How aggressive are you these days?

There's no symbol per se if you're talking exchange listed instruments - this one is an OTC contract, RPX is the name

An OTC contract, ha? That should be highly liquid. Sounds like another great bet to me.

That an the CME housing price index contracts are also not active as well. Big spread on bid and ask

Do spunky and I actually agree?

stevejhx - lack of liquidity is an opportunity for arbitrage, in this case I wasn't suggesting you trade the TRS contracts (and you wouldn't be able to unless you're in compliance with ISDA regulations) rather use underlying analytics and statistical data for Manhattan condo market provided by RadarLogic (who by the way had bought and integrated into their franchise Miller Samuels and Co), as a benchmark for your hypothesis and prognostications as well as other people who may have more bullish view on Manhattan and New York RE.
spunky - bid/ask spread is an indicator of not only liquidity constraints but also market perception, same thing happening in actual RE sales, where the spreads on offering and subsequent price chops indicate that buyer are less willing to commit at indicated price levels, resulting in even further deterioration of liquidity which yields to choppy market and inability to mark yourself to market.

oberon, I tried to look but the website doesn't like firefox.

Oberon if this is the case can you provide an example of an actively traded asset that has a wide bid and ask.

stevejhx - not sure, I use IE at work...try going to www.radarlogic.com and navigate from there

spunky - you'd have to define "actively" - in terms of shares or contracts or notional sizes ? and what asset class, I'm only involved with structured products and securitization related, to some extent corp credit, so of the top I would say on a relative scale ABX index would be the pick - the spreads gapped out to as much as 4 points (that's 4% points on par instrument) for bid/ask right around last Feb of 07 and have been there all they way untill very recently...through that period tranches across capital structures of all index series deteriorated anywhere from 15% to 80% on a dollar basis.

Works in IE. Shows psf nearly tripled since 2000. On average (not compounded) 38% per year.

Unsustainable.

xl