What are the prices I see ?

[mauzj]

I'm using Ecco.

I'm watching the FTSE futures.

At the moment it's 5,500 bid , 5,400 offered.

Market is not open so I guess this is some sort of pre market auction.

Can anyone help me to understand this a bit more? Can I place orders before the market is open?

 

[arabianights]

yes.

You can place orders up to the price limits, which in this case are 5500 and 5400. On the market opening, LIFFE will calculate the price at which all orders that can be are filled and open the market there (filling all orders at that price).

The interesting thing is when, to make up an example, you may have a bid for 1 lot at 5500 and an orffer for 2 lots at 5400. If there were no other orders then the 2 lots at 5400 will dominate the 1 lot at 5500 and the market will open at 5400, rather than say 5450!

In practice that doesn't happen in FTSE but you can still get some pretty weird openings. It *does* happen in some less liquid markets.

Plenty of spoofers around in the pre-open as well

 

[Vaco]

FTSE 100 Index Futures trade on LIFFE CONNECT®, the Exchange's electronic trading platform, every business day from 8:00 to 17:30 hours. for more info on your chossen instrument visit

http://www.liffe.com/liffeinvestor/

hope this helps

 

[arabianights]

Except they trade to 9 I believe so that's wrong!

But you don't expect anything organised from liffe

 

[Vaco]

Except they trade to 9 I believe so that's wrong!

But you don't expect anything organised from liffe

Yes i had read that in another post but did not want to misinform mauzj so went to the liffe site for clariffication. They must have not updated yet

 

[mauzj]

Thanks for excellent description.

I decided to take a punt with some 1 lots and managed to move them around the ladder at about 07:55. My orders didn't get filled. But I'm tempted to try punting the auction in the future.

yes.

You can place orders up to the price limits, which in this case are 5500 and 5400. On the market opening, LIFFE will calculate the price at which all orders that can be are filled and open the market there (filling all orders at that price).

The interesting thing is when, to make up an example, you may have a bid for 1 lot at 5500 and an orffer for 2 lots at 5400. If there were no other orders then the 2 lots at 5400 will dominate the 1 lot at 5500 and the market will open at 5400, rather than say 5450!

In practice that doesn't happen in FTSE but you can still get some pretty weird openings. It *does* happen in some less liquid markets.

Plenty of spoofers around in the pre-open as well