futures closing price

[derick_1]

Please help. I took a sell position on a share, and it closed down at last trade of 790,,,however it says that the latest price is 850, and puts me out of pocket,,,,and clearly the last traded price was 790,,,what the !@#$,,, in fact it happened with two positions,,,do i need to go back to school ?

[samoa]

maybe.. Which share?

[derick_1]

netcare sell,,,,simmers buy

[#4]

Note that when the little cross is red i.e. during the day and early evening, then the price of the future is based on the bid price (for long positions) or the offer price (for shorts), not the ruling price. When the cross turns green (later in the evening), the price is based on a mark-to-market price from the JSE (which you'll notice is calculated with a somewhat different formula compared to the Standard Bank calculation). To minimise confusion, add the underlying share to your watchlist and refer mainly to that to assess the performance of your trade.

[derick_1]

thanks mate,,that clears it up,,,wonder if it's quite a fair calculation though ? Suppose what u lose today u can make up tommorrow,,,?

[#6]

Yeah, you always buy and sell using the Standard Bank formula, so the JSE mark-to-market values are of purely academic interest.