How to understand which fund is more liquid

Regarding the investing account. How can I understand which ETF fund is more liquid if T212 does not show bid and ask?

For example these two same ETFs listed on different markets (london stock exchange and xetra )

How can I understand which of the two has more traded volumes and therefore a lower bid-ask spread?

I canā€™t find any information on liquidity in the statistics

I hope someone can help me.

Thank you

2 Likes

Hi
Not sure if this is what youā€™re looking for or not, but if you go into the advanced view, you can search for ā€œvolumeā€ under the indicator, itā€™s the Volume SMA 9. This adds bars to the bottom of the chart which show you the volume, although Iā€™ll let you look into the details of exactly what they mean yourself.

Hi, the point is that I want to understand in which market a given ETF is more liquid, so that I can understand which one to choose to invest

Use Tadingview, it will show traded vol per day, along with 10 and 30 day averages

in addition to the traded volumes I would like to know the bid-ask spread, I checked the data of the previously mentioned ETF on Investing .com

I noticed that on 36BZ the volumes currently reported are much lower but the bid-ask spread is also low

(36BZ Stock Price | iShares MSCI China A UCITS USD ETF - Investing.com)

On CNYA the volumes are much higher but the bid-ask spread is very high.

(CNYA Stock Price | iShares MSCI China A UCITS USD ETF - Investing.com)

I donā€™t understand why there is this inconsistency given that higher traded volumes should lead to a lower bid-ask spread

What are you looking at to define bid ask ā€˜spreadā€™ ???

Both examples have some differences:

  • Different stock exchanges (Xetra ; LSE)
  • Different currencies (EUR ; USD)

Those differences impact the trading volume and the bid-ask spreads. Also most probably there are different market makers for each ETF.

1 Like

Like RLX said, too many varying factors to make assumptions.
Spread is unique to a specific exchange, and its associated trade vol.
Days range prob covers all exchangesā€¦

But higher vol in no way should lead to reduced spread.
the spread you are looking at I assume is a single dayā€¦ not a good measure. its holiday time and less trading. Maybe with these etfs major buying/selling is done at intervals by big firms etc. Cant use a single days spread (or days range) to determine its liquidity.

Again, use tradingview, track the 10 or 30day volume.
imo anything less than a million is illiquid. You may struggle to get filled on entryā€¦ worst case struggle to get filled on exit take profit or stop lossā€¦ the latter, would be real bad and painful!

2 Likes

The market is closed right now. The bid/ask figures you are looking at are not representative of anything at this moment, it seems more like an anomaly from the last moment when the market closed.
Based on the CNYA price history it seems the spread is usually 1 cent. (at least in the past couple of weeks)
In any case you should look at bid/ask prices tomorrow when the market is actually open.

2 Likes

You can also enable the Vol number in the charts info barā€¦
image
it will show you the traded vol per bar on t212 specifically, which is important as you are buying/selling here. set chart to daily or weekly to see the dataā€¦ again prob dwindling due to christmas.
A lot of ETFs off the beaten track are terribly low volume

Do you recommend using tradingview through t212 or from tradingview. com?

In your opinion if the volume in 30 days is less than a million the instrument is not liquid? Did I understand correctly? Not many ETFs that I have in my portfolio and whatchlist have these volumesā€¦

If the average bid-ask spread is very low, doesnā€™t that mean the ETF or stock is very liquid?

Use TV through the .com. There is more detailed info there.
I see t212 shows average volume, but it doesnt indicate over what time frame this average is.
If i swing trade a stock I like it to be 1M+ daily trade vol.
Im not so much into ETFs but I would like close to that too, but maybe the 10 or 30day average daily traded volume.

No, again, spread is not an indicator of liquidity.
Ignore the bid/ask spread, it doesnt matter if you are using a limit order anyway. Otherwise if using market order, the spread will not be on your side.

Heres info from tradingview dot com.
Volume is daily traded, below is 30day avg.
daily trade vol will be low if reading it at open, vs end of day.


Itā€™s not just the fund but the underlying assets. Time of year/month/day can also come to play.

Type of fund can also be a factor, but for ETFs or open ended funds in most case it generally doesnā€™t matter. The spread will reflect the market at that time plus the market maker fees.

1 Like

Thanks for clarifying that.

I donā€™t understand why higher volume shouldnā€™t lead to a reduction of the spreadā€¦

I invest in ETFs to hold them for the long term (minimum 5 years or more), so Iā€™m interested in liquidity so as not to have bad surprises when I sell. When you say that for ETFs it does not matter, are you referring to traded volumes or the bid-ask spread?