Best Thread Bund Bobl and Schatz Thread

[gedward3]

pnf,

Which CFD croker offers mini and microlots.

Im taking it that the broker is taking the other side of
your trade.

If they do do they ever run your stops or have you had any
problems with them.

Looking to try a new sttaegy with real money

Ged

Sorry, I have missed your response.
You're right, the intraday margin is low for the Bund future. But the tick value of 10 Euro is high, compared to the 0.1 or even 0.01 lots I can trade with my CFD broker.

So having a 8 tick stop loss would result in a 80 Euro loss, instead of an 8 Euro loss. As long as I am still in a learning phase, this is too much for me and I will stick to the CFD. But the goal is, to end up trading the Bund future once in a few months.

But aside from the low intraday margin for the Bund future, the minimum funding of an account often starts at $10.000 (Interactive Brokers). My broker offers accounts beginning at 250 Euros. Combined with mini and micro lots, that's perfect for testing new systems - in my opinion.

 

[pnf-trader]

pnf,

Which CFD croker offers mini and microlots.

Im taking it that the broker is taking the other side of
your trade.

If they do do they ever run your stops or have you had any
problems with them.

Looking to try a new sttaegy with real money

Ged

At the moment, I am using different brokers:

Liteforex

Open your managed Forex account | LiteForex

Liteforex offers accounts which you may fund in USD-cents. So if you deposit $100, it will be displayed as $10.000. This is, in my opinion, much better than trading on a demo account. You get real market conditions and even though it's only a few dollars, it feels much more authentic when you win or lose money, compared to virtual money in a demo account.

This is a broker that I use if I test a new system or when I test an expert advisor under real market conditions. They offer some CFDs (US stocks), but sadly they don't offer bund or bobl futures.

Activtrades

ActivTrades Brokers - Trading on Forex, CFDs and Futures with Metatrader

Another Broker that offers some CFDs and with which I trade bigger accounts is Activtrades. They have CFD on bund future, but the spread of 3 ticks is much if you want to scalp this instrument. Compared to 1 tick spread + maybe $5 commission, this is far behind real futures broker. But if you master this, the "real" market shouldn't be a problem for you

Broco

http://www.brocompany.com/trading-platform/broco-trader/cfd-on-futures/

This is a broker that I am testing since today. They offer a lot of futures trading instruments. I am mostly interested in bund, bobl and schatz, but they also have many commodities and us stocks - beside forex. What I like is that they don't earn their money by widening the spread - instead, they take a comission of $10 per roundturn. Still much, but better than 3 ticks fixed spread.

Regarding all those stories about stop hunting, spikes and problems with payout, I recommend everybody to read this open letter from Alpari:

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forex-brokers/58846-open-letter-alpari-uk.html

I don't want to say that there are no scam brokers, because there are. But I don't believe that most of the known brokers try to trick their customers.

If I had a problem with my broker, I would write a thread or a blog about this. And when it's about losing money, I will probably be very angry, frustrated and be in a rage - and this will directly be reflected in my posts. When everything works fine, most people wouldn't think about writing such a post with positive comments, would they?

This would explain why you find so many negative posts about a broker and only a few good ones. As long as everything is working fine, there seems nobody interested in writing some kind words.

With all brokers that I have ever used, I never had any problems. Payment worked fine and fast, no stop hunting from my side that I could recognize. There was once a spike, I wrote the support and they excused for this - and immidiatelly recovered my losing position.

 

[AgeKay]

Regarding all those stories about stop hunting, spikes and problems with payout, I recommend everybody to read this open letter from Alpari:

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forex-brokers/58846-open-letter-alpari-uk.html

Thanks for posting. I found that "open letter" very interesting. I've never heard of them before though.

With all brokers that I have ever used, I never had any problems. Payment worked fine and fast, no stop hunting from my side that I could recognize. There was once a spike, I wrote the support and they excused for this - and immidiatelly recovered my losing position.

Any spike is proof that it's a dealing-desk and not kosher. If they based their feed on real interbank prices then there would never be any unexplained spikes since for that to happen all interbank prices would have to change and in that case there will be a reason for that spike and not something they would undo.

 

[Freddy88]

Does anyone know why the US treasuries 10 year volatility is almost 12% and has exploded from 7.5% last week whereas the bund volatility has been around the 8% mark, 8.4 at close today.

Why is there such a difference, does no one arb the two - I thought this was possible but with the levels of vol above I think not! Should we all be selling the US 10 year and buying the European 10 year?

Thoughts...

 

[stusse]

Does anyone know why the US treasuries 10 year volatility is almost 12% and has exploded from 7.5% last week whereas the bund volatility has been around the 8% mark, 8.4 at close today.

Why is there such a difference, does no one arb the two - I thought this was possible but with the levels of vol above I think not! Should we all be selling the US 10 year and buying the European 10 year?

Thoughts...

Good question. Of course people are trading them against each other. Why has the european curve steepened so much? Because of all those RV hedge funds out there keeping the correlations together. Sooner or later this has to break down! We're gonna see mad volatility and a world where all the super high correlation we've seen so far just disappear into thin air.

 

[Martinghoul]

What do you mean 'arb'? Is there any fundamental reason for them to be the same? The recent move in USD vols is probably related to mtge servicers suddenly waking up to smell the roses (happened last Friday) and realizing that the presence of the Fed's bid doesn't actually completely remove their hedging needs. So the mkt suddenly found a need for vol, which people have been neglecting. Obviously, this fundamental flow is not there in EUR.

Having said that, the runup in USD vol is quite something and I have heard a lot of people suggesting selling USD to buy EUR straddles or strangles.

 

[gooseman]

put skews are completely opposite in UST's and bund. any vol trade is a directional trade too.

 

[rizome]

Schatz, Bobl, Bund

Hey everyone! Im new to trade2win and this is my first post. A little about me. I am very young, have been in the markets for a little over 2 years now. Currently am a position trader and also trade the schatz intra day from 3am chicago time-7am chicago time. While my position trading has always been pretty successful (I still consider it my bread and butter), I struggled to be successful at intra day trading. I tried just about every single contract out there that was possible to trade and then I finally came to eurex fixed income. Everything just started to click after that and I have been trading the schatz ever since.

I thought this thread would be a great place for all the bund bobl and schatz traders to congregate. A place that traders can share thoughts about the market, what trades they currently have on, advice to newbies, etc.

Hope everybody enjoys each other's company and I hope this thread is successful.

Good Trading

Hi, just wanted to check if this thread is still going

I have been trading Bund Options for 2 years on and off, I like Trading Options on the Bund future rather than directly on the Bund Futures contract which I agree can be very volatile. The approach using Options allows me to take a less risk averse strategy.

I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction on Trading the Scahtz and Bobl instruments, I am looking to trade Options on these instruments in a similar fashion hoping to take advantage of the ever changing German Yield curve.

Any pointers on the Schatz and Bobl would be greatly appreciated - Books, Docs, any interesting sites providing Technical Analysis on these instruments.

Are you guys Trading spreads on these instruments? What type of spreads do you employ and do they work for you?

Many thanks,

Rizome

 

[stusse]

Hi, just wanted to check if this thread is still going

I have been trading Bund Options for 2 years on and off, I like Trading Options on the Bund future rather than directly on the Bund Futures contract which I agree can be very volatile. The approach using Options allows me to take a less risk averse strategy.

Perhaps you mean a more risk averse strategy

 

[rizome]

Perhaps you mean a more risk averse strategy

Yep, typo I was going to say less risky strategy but slipped in averse! Hazards of watching the market whilst posting threads on forums

rizome

 

[traceyjc]

Anyone thinking of fade trading off the 31's in the bund?

 

[rizome]

Anyone thinking of fade trading off the 31's in the bund?

Excuse the newbie, what do you mean by Fade Trading Off 31's?

 

[traceyjc]

No problem,

Basically if something is in a range or has used a level as support/resistance before then you trade against the direction of the price action when it meets it so for example, the bund has been using 119.31 as support/resistnace for a while now so when it was coming down to it, a fade trade would be to BUY the 31's in anticipation that it wont go through the level and you make money when it bounces off of it. Obviously it can go through and you loose so you have to decide which are strong levels and which are not!
Answer the q?

 

[rizome]

No problem,

Basically if something is in a range or has used a level as support/resistance before then you trade against the direction of the price action when it meets it so for example, the bund has been using 119.31 as support/resistnace for a while now so when it was coming down to it, a fade trade would be to BUY the 31's in anticipation that it wont go through the level and you make money when it bounces off of it. Obviously it can go through and you loose so you have to decide which are strong levels and which are not!
Answer the q?

Thanks for the explanation!

In that case this what I had already done but using Bund Options instead as follows :-

I bought the 121-00 Jul Calls

Also put on a Calendar Credit Spread using Bought Jul 116-00 Puts and Sold Aug 115-50 Puts

So far market has moved as anticipated!

If you have executed your trade you would have collected around 20Ticks per futures contract so far?

With the Options approach I have collected around 7 Ticks per above Options combination

Lets hope the Bund breaks todays high

 

[traceyjc]

Ah you trade options! I haven't had a look at trading them yet, just the futures. Do the prices of them pretty much just go in line with the current price? How sensitive are they to the futures price?

The trade is good, I think it has enough life in it to at least test the 67's and its a pretty clear run up to the 90's after that, might sell some schatz against it if it reached there

 

[Martinghoul]

I am very firmly bullish FI here, particularly schatz. 107 - 108 risk reversal in schatz is my fav, at the mom.

 

[rizome]

Ah you trade options! I haven't had a look at trading them yet, just the futures. Do the prices of them pretty much just go in line with the current price? How sensitive are they to the futures price?

The trade is good, I think it has enough life in it to at least test the 67's and its a pretty clear run up to the 90's after that, might sell some schatz against it if it reached there

if you trade Futures, you could also trade options to get a very similar result to what you are getting now, but you could also employ some very cheap hedges using the Futures/Options combinations. The Option premiums move in line with underlying Futures instrument - starting with the ATM Call/Put and then delta tails off as you move further OTM(Out Of The Money).

I have done some direct futures trading, but my investment is small at the moment hence using Options.

Whats you background, how did you get into trading Bunds if you dont mind me asking?

... Bund now at 119-59

Rizome

 

[rizome]

I am very firmly bullish FI here, particularly schatz. 107 - 108 risk reversal in schatz is my fav, at the mom.

I have not dabbled in the Trading Schatz Options yet but would like to start soon.

How long have you been trading them and is there good daily liquidity across the strike range?

Rizome

 

[Martinghoul]

I have not dabbled in the Trading Schatz Options yet but would like to start soon.

How long have you been trading them and is there good daily liquidity across the strike range?

Rizome

A while... Liquidity is pretty good. Not as good as the bund, but decent.

You should join the STIR chatroom, methinks. Tracey was in it, but abandoned us...

 

[rizome]

A while... Liquidity is pretty good. Not as good as the bund, but decent.

You should join the STIR chatroom, methinks. Tracey was in it, but abandoned us...

Will join STIR chatroom, sounds interesting ...