Short Term Trading Weekend Lounge: 6 - 8 Nov, 48707945, page-24 - HotCopper | ASX Share Prices, Stock Market & Share Trading Forum

Originally posted by Diver Dan ↑

Hi Rick, yes indeed I do the E-mini contracts - a very good, highly liquid rendition of their classic full-size counterparts - and it is easy to become confused at what exactly you are seeing. I still do. When I say "ES" or ES_F, I'm noting the E-mini S&P 500 futures fractional contract. The current contract is the ESZ0 or ESZ20 December contract. The micro E-mini versions are now out too and they make it easier to precisely hedge your daytime positions if stuff happens overnight. The last ES current contract price printed today was 3510. I'm guilty of adding to the confusion myself because I sometimes mix up or misquote settlement with or for the closing print of the rth session. You also have to know if you're looking at the regular trading hours or the continuous daily range. With many proprietary products made for casual observers, you have to be wary of time delay vs real-time representation of the CME Globex platform contract quotes. Other sources can decently emulate but do not synchronize time or price. Many phone apps will give a decent quote or chart for index or commodity futures but you'll want to be careful relying on them because quotes are delayed or are not adequately defined. I get in arguments all the time about this - people scare the heck out of me by telling me something different than what I see on my screen - but I'm nowhere near a full bottle on what's out there. Identifying the source is the key and your broker will provide you with what you need. I use multiple platforms and while some brokers will include live feeds, other providers charge some pretty high prices for live feeds used in proprietary charting platforms. There is a lot of price competition here for those products. Be aware that sometimes people get confused about what contract they are looking at in the period of rollover from the front month or when failing to distinguish between the regular trading hours settlement and the period after that settlement but before the start of the new session. I will look at what you posted and try to figure it out and get back to you soon. As for trading from Australia, I always used my US products so I have to check that out for you as well.

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Now that's an appropriate poem and sentiment @Dazedandconfused.

PS Rick: And there I go throwing around the term settlement again instead of saying rth close. Anyways you get the point. I don't know if you're looking to trade futures or just get a really accurate read but it looks like your investing.com print there is close enough. If you want to trade futures you will need precise real-time ticks because you're talking about a lot of notional value per point and margin requirements are high. If you ever do, please be very careful and make sure you traded other stuff for a long time first. I can't begin to overstate just how dangerous they can be to the uninitiated without sounding obnoxious so I will leave that to your imagination and say that initiation will cost a bit even if you are unusually careful. People blow up accounts all the time with them. They're more dangerous than level two and above options I reckon. Aside from keeping track of the markets, I use futures mostly for hedging or things that happen overnight unless markets are trading methodically. Even then I approach with caution after having done it longer than I want to admit here.