Ftse Vs Dow

[cj12]

Does anyone scalp the FTSE Future Its 10 pound for a 1 tick move. . at the moment I trade the YM it seems to be more expensive to trade than the FTSE when you way everything up.

Any thoughts which is best to trade.

Sun

 

[cj12]

guess not many of you trade the FTSE Futures then.

 

[fillyerboots]

Hi, I trade FTSE futures, never looked at DOW, I like the mini S+P as a comparison, I think you find most of the professionals watch this an indicator for FTSE in the p.m. Plenty of opportunity to make money in FTSE but discipline is the key.

 

[Option1]

I'm papertrading FTSE futures - Haventinvestigated the relationship between DOW and FTSE - Whats your take on it

 

[Pat494]

Hi
I personally prefer the Dow or S&P because:-
1. The US opening time of 2.30 gmt is very convenient
2. The US market is definately the major player in the world. The rest follow along.
3. Most of the good web sites are US orientated.
4. Bloomberg is 24hrs and mainly US orientated.
hope this is of interest

 

[clardan]

I've advised my son, who lives in Edinburgh, to open a money market account with check writing priveleges , then to get into an index fund and a no load mutual fund, ultimately to buy indivudual stocks. Could you provide me with the names of major brokers in the UK which offer these instruments? Here in the US, I deal with Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, and Ameritrade, but I don't believe they have branches in the UK. Thanks for your response.
ED

 

[cj12]

Thanks fillyerboots and pat94

To fillyerboots.

When you trade the FTSE futures how do you trade it. do you scalp for 5 ticks to 10 ticks with a tight stop. or try to catch a move. I trade the YM for a target of 10 to 20 points. and scale out once and move stop to B/E as soon as I can.

Sun

 

[Mornington Crescent]

Clardon

you could do worse than use Fidelity.
(I know you will have heard of them)

They offer a chequing facility on their Cash Fund and cheap switching into mutuals.
They used to do broking as well in UK but I think they have closed that down.

 

[Racer]

Different indices-different weightings of sectors, also number of stock is significant 30 Dow compared to 500 S&P
You need to know which sectors are dominant in the index

 

[clardan]

Clardon

you could do worse than use Fidelity.
(I know you will have heard of them)

They offer a chequing facility on their Cash Fund and cheap switching into mutuals.
They used to do broking as well in UK but I think they have closed that down.

Thanks, double-six,
I have respect for Fidelity, and will inform my son of their availability. However, I thought an exclusively British investment house would be more suitable.
ED

 

[macbonzo]

I trade both mini dow and FTSE futures. I think it does depend on which indice suits your personality. Because the Dow is only 30 unweighted stocks it is much more volatile than the FTSE. I've lost count of the number of times when one stock like Pifzer or Altria has completely distorted the Dow. With the FTSE I keep a window open with BP, SHEL, GSK, AZN, HSBC, AAL and RTZ prices so I know how the main sectors are doing. As a rule of thumb, if the oils are down and one other sector (banks, miners or pharmas) then the FTSE will struggle.

As has been said before you have to be disciplined and be prepared to take small losses. I can use relatively tight stops of around 10 - 20 points and I rarely am stopped out. That said, I am a very short term trader.

Another advantage is that, you are not being bombarded with data the way you experience with the US markets.

Lastly, in the morning, it is quite possible to use the Dow and S&P futures to trade off. The relationship is not perfect but, other things being equal, the FTSE does respond.

 

[Racer]

macbonzo" Because the Dow is only 30 unweighted stocks"

Dow is weighted, see:
http://djindexes.com/mdsidx/index.cfm?event=showComponentWeights&rptsymbol=DJI&sitemapid=20

 

[macbonzo]

Yes Racer, but crucially, unlike the FTSE, the weighting system is not based on market capitalisation. The Dow is a price weighted index with the weighting based on current price. This results in GE having weighting of 2.47 and a market cap of $374,919m, as compared to United Technologies, having a weighting of 7.05 and a market cap of $52,431m. This makes the index very easy to distort. Could you imagine if Compass Group had a weighting 3 times greater than BP?

The beauty of the FTSE is that you know if the oils are having a down day the index will not make a lot of headway.

 

[apples10]

FTSE Future is easier to trade before the US open. Trades very well technically (as does the DAX), but after 2:30pm, it follows the US and the technicals relationships can be of little use (especially in the first hour).