E-Mini Pricing...Arbitrage?

[bolaughlin]

What market force keep e-minis priced "correctly", ie, the same or close to their full contract cousins? Is it only the certainty of the same settlement price at the end of the session?

I'm a little new to futures. Watching things like the Japanese Yen and the e-mini Japanese Yen trading on CME, I've seen very large price differences, on the order of 20-30 points at times. I conclude that there's no real time arbitrage.


I understand to some extent how this works with things like options: since most options can be exercised at any time, they can be converted to the underlying issue if prices get out of whack. Is there something similar with futures and e-mini futures? Can someone point me to a resource on this, or offer an explanation?

Thanks!

 

[theEdge]

Are you watching the bid/ask spread? If not, the e-mini's could lag if the last traded price was a long time ago.

What market force keep e-minis priced "correctly", ie, the same or close to their full contract cousins? Is it only the certainty of the same settlement price at the end of the session?

I'm a little new to futures. Watching things like the Japanese Yen and the e-mini Japanese Yen trading on CME, I've seen very large price differences, on the order of 20-30 points at times. I conclude that there's no real time arbitrage.


I understand to some extent how this works with things like options: since most options can be exercised at any time, they can be converted to the underlying issue if prices get out of whack. Is there something similar with futures and e-mini futures? Can someone point me to a resource on this, or offer an explanation?

Thanks!