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Big Point Value Calculation

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:21 pm
by jklatt
I wanted to post this in the newbie section because it's a pretty newbie question, but it was locked.

I'm wondering exactly what the big point value is for a commodity?

Using CSI symbol ATF for example.

http://www.adex.ase.gr/AdexHomeEN/index.html

According to the exchange, the multiplier is EUR5 and the minimum tick size is 0.25 index points or 1.25 EUR.

So the contract size is EUR5 x Index (which is what CSI has listed), but how is CSI getting EUR0.05 for the big point value? The index and CSI seem to be quoted around the same price (CSI isn't multiplying or dividing the price quotes by 10 or 100), but they have a big point value at .05 when I'm thinking it should be at 5 (4 X .25 = 1 which is the nearest integer and 1.25 EUR X 4 = 5 EUR).

What am I missing?

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:48 pm
by cryder
Have a look at section 15.7 of the Users Guide.

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 4:05 pm
by jklatt
I did. For whatever reason, I'm still confused.

"Simply put, the Big Point Value is the amount of money you will make if you buy one contract and it goes up by one full point. That is one number to the left of the decimal. So Gold going from 401 to 402..."

So... the way I read things, if CSI symbol ATF goes up 1 index point, I should make 5 Euros not 0.05 Euros. I dunno.

Or take a more common instrument, SP. The multiplier there is $250 and every point the index gains, you make or lose $250. Yet CSI lists $25 for the point value. Maybe CSI's price format is part of my issue (I'm not yet sure what it is).

For TB inside the futures dictionary, should the big point value for SP be $250 or $25?

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 4:50 pm
by AFJ Garner
Price format is the key. The exchange or the broker may express a price as 9785, CSI may express it 0.9785, the exchange may express a price as 2.30 and CSI 230...................The TB futures dictionary must use a BPV matched to the CSI price format.

Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 5:33 pm
by sluggo
You are confused because CSI uses the word "point" in a very different way than Blox does.

In the CSI Factsheet, a "point" is the Least Significant Digit Position* in the quoted price. The column "Point Value" tells you the money equivalent of the Least Significant Digit Position. Since CSI quotes its ATF symbol to two decimal places, "Point Value" tells you the money equivalent of the price 0.01. The column "Minimum Tick" tells you the size of the smallest permitted price movement. In ATF that is 25 "points", which means (25 times 0.01), which equals 0.25. If you look at CSI data for symbol ATF you will see that, yes indeed, price quotes are multiples of 0.25.

Blox, on the other hand, wants to know the money equivalent of a price of 1.000000. That's the BigPointValue to Blox.

CSI's "Point Value" (in the Factsheet entry of ATF) tells us that a price of 0.01 has a money equivalent of 0.05 Euros:
  • Price 0.01 <---> 0.05 EUR
Let's multiply both sides by 100. Then
  • Price 1.0 <---> 5.0 EUR
and that is the Blox BigPointValue.

*For the pedants and/or lawyers in the audience, it's more like the Smallest Integer Quote Unit, a generalization which also handles non-decimal things like Two Year Treasury Notes that are quoted in 32nds and quarters-of-32nds. Bleah. Be very glad you are not in the data business.

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:14 am
by AFJ Garner
Wish I could have put it that well.