Futures For You  |  MAY 2008

Futures For You by Carley Garner

Futures For You by Carley Garner As a futures trader, should I place stop orders in the electronic overnight markets or only in the day session? This is a personal preference and the decision should be made independently for each market. Several years ago, overnight sessions were extremely thin and often resulted in stops being triggered that arguably shouldn’t have been. However, as the electronic markets have become more popular and trading increasingly global, the liquidity in the overnight sessions has picked up dramatically in most markets. The volume improvements make working stop orders overnight much more attractive. In my opinion, stop orders should be placed in the overnight session for most markets. With the exception of the CME meat markets, the overnight markets have become relatively fluid and in doing so may avoid slippage due to gaps on the day session charts resulting from large overnight moves. With that said, it is important to realize that some markets don’t give you a choice and others make it extremely inconvenient to do so. In the case of the CME currencies, all orders are placed on their Globex electronic platform. This means that a good till canceled (GTC) order will work around the clock, except when the market is closed. Due to the nature of the currency market, however, this makes sense. Currency trading is so global it is not uncommon for prices to move more when many of us are in bed than otherwise.

by Carley Garner