factoring in spread

[acronym]

Been looking at various trades, off of futures charts, and am having trouble visualising the spread as it applies to various things. Looking at ig index, damn near everything is treated differently, across the range of commodites i look at.
I asked them if they had a calculator or on screen function for this purpose, not surprisingly they dont-scare everyone off probably.
Some of these things look like a 10 min forex chart, if i calculated the spreads correctly, but beggars cant be chooser's huh.
I was just wondering, having done practice (sounds better than paper trading, ) on futures charts, has anyone found that difficult- going from "normal " charts, where you have a good idea of likely fills and slippage, to popping a massive spread on top?
I dont get it, gaps. volatility dont bother me a zot, but factoring in the spread causes me some doubt, i find a similiar thing with forex actually. Its even worse if i cant actually "see" it though.
Anyone? A trade i might normally have no doubt about, a spread in there and i start to wonder. "Should i run a price level limit? No, wait for a lower price, use the stop, dont kid yourself, wait for confirmation" AArgh. Blech, doubt suck's.
All ideas welcome, regarding that "THING' sitting between you and the price level you really thought was value trade.

 

[Directional]

SB spread must be a killer. paying up the spread in a futures market is bad enough and that is only one tick

I'd imagine there is no way you can work out where the spread price is in relation to the underlying - you'd think it'd be simple like taking the mid price and adding whatever the spread is on both sides, but it doesnt work like that in real life because the SB companies will skew their spread up or down depending on what their net exposure is, ie: if they have more net long than short bets they will skew their spread lower to limit the long exposure somewhat.

Unfortunately this uncertainty is something you have to eat when dealing with SB - because they make the market AND take the other side of your trade! They could in theory quote you whatever price they like.

never considered trading the real markets instead?

 

[acronym]

Undercapped for the "real" stuff, alas. I rely on having strong trades across a lot of things, so just running a few grains, euribor/ eurodollar /stoxx and minis is a bit limiting. Heck, probably undercapped even for that.
If the best setup i see is on crude.....you know?
Yeah, it just seems that the spread turns a lot of situations into virtual market orders, not sure how to deal with that. Toying with the idea of an at market ma type method, but you need wider stops for that (jmo) and if the objective is limiting risk, which it is....hmm.
Could just go wider and use more limits entries, was wondering how some experienced types handled it, adapting their usual entries.

 

[GLOBAL TRADER]

‘All ideas welcome, regarding that ‘THING” sitting between you and the price level…’. We think we have a solution for you here at Global Trader. Our clients, both simulated and real, can see exactly what we add on to the underlying market price to arrive at the price they are offered. This is done through Flexispreads TM pricing. Rather than the client betting with the skewed book, as arbitrageur mentioned, of the SB company, he is trading at the bid or offer price plus a fixed number of units. For example, if the EURUSD Sep future is trading in the market at 1.2396-1.2397 then we add on a Flexispread of (currently) 2 ticks to the bid and offer, producing a market for the client of 1.2394-1.2399. This transparency ensures that the client will always be trading at a price directly related to the market bid/offer price with no dealer distortion. I hope this helps.

Regards MarvinS

 

[acronym]

Hm, cant comment on skewness , they do provide a rough guide, numbers and me just dont get along.
But for example, their definition of a point isnt necessarily what the contract details specify, sometimes it is a point, sometimes a tick, sometimes a fraction (i mean for different commodities) . It would be very helpful to see the bid/ask lines, on the underlying rather than on the chart of their prices(wait, they dont have that either!)
An on screen calculator would be good too, but i guess thats asking to much.. ...what does the humble consumer know?