Basics of S&P 500 limit up and limit down.

Brief History

Limits were created in 1988 and percentage move limits have been used since 1998.

How they are calculated.

Limits are calculated after each quarterly expiration of contract based on average closing price for the front contract.  I am not sure how limits are created for other months as I do not trade them. Limits are broken down for the S&P 500 contract by 10%, 20%, and 30% rounded down in 10 point increments during regular trading hours but not after 1:30 CT. Limit up is only enacted outside of regular trading hours.

How it works. 

If a 10% limit down is reached and goes offer, only orders at or above will be executed.  If buyers have not come in after the 10 minutes, sell orders are once again permitted after 2 minutes has passed.  After the 2 minutes is up trading will resume until 20% limit is reached. If 20% limit is reached there will once again be a pause of 2 minutes until the 30% limit is reached and trading is halted for the remainder of the day. The extra 2 minute is not given if limit is reached at 1:29 CT and trading will resume at 1:30 CT.

Disclaimer

This is only the basics for the S&P 500 other markets have different rules.  I believe I have only seen one limit up and one that was close to limit down.  If my memory serves me right there were something like 30k traded that prevented it from going limit down.  The limit up happened after the FED surprisingly cut rates.

For more information please see: http://www.cmegroup.com/cn-t/file/equity-index-PriceLimitFAQ.pdf

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  • http://www.manhattancalumet.com/ Dennis The Menace

    I would like to comment about traders being overly concerned about indexes like the standard and poors five hundred. Why not concentrate your efforts on concenrtated narrow sectors though exchange traded funds.Their are now over fifty single country funds available and maybe over 100 narrow sectors like airlines steel solar so why the concern for the nasdaq or the standard and poor five hunderd each one of these countries and sectors is a index of and by itself. The solar exchange traded fund {TAN} is now down 90% from its high in 2007.  If  I were an investor or trader I would simply look for any exchange traded fund or closed end fund that does not use any leverage in their portfolios and start buying after their is a 75% decline from its all time high’ and than buy twice as much if that exchange traded fund or closed end fund declines another five percent an 80% decline from its all time high’ buy twice as much at a 85% decline from its all time high buy twice as much at a 90% decline from its all time high’ and finally buy twice as much at a 95% decline from its all time high. Now I know that some of these funds will not decline 90% from their all time highs maybe not even 80%. Another thing that you might be wondering about I would run out of money If I followed that method right wrong. Example take one hundred thousand dollars. Buy 500 dollars of xyz fund at 25 dollars off 75% from its all time high of 100 dollars. Buy 1000 dollars of xyz at 20 dollars off 80% from its all time high of 100 dollars. Buy 2000 dollars of xyz at 15 dollars off 85% from its all time high of 100 dollars Buy 4000 dollars of xyz at 10 dollars off 90% from its all ltime high and finally Buy 8000 dollars of xyz at 5 dollars off 95% from its all time high for a total of 15500 about 15 percent of total cash assets. I am giving an example here the actual investment amount for an exchange traded fund or closed end fund that you are investing in would be the percentage of cash in the account not the percentage of both equities and cash combined.. The investment percentage for each fund would be based on the cash portion of your total portfolio at any given moment in time simply because the dollar amount of cash in the account would change fairly often, So if you have 40% of your portifolio in cash you would use that as your basis for determining your allocation not the total value of both cash and equities. The idea is to have your biggest positions in the funds that have declined the most and the smallest positions in the funds that have declined the least. Also keep in mind when you buy an exchange traded fund you are buying a basket of stocks so the fund cannot go to zero unlike a stock.Than when any fund has regained three quarters of its value that would be 75 dollars in the case of eyz use a 10% trailing stop loss to protect your gains. Who knows you may sell out of the fund with in 90% of its all time high. And their you have it a simple but brilliant strategy. Also keep in mind that you will have tremendous diversification using this method which would mean you could easily employ some leverage in the form of buying on margin. Even without margin I believe that this could be one of the greastest investment methods of all time you will be almost assured of crushing the performance of the standard and poors five hundred. The.Only thing that could change this outcome would be a great worldwide depression. 

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