Continuous Futures Contract / Other questions

[Freddie 10]

Anyone know if IB, Interactive Brokers, has a continuous YM contract?

 

If currently trading the March YM, when is it most advisable to switch over to the June YM contract?

 

thx,

 

Freddie

[Knyyt 10]

Always advisable to roll-over when the forward contract has more volume.

 

Also, IB offers automatic notification of roll-over. When you get the message, add the other contract and watch the volume.

 

Automatic Futures Rollover Message

 

 

Regards, Knyyt

[Freddie 10]

Thx but I don't have that option in build 867.4 of TWS.

[brownsfan019 17]

Always advisable to roll-over when the forward contract has more volume.

 

Freddie - as knyyt said, simply switch when the next contract has more volume. Put a reminder on your calendar to alert you to watch the date as it approaches.

 

There's probably a website out there that lists when to roll as well, perhaps someone can post it here. I also get a reminder email from my broker, Mirus Futures, when rollover is.

[iwannatoscript 10]

Hi Folks,

 

I see that option in IB is very usefull, i am thinking to merge contracts when there is this warning message be ib, so have continuos contracts.? is it possible?

[DugDug 10]

There seems to be some confusion with a few recent discussions regards continuous contracts and rollovers.

They are different things for a start.

 

When you roll over a contract and start trading a new contact, will influence how you trade, and when you build a continuous contract - however, unless you actually understand how some one else has built a continuous contract or build your own and import the data into a charting/backtesting system then saying its just done on volume or a set date may only confuse the matter.

 

Think about why you want a continuous contract data set, how you want it to look. Get someone elses continuous contract and compare it to the front month and past month as a chart and look at the differences. Dont just accept someone elses continuous contract - you will get different support and resistance levels.

 

If you are just day trading focus just on when to rollover and start looking at the next month. Continuous contract building is probably not worth the effort unless you are backtesting over a long period of time.