SSF'S (single stock futures)

[DIN]

anybody trade these?
can you day trade them?
what are the cost/commisions?
what are the spreads?

thanks in advance

 

[MartinD]

my broker TradeStation offers access to SSF's but I dont trade stocks or SSF's myself.

can you day trade them?
Yes - only trouble is lack of liquidity at the moment. Each SSF is equivalent to 100 shares, but from my observations of SSF market depth you would only be able to shift size in SSFs if you can eat a bid/ask spread of 5c - 8c ish

what are the cost/commisions?
TradeStation charges $1.10 per side per SSF ct. Margins are 10% of market value intraday, or 20% overnight.

what are the spreads?
Answered above. Obviously you could enter a limit and see if you were hit, and these spreads will tighten as liquidity deepends, but still early days for SSF

A list of SSF markets currently available is viewable here: www.tradestation.com/popups/fees/futures_pop_ssf.htm

 

[DIN]

thanks for that. from having only a quick look at it I wondered if I've got these calcs right:

say I buy 1 ssf in say CAT at approx $100 a share. the prices moves 1% which is a fair sum intraday, I make a $100 .

my margin requirment is $1000 (100x100x10%)

hardly seems worth it intraday unless you load up on the contracts. what no of contracts do you reckon you could go up to without liquidity probs?

 

[MartinD]

on CAT DOM i saw 20 offered on the bid/ask with a fluctuating 9c spread just now. cant see beyond first level bids/offers on my data sub for SSF's so dont know how deep it is behind these.

 

[DIN]

what can you trade up to do you think without too much trouble?

 

[hedgex]

I am having some trouble understanding the large bid/ask spread of some SSFs.
Today, on OneChicage, SSF on FAS (9.25) had bid/ask 8.63/9.33. That's 8% difference. The volume is low, with bid size 5.
Is the borrowing cost of the stock causing the spread?

 

[Chartsy]

what are the spreads and liquidity on these bad boys now?