For some time now, many of our clients have requested real-time futures data. We are very proud and excited to announce it We have signed a redistribution agreement with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to allow us to bring real-time futures data to TrendSpider traders. This means that you will now not only have access to real-time futures data, but you will also be able to scan, backtest and alert on futures contracts as well!
What are futures contracts?
A futures contract is a type of derivative where investors can bet on the price of an asset by a date in the future. There are many different types of futures contracts, some of which trade with unique values, and some of which trade using unique trading sessions. Some trade 24 hours a day while other futures contracts are paused in the middle of the day. This is a very powerful and subtle asset class and there are many details that futures traders need to consider those traditional stocks or cryptocurrency traders. However, the futures market is highly liquid, has inherent leverage, and has the potential to be a very profitable market to trade in.
Advantages of futures contracts
Besides being able to use this asset class data via the TrendSpider platform, there are many other advantages of using TrendSpider in your research and futures trading analytics. Specifically, the terms of the license agreement are better with TrendSpider. For example, we have received special permission from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange so that our clients do not have to link their access to a real-time futures data feed to a live futures brokerage account. In addition, we are able to offer a full suite of all major futures exchanges for a single exchange fee.
data feed distribution
These new data feeds will replace existing EOD futures data feeds that we currently support.
The new data includes all continuous futures contracts traded on the following four exchanges: CME, NYMEX, COMEX and CBOT. TrendSpider clients will be able to access the majority of contracts on all these exchanges from within their accounts.
This means that a number of things will change:
- End-of-day futures contracts will not be provided in TrendSpider for free.
- The real-time futures data will be available as a paid data feed (to pay the exchange fees associated with the real-time futures data.) This exchange fee will be $7.50 per month for non-professional traders.
- In order to access real-time futures data, traders will have to proactively sign up by completing exchange agreements within the TrendSpider app. When you first open a futures contract, you will be asked to grant your account access to it by completing an online form.
- The symbols for different futures contracts will change. For example, currently under the end-of-day futures data, “ES*1” is the symbol for the E-mini S&P 500 futures contract. This will change once the data is upgraded to match more standard notation with roots that match CME tokens. The new code for the same contract will be “ES1!”.
- Changing tokens will break your watchlists if they contain a Futures token using the old format. This means that you will have to replace all the icons in your watchlists. We cannot do this automatically for you as there are some subtle differences between contracts.
- This new data is presented under the beta umbrella, which means that there may be some bugs and issues that need to be resolved. There are also some known issues that we proactively addressed via temporary restrictions. For example, you will not be able to create alerts in TrendSpider on futures using several timeframes (including daily) as the timeframe to start immediately. This capability will be added shortly after the data feeds are released on the platform but not before.
- There are some known issues with moving graphics across timeframes. For example, if you draw a trend line on a daily chart and then zoom in to a 5 minute chart, it is possible that the trend line will land incorrectly. This is a known issue that will be addressed shortly after the data feed becomes available.
- There are some other known issues and limitations about this data which cannot be mentioned here but you may encounter while using the app. Please note that we are improving the implementation of Futures Data here and will follow up with additional releases in the future that add capability and reduce known issues and bugs.
As always, we hope you find this platform change helpful! If you have any other questions, feel free to reach us via chat via the “Contact Us” button in the bottom right corner of your layouts!