- Although the bitcoin futures trading products offered by CME do not trade in actual bitcoin, they do have an impact on the open market price.
- Although institutional investors are the primary users of cash-settled futures, ordinary investors can trade the “CME gap.”
- If the price of BTC on exchanges is greater than the CME closing price from the previous Friday, the price of BTC will normally fall to match the CME price. BTC’s price is likely to rise if the price is lower than the previous Friday’s CME close.
- Funds that just held bitcoin for the long term, on the other hand, outperformed funds that engaged in discretionary longing and shorting tactics in the past. As a result, investors who prefer to store bitcoin rather than trade the CME Gap should not feel left out.
- In the past, trading the CME gap has worked better in down and sideways market patterns than in bull ones.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is a stock exchange in Chicago, Illinois. Bitcoin Futures Markets provide an opportunity to timing the market by taking advantage of contract expirations, which occur at the end of each month. The price of bitcoin has had a strong link with these expirations during the last year. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is the subject of this investigation, which examines how traders employ financial instruments such as futures contracts and shorting to boost their return on investment.
Brief Introduction to the CME
In late 2017, the CME, the world’s largest financial derivatives market, began trading BTC futures contracts. The futures market is essentially an auction where participants buy and sell commodity contracts for delivery at a later date. These contracts are exchange-traded derivatives that guarantee the transfer of a commodity in the future at a pre-determined price. Most commodities trade on a global scale, but bitcoin provides a one-of-a-kind circumstance. That is, bitcoin trading does not come to a halt or start at any given time. It trades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and isn’t bound by central time zones or exchanges…at least in principle.
Crypto BitBoy and other YouTubers frequently refer to the “CME gap,” but what does does it mean? The CME, unlike Bitcoin, does not trade 24 hours a day. The gap is the difference between the closing and opening trading prices of a CME bitcoin futures contract on Friday and Sunday. There are no trades between Friday’s closing session and Sunday’s starting period, resulting in the gap. The gap can also exist while the CME is closed for the holidays.
It’s vital to keep in mind that the gap does not have to be totally filled. From 2020 to early 2021, there are CME vacancies in the $8,000 to $24,000 range that are likely to remain fulfilled.
The last trade of the week on the CME futures market occurs at 5:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Friday (or 10:45 PM London). Weekends are a great illustration of the CME gap. When the CME closes on Friday, the spot price of Bitcoin on open exchanges like Coinbase or Uniswap may be higher or lower than the spot price of Bitcoin on open exchanges like Coinbase or Uniswap. CME trading hours resume on Sunday at 6:00 p.m. EST (11:00 PM London). If the price of BTC on exchanges is greater than the CME closing price from the previous Friday, the price of BTC will normally fall to match the CME price. BTC’s price is likely to rise if the price is lower than the previous Friday’s CME close. Although it is less likely, a pattern has emerged during the last four years. It is easier to lower a commodity’s price than it is to raise it, because a rise typically requires higher trade volume to sway other market participants.
Consensus Effect: What Worked Before May Not Work Again
Every month, CME futures contracts expire on the last Friday. There has long been a claim in crypto that up to two days before these expirations, the price of BTC drops and then returns to increasing momentum. This trend does not always hold, which is most likely due to a phenomenon in macroeconomic markets known as the consensus effect. As more market participants become aware of a trend, the impact of the cause diminishes as traders try to outrun each other in the days leading up to the event. As a result, the market anticipates one reaction but gets the opposite.
For example, if the price of bitcoin increased on weekends and decreased on Monday mornings for four weeks, the market would notice this pattern and a trader would buy Bitcoin before the weekend and sell Bitcoin on Sunday. Another dealer, on the other hand, predicts that all other traders will buy on Thursday and sell on Saturday. And so on, until the pattern is no longer visible. This does not rule out the possibility of the market returning to a bear market “The consensus effect, on the other hand, means that the majority of market players would have to refrain from trading that pattern in order for it to persist. It is easy for retailers to have short memories and for institutions to be too quick to fall into their old finance and asset trading mindsets in crypto, maybe more than any other market, causing the consensus impact to be just as fickle and changeable as digital asset prices.
November 2020, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September 2021 demonstrate a trend of decreasing on or soon before the expiration date and rebounding shortly after, as shown in Figure 2. As the graph indicates, this isn’t always the case.
With the consensus phenomenon in mind, one technique is to take advantage of the statistical possibility that BTC expiration dates indicate a decline in the overall price of BTC shortly prior to a CME bitcoin expiration and that the price is likely to rebound afterward. When market moves are sideways, as they were from May to July of 2021, this is more likely to be a winning approach. The old adage “The phrase “the trend is your friend till the end” applies to all asset classes, but especially to price-discovery assets like bitcoin. In a downward going bear market, this can have fatal consequences because the tool used to try to profit from the broader trend is shorting, which has its own set of hazards. With an asset that is subject to price discovery, market acceptance, and macroeconomic influences like as monetary inflation, interest rates, and government laws, “The “end” component of the ancient adage mentioned earlier can occur at any time. Longing for a higher price in the future leaves one with the underlying asset but no other duty but to tie up funds and wait for prices to at least return to the levels at which they were purchased.
According to a PwC analysis on hedge funds, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals’ cryptocurrency trading methods, just keeping bitcoin for the long run beat more intricate strategies. The strategies were divided into four categories in the report: quantitative, discretionary long-only, discretionary long/short, and multi-strategy. The only-for-the-long-term technique of “During bull runs, “hodling” bitcoin outperformed other strategies (2019 and 2020). Not to mention the taxes that come with exchanging bitcoins frequently. As a result, investors who prefer to keep bitcoin rather than trade the CME Gap should not feel as if they are missing out.
Four Basic Strategies for Trading the CME Gap
There are ways to play the CME gap or contract expirations under the right market conditions without investing directly in CME futures contracts. The first two deal with the underlying asset directly. The last two are more complicated, but they’re still based on the same market information.
The first involves directly purchasing the underlying asset and longing the position. This entails buying the asset at a lower dollar price and selling it when the price rises. Buying the dip right before a contract expiration and selling it once the price rises in reference to our CME price. One of the advantages of this technique is that it relies solely on the investor spotting the drop and buying it while it lasts, rather than speculating on when it will occur. The CME expirations are predictable, so any investor who pays attention in the 48 hours leading up to the expiration can enter a position and exit if the price rises. The worst-case scenario is that the investor is forced to hold the underlying asset for longer than desired if the price does not recover.
The second type is “shorting,” which entails taking a position before the price drops. Someone who owns the underlying asset sells a certain amount of BTC at a higher price and waits for the CME to dip. The investor then buys back in with the same amount of money that they sold their original investment for, resulting in more BTC than they had before. In the worst-case scenario, the investor will have to reinvest with less BTC than they had before if the price rises.
Third, a trader can trade their position using leveraged or margin trading on a variety of exchange platforms. The trader is putting up collateral in order to borrow money in order to buy a greater stake in bitcoin at the current price, which they will then sell for a profit if the price rises. If the price falls, they can liquidate their collateral (leaving them with a zero balance on their position).
Fourth, trade on leverage using the exchange platform, but this time to short. This entails borrowing bitcoin at the present price, selling them, and then returning the borrowed bitcoin at a later date, with the assumption that the price would fall. Shorting bitcoin on margin can be advantageous since it eliminates the need to sell your own BTC and allows the trader to profit from a drop in the price of bitcoin. Several exchanges, including as Bybit, Prime XBT, Phemex, and FTX, can assist a trader in engaging in longing and shorting with leverage.
Why are future voids filled?
- Irrational euphoria: The initial surge may have been too optimistic or pessimistic, requiring a correction.
- Technical resistance: When a price goes abruptly up or down, no support or resistance is left behind.
- Price Pattern: Price patterns are used to categorize gaps and can predict whether or not they will be filled. Exhaustion gaps are the most likely to be filled because they signify the conclusion of a price trend, but continuation and breakaway gaps are much less likely to be filled because they affirm the present trend’s direction.
Are gaps considered bullish?
Gaps are blank spaces on price charts that show occasions when no shares were traded within a specific price range. This usually happens between one day’s market close and the next day’s market open. Up gaps and down gaps are the two most common types of gaps.
To develop an up gap, the low price after the market closes must be higher than the previous day’s high price. Up gaps are usually regarded as bullish.
An up gap is the polar opposite of a down gap; the high price after the market closes must be lower than the previous day’s low price. Down gaps are typically regarded as bearish.
Gaps occur when there is a surge in purchasing or selling interest when the market is closed. For example, if an earnings report with unexpectedly high earnings is released after the market has closed for the day, there will be a lot of buying activity overnight, resulting in a supply-demand imbalance. When the market reopens the next morning, the stock’s price climbs in response to increased buyer demand. An up gap is produced when the stock’s price remains above the previous day’s high throughout the day.
Gaps can indicate that something significant has occurred in the fundamentals or in the psychology of the crowd accompanying this market movement.
Is it true that all CME gaps are filled?
CME gaps, like any other market condition, are not 100 percent accurate. According to a 2019 study, 77 percent of the CME gaps that are produced are usually filled. A CME gap was also created during the trend reversal in July 2021, as shown in the attached chart. The difference between $34,475 and $32,650 is still unfilled, although some gaps can take months to close.
The August void, on the other hand, is unlikely to be filled anytime soon. It’s only a representation of CME gaps that aren’t meeting industry standards.
When a market gap occurs, what does it mean?
A market gap is a chance to create and sell something that is currently unavailable. Consumers, on the other hand, want it. The ‘gap’ is the discrepancy between supply and demand for that particular product. In other words, it refers to a customer demand that has yet to be met by supply.
For businesses, a market gap represents a chance to expand their client base. You can attain market penetration by discovering and filling a gap in the market.
Do stocks usually fill gaps?
Conclusion: When a stock price gap is discovered, there is a 91.4 percent likelihood that it will be filled in the future. In layman’s terms, 9 out of 10 holes are filled; not always, but near enough.
Why do stocks fill in the blanks?
Gap fill stocks are taken into account “When their price returns to its pre-gap level, they are said to be “filled.” Will there always be gap fill stocks? Most of the time, they do. There are, however, outliers. Low volatility penny stocks may never be able to fill a gap.
Filling that occurs on the same trading day is referred to as same-day filling “fading” and can be caused by overnight news that creates a gap, but then additional news closes the gap, or cooler heads prevailed and the price returned.
Filling is most commonly done for one of three reasons:
- Support and resistance The price of the asset is pushed back against technical resistance.
- Exhaustion Gaps- As they mark the end of a trend, this price pattern is the most likely to be filled.
- The other kinds of gaps, on the other hand, frequently signal that something is going on.
Gap fill stock trading is a way to make the greatest money during earnings season, when good or negative results can cause an overreaction.
Gap Fill Stocks Strategies
We traders may take advantage of gaps with a variety of gap fill stocks methods, some of which are more popular than others.
- Assuming a prospective gap When fundamental or technical factors point to a gap on the next trading day, some traders purchase or sell. For instance, selling after hours when a surprise bad earnings report is revealed in the hopes of forming a gap the next trading day.
- Buying or selling positions in extremely liquid or illiquid markets as price moves begin, anticipating a good gap will continue.
- A gap has opened upward, for example, with little liquidity and little resistance above.
- This would trail a trader who opened a position on the projected gap at the start of a price movement by a few ticks.
- Filling/Fading- When you identify a gap that has created but has hit a brick wall (either a top or bottom) due to weakness or a technical analyst play, you call it filling or fading.
- For example, an upward gap may have grown as a result of speculation about an impending announcement, but traders will cause the gap to disappear by shorting the stock and use technical analysis.
- When a trader follows the gap filling process and the gap is effectively filled, he or she will buy or sell in the opposite direction when the price reaches any prior support or resistance from before the gap.
Gap Fill Strategies
Let’s take a look at a basic gap fill stock trading example before moving on to a more difficult one.
With an up gap, the gap functions as a level of support for any downturn.
A lower volume pullback suggests that there isn’t enough energy to close the gap, therefore the gap serves as a support for a bullish buy.
- Wait for the pullback to the previous days to close before filling the void (usually a fade).
There Is a Second Type of Pull Back
- A price gap is generated just above the previous day’s low (or high), followed by a strong pin bar that fills the gap. On the pin bar, the volume should be turned up.
- A second price gap up/down followed by a retrace to close the gap, which took more than two candles with declining volume.
Do gaping holes get filled?
Increased interest in the stock causes runaway gaps. The GAP will not be filled quickly; rather, it will take time.
Significant news developments can produce runaway gaps in a good uptrend, causing new interest in the stock. During and after the runaway gap, there is a significant rise in volume.
Get out of here! GAPs don’t show up on charts very often. It can’t be utilized to distinguish between support and opposition.
When a stock drops, what happens?
When a stock opens at a lower level than the previous day’s low, it is known as a gap down. There would have been a 5 point gap down if the previous day’s high was 500 and the stock opened at 495. This is regarded as a bearish indication.
What does CME stand for in the crypto world?
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) offers cash settlement monthly contracts. 1 When a contract is settled, an investor receives cash rather than actual delivery of bitcoin. On December 1, the Cboe Options Exchange launched the first bitcoin futures contract.