Which spread bet companies support betting on far-out futures?

[gataylor]

Hi,

Forgive me if this is a daft question.

If I wanted to trade some commodities futures that are further out than those normally spread-bet, which spread betting company would be best?

For instance, it's February now. If I wanted to trade in November Soybean or December Corn, which spread betting companies would (easily) allow this? Finspreads, for example, only quote March for both of those commodities, and they also quote May for Corn - nothing as far away as November or December.

Cheers,

Geoff

 

[Jack o'Clubs]

No it's a good question, and I'm not aware of any that consistently offer months ahead of the near-contract, other than Futuresbetting who don't currently offer the CBOT agriculture contracts but apparently will when their platform is relaunched later this month.

Given the question I'm assuming you're not punting a few quid a point, so you might be interested in this thread I started a while back:

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=21263&highlight=extraordinary+cost

 

[Physicsman]

Gataylor:

I posed that question to 9 of the spreadbetting companies about a year and a half ago when I first started trading. The short answer is none of them do with one exception. It may be possible with IG Index. If you are going to be trading in point sizes equivalent to the underlying futures contracts, then call their trading desk and ask them for a quote. They told me that they would quote you a price then. For example, the CBOT agriculturals such as Corn or Soybeans are $50 per point. If you were to bet about £50 per point (approx 2 contracts) then you could trade deferred contracts.

Are you looking into trading calendar spreads? That is the reason why I wanted to trade both front and deferred contract months.

Hope that helps!

 

[gataylor]

Thanks

Thanks for the replies.

Given the question I'm assuming you're not punting a few quid a point, so you might be interested in this thread I started a while back:

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=21263&highlight=extraordinary+cost

Just the opposite, I'm afraid - I was hoping to try it out without committing that much money. Excellent post on costs though - thanks for pointing it out.

Are you looking into trading calendar spreads? That is the reason why I wanted to trade both front and deferred contract months.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was hoping to do. In case anyone wants to play along at home, the plan was to buy November Soybean and sell December Corn (today - February 14th), and close the trade on 1st April. We'll see if the pattern holds...

Many thanks,

Geoff

 

[gataylor]

Here's where you get to check my figures

In case anyone wants to play along at home, the plan was to buy November Soybean and sell December Corn (today - February 14th), and close the trade on 1st April. We'll see if the pattern holds...

In case anyone is 'playing along at home', you get to check my figures.

According to CBOT December Corn (http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,1213,00.html) is trading today for 401'6, and November Soybean (http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,959,00.html) is 803'0.

So, since the Soybean price is in cents per bushel and the contract is for 5000 bushels, the contract value is 803 * 5000 / 100, or $40150.

Similarly, the Corn price is also in cents per bushel and the contract is also for 5000 bushels, so the contract value is 401.6 * 5000 / 100, or $20080.

(Let's just ignore for the time being that I'd be trading the futures on margin.)

Since I want to buy Soybean and sell Corn and get roughly equal exposure to changes in both, I'd sell two Corn contracts for every one Soybean contract I bought.

So for a hypothetical trade let's say I bought one Soybean contract and sold two Corn contracts. And I'll reverse the trade on 1st April (and see how much money I'd have made, obviously...)

Geoff