are the hardest to trade? Give me a market that moves around rather than some locked up saturated market where people scream at their screens because its gone a bid a tick in their face any day.
 
EURCHF - as requested, "prone to deep spikes, or capable of being manipulated, or prone to geo-politics, etc". But it looks so docile.
 
volatility keeps changing , i would go with commodities much more volatile than indices futures ( currently S&P vix under 20 ) , for forex i would check usd/pln and other exotic pairs as well ( Try , Zar ) , for futures the natural gas contract has the most volatility , the contract is smaller now , but if you compare apples to apples at the same dealing size , currently natural gas still the most volatile , then comes cocoa beans then wheat and silver .

here is a list for fx volatility :

Forex Volatility and Price Movements | OANDA Forex Consulting

hmmm

so whats the difference between a Pair having a volatility index of say 30% in a 30 day period and a pair moving up or down (trending) by 30% in that period

that reads to me like volatility is techically the same term as trend ?

to me volatility is the standard deviation that a market moves from the average over a period of time ....whether the net move is up or down , or even flat

volatility is the risk (Spread) you are taking on to get that trade from A to B hopefully in a trending scenario to generate profit

N
 
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Which market, ideally forex or index, would you guys consider to be the most difficult to trade?
Market must be highly liquid, with acceptably tight spreads.

Just curious to know which market you consider challenging to trade, and approach with greater respect than other more stabler markets.
If possible, indicate why that market is demanding, whether it is prone to deep spikes, or capable of being manipulated, or prone to geo-politics, etc.

Just looking to test against a new environment.
Thanks.


Beautiful Women = Forex, difficult to trade, highly liquid (see Div. Court), demanding because easily stolen, manipulated by lesser markets, prone to deep spikes, highly prone to fiscal politics. The one feature generally noticeably absent is "tight spreads" -
 
Beautiful Women = Forex, difficult to trade, highly liquid (see Div. Court), demanding because easily stolen, manipulated by lesser markets, prone to deep spikes, highly prone to fiscal politics. The one feature generally noticeably absent is "tight spreads" -


Pretty good. I'd swear you just wrote something filthy there, but I can't quite say what it was :LOL:
 
Beautiful Women = Forex, difficult to trade, highly liquid (see Div. Court), demanding because easily stolen, manipulated by lesser markets, prone to deep spikes, highly prone to fiscal politics. The one feature generally noticeably absent is "tight spreads" -
Has anyone had the pleasure of pointing out how much a complete idiot you are?

yet another retard who can't see past the SEX and revel in the myriad other fine qualities of LIFE available to the vast, vast vast numbers of foreigners who have discovered this marvelous diamond of a place to live.
 
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