Futures. Last month in the contract. What to do?

[maxima]

General question about futures. What do you guys do when your favourite day-trading future contract is one month away from expiration?

Do you trade more/less or move to next quarter?

What would you suggest to do to a novice?

What is rule of thumb here?

 

[grantx]

Hello Max,

Long time, no hear. How’s things, alright?

If it's a cash-settled index, there's no reason why this shouldn't be traded right up to expiry. Correlation with the cash should be almost 1:1(as if that makes any difference). If there are a massive number of net longs or shorts caught on the wrong side, the expected pressure/volatility will be transferred to the cash and the new month. So trade it or stay out of both expiries.

If it was a fixed interest future, one of the big guys may try to squeeze one side of the market, as happened in 98-99 (?) with the bund whereby all the available CTD cash bunds were bought forcing the shorts to bid the future higher and higher to cover . This is unlikely, but big positions may exist on one side.

Grant.

 

[maxima]

Hello Max,

Long time, no hear. How’s things, alright?

If it's a cash-settled index, there's no reason why this shouldn't be traded right up to expiry. Correlation with the cash should be almost 1:1(as if that makes any difference). If there are a massive number of net longs or shorts caught on the wrong side, the expected pressure/volatility will be transferred to the cash and the new month. So trade it or stay out of both expiries.

If it was a fixed interest future, one of the big guys may try to squeeze one side of the market, as happened in 98-99 (?) with the bund whereby all the available CTD cash bunds were bought forcing the shorts to bid the future higher and higher to cover . This is unlikely, but big positions may exist on one side.

Grant.

Hi Grant 🙂 thanks for asking. My scalping career is stuck as I cant make substantial progress with retail commissions and I cant move to any arcade without substantial progress 🙂

Always a catch 🙂

So I am keeping myself busy working at daytime and polishing a mechanical system at evenings. Apparently it does work too. The problem is - when it gets to real life there are unexpected things like Ninja Turdles doesnt go well along with IB. Ninja support points to IB and IB points to Ninja etc etc.. Same old 🙂

My contract in the City is going to expire soon and I would really like to find an opportunity to trade but my progress is not that good as it should be to gain enough power by the July... So it may happen that I will find another contract and then trading will be postponed to another 6-12 months... 🙄

Not a real McCoy as yet 🙂

What about you?

 

[grantx]

Max,

Testing/trialing CQG vs X-Trader. When that's sorted I can progress.

I need to get a new pc for a vpn. What modem should I use? Is there much difference between models?

Grant.

 

[maxima]

Max,

I need to get a new pc for a vpn. What modem should I use? Is there much difference between models?

Grant.

I'd better PM you on this matter.