AFF Member Stock Discussion

[Mr_Orange]

Agreed. Is there an easy way to view trading volumes? I’m wondering who in their right mind is playing this game at the moment.

Intra-day traders using hourly or smaller time frame charts.

 

[prozac]

Damm, missed my buying opportunity. I was nearly going to pull the trigger yesterday afternoon too.....

Be patient.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Be patient.

Or sell everything you bought yesterday for a 5 to 10% gain over 24 hours and then wait until it dips again. This is what I have just done. Never been an easier time to make money. Let the rollercoaster continue.

 

[burmans]

Funny that TSLA was up almost 23% today…..

Well it had dropped an awful lot. perhaps Elon was buying it!!!

Insider trading?

 

[RSD]

My brain aches…..

Yep - and the Chinese haven't reacted yet to the U.S. raising the tariff on China from 104% to 125%

 

[RSD]

Interesting article about how China could quietly cause some pain in the U.S. without needing to announce anything - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/09/how-china-could-crush-the-us-housing-market.html - China might see it as a way to get payback for the recent peasant remark.

 

[moa999]

And not forgetting that the US government is still leving an additional 10% tariff on every country, including those like Australia who have a free trade agreement with the US.

This still has a long way to play out.

 

[mrsterryn]

Excuse my daft questions but my stock market exposure is only relatively new.
Question - are the futures markets "real " so to speak. Noting that the USA futures are currently well in the red but does that mean anything ? Does Australia have equivalent?

 

[RSD]

And not forgetting that the US government is still leving an additional 10% tariff on every country, including those like Australia who have a free trade agreement with the US.

This still has a long way to play out.

and not forgetting 25% on Canada and Mexico (I think that is today's tariff - its getting damn hard to keep up!)

 

[Mr_Orange]

Excuse my daft questions but my stock market exposure is only relatively new.
Question - are the futures markets "real " so to speak. Noting that the USA futures are currently well in the red but does that mean anything ? Does Australia have equivalent?

Yes, the futures markets are real. For stocks, you are typically looking at the indices. ASX200, S&P500, DJIA are examples. Futures are leveraged instruments that are traded nearly 24/7. They can be traded long or short.

There are also commodity futures for oil, cotton, corn, you name it.

These days, there are also crypto futures.

The term 'futures' sounds rather spooky as if you are getting some insight into what is coming, but really you are just trading another instrument, similar to a stock.

 

[RSD]

Excuse my daft questions but my stock market exposure is only relatively new.
Question - are the futures markets "real " so to speak. Noting that the USA futures are currently well in the red but does that mean anything ? Does Australia have equivalent?

Not a daft question at all. Australia (the ASX) does have a futures market as well. Futures are a pretty good indicator of how traders think the market will open - right now about 5 hours before the market opens. Unfortunately things are so screwed up right at the moment that the market could change wildly on the smallest thing. It wouldn't be hard for something tiny to be misinterpreted as something big because the market is being forced to be so reactionary at the moment.

 

[moa999]

And I'd add that the volume in futures is generally a lot lower than in the real market, anything can happen on open.

 

[mrsterryn]

And I'd add that the volume in futures is generally a lot lower than in the real market, anything can happen on open.

So take futures with a grain of salt so to speak ?

 

[RSD]

And I'd add that the volume in futures is generally a lot lower than in the real market, anything can happen on open.

Yes very true. At the moment just about anything is possible - Iran could decide that now is a good time to do an underground nuclear test.

Post automatically merged: Apr 10, 2025

So take futures with a grain of salt so to speak ?

Take them as a little bit of a guide rather than a path to follow.

 

[cove]

After todays overshoot the US and Australian futures are both down.

 

[muppet]

Excuse my daft questions but my stock market exposure is only relatively new.
Question - are the futures markets "real " so to speak. Noting that the USA futures are currently well in the red but does that mean anything ? Does Australia have equivalent?

Futures involve either gaining or losing real money… and it’s usually leveraged as the premium to play is significantly lower than the underlying exposure.

Doesn’t get any more real.

A 10% drop when owning shares is a bad day but you have 90% of your capital. A 10% movement in the wrong direction while holding index futures will wipe out your investment and result in margin calls - you would start losing more than you initially invested very quickly and have to top up your account with more cash that immediately gets held in escrow to pay your counterparty.

It is real - but it’s also a separate market.

 

[Mr_Orange]

Futures involve either gaining or losing real money… and it’s usually leveraged as the premium to play is significantly lower than the underlying exposure.

Doesn’t get any more real.

A 10% drop when owning shares is a bad day but you have 90% of your capital. A 10% movement in the wrong direction while holding index futures will wipe out your investment and result in margin calls - you would start losing more than you initially invested very quickly and have to top up your account with more cash that immediately gets held in escrow to pay your counterparty.

It is real - but it’s also a separate market.

Indeed.

To put it in perspective, the S&P500 futures are currently around 5375. When you buy a single contract, it costs $5375 but that is with an unleveraged market, which don't exist. Low end leverage is 5x or 10x, so let's say 10x. This means that single contract costs $53,750, but you are only required to front up the margin, which might be 2-5%, plus what is called maintenance margin. The latter must be cash that is available in your trading account.

You can see that the numbers get very big, very quickly. You absolutely have to trade futures markets with a stop loss in place to limit your losses otherwise they can be huge and on many trading platforms, they are unlimited.

 

[drron]

Interesting article about how China could quietly cause some pain in the U.S. without needing to announce anything - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/09/how-china-could-crush-the-us-housing-market.html - China might see it as a way to get payback for the recent peasant remark.

So the Fed has been decreasing it's exposure to MBS. so if China which had already sold 20% of it's holdings by December surely the Fed buys them. And as it probably would have very few others buying buy them back then at a loss to China.
Probably just CNBC and it 's agenda.

 

[prozac]

So the Fed has been decreasing it's exposure to MBS. so if China which had already sold 20% of it's holdings by December surely the Fed buys them. And as it probably would have very few others buying buy them back then at a loss to China.
Probably just CNBC and it 's agenda.

?

 

[cove]

The US housing market is very important for the whole US economy. This market has tended to screw up every 20 or so years so there may be an opportunity in the next 5 years.