What is exactly are program trades?

[Reaver]

What is the purpose of them and what are they? It seems like the answer is obvious, but I'm not one to assume!

I'm pretty new to learning futures and figured here was the best place to ask.

Trading forex in the meantime doing quite nicely, but man oh man..it's too "Wild West" for me in that market!:p

[TinGull]

Program trades are basically systems that are put together by some institutional folks. Its purely mechanical, and often times not really "supervised" per se...

When something happens in the market (sometimes a premium differential between the futures and cash market of SPX, sometimes other things) that was pre-defined in a system, the buy or sell orders are triggered. A lot of fund managers won't use that, though. They usually do things manually.

[Reaver]

Oh okay, that's what it sounded like, but yeah that makes sense. Thanks Tin. I appreciate it.

[TinGull]

No probem at all!