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Strategies & Market Trends : S&P Index Futures (Daytrading SP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (99)	12/12/1997 8:09:00 PM
From: ratan lal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 350

Jim I have thought about SPY but just did'nt see any good way fo trading it. 1. It is 1/10 of S&P500. So for you to make $1 S&P has to go up by 10. ANd if you trade 100 shares that willbe $100 profit. Pay about $40 in buy/sell comm. and you have $60 left. Not much for a days work. 2. With S&P all you have to do is get 1-point of that 10 point move and you have made $250 on a single contract or $2500 on 10-contracts. OF course margin requirements are about $10,000 per contract. But in SPY you have to pay 50% margin anyways. 3. You can also play E-minis on the internet only. They are 1/10 of old S&P500 or 1/5 of new S&P500 (I guess we should call these S&P250). Of course SPY's are safer and you can make money even if you dont trade them minute by minute. And in the long run you will mame money since S&P over years has always gone up so far. ratan

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (99)	12/12/1997 9:40:00 PM
From: VALUESPEC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 350

James, I haven't really taken much notice of the SPY but you brought up some interesting points. I may be able to use the SPY for sentiment reading or for arbitrage (sp?) opportunities (i.e. buy/sell whichever one is out of alignment with the S&P cash prices). I'm hoping you will take the time to post some of your SPY trades as you make them. I'd be interested in seeing exactly what you are doing and exactly what is working for you. Or perhaps you could post a specific example of when you bought and sold and at what prices. I haven't worked the SPY but I'd like to at least experiment with it. Ratan, nice trade. I'm glad to see you are working your positions instead of just jumping out at the first sign of trouble. I didn't work my position at the end, but if I had, I would have done something similar to what you did. I'm glad to see the market treated you well :o) I'm sorry I missed your end of the day posts. I had a business phone call at the end of the day. It cost me some money as the call was at a bad time. I sold my DELL @ $ 88.50 to make enough for a bagel, or something. I definitely should have made more money on that trade. I'm not sure how I messed it up. At least it wasn't a loser. I bought a small amount of RECY @ $ 6.34. I missed selling that one too. It is still up for me, but I think I can get more on Monday. If the market is down on a panic on Monday, I only have a small position so it won't be a problem if I decide to sell. I am carrying a significant, but not large, position in MDCO @ $ 20.50. Again, I could have sold @ $ 21, but I think I can get at least a dollar on it . . . maybe even two or three if the market has one good day, though I may not wait long, as long as I get at least a dollar. If it goes below $ 19, I will probably sell, unless it is during an opening panic. Ratan, I always enjoy the posts here. Sometimes I feel like I'm posting too much too. It is fun to share the excitement and learning experience with on-line friends.