Friday’s results: Buying 5908.50 on the breakout was only good for a 4-point scalp. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5867.75 stop 5864.00. Short 5864.75 stop 5868.50 if price retraces up from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +43 to -36 with most of the world mildly Bearish on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: FOMC Speakers; Logan @ 8:55, Kashkari @ 13:00. IMF Meeting starts. 

Quick Tip: Belief #1

Success at trading, at anything, is formulaic. No one stays successful at anything without a proven formula to follow. What’s yours? 

You may think it’s your trade plan. You may think you need the hottest strategies, the best broker, more risk capital, and better sources of information. All that surely helps but the foundation for your success starts within you. It’s your belief. 

Do you honestly believe you can become a top-notch trader? Or are you thinking of giving it a...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5888.50 picked the bottom of the session and ran for 25 points. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5908.50 stop 5904.25 if price retraces down from above. Short 5864.75 stop 5868.50 if price retraces up from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from zero to +43 with most of the world Bullish. Asia up strong. 

Catalysts: Building Permits & Housing Starts @ 8:30. Fed’s Waller @ 12:10. 

Quick Tip: Dividend Plays? Really? 

As traders we’re usually focused on capital gains, not holding stocks over the long term and collecting dividends. However, having a dividend producing portfolio is a fabulous way to balance your wealth growth relative to the ups and downs of active trading. 

John Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group, said “Over the long run, it is dividends, and dividends alone, that account for the lion’s share of stock market returns." 

...

Yesterday’s results: Neither trade idea triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5888.50 stop 5884.50. Short 5885.25 stop 5889.25 if price retraces from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -36 to zero with mixed sentiment, the east is Bearish, the west is Bullish on increasing volatility. 

Catalysts: Retail Sales, Jobless Claims, Philly Fed MFG Index @ 8:30. Industrial Production @ 9:15. Business Inventories, Housing Market Index @ 10:00. Crude Oil Inventories @ 11:00. Fed’s Goolsbee @ 11:00. Janet Yellen (tentative). 

Quick Tip: Easy Options

Having a small account shouldn’t prevent you from swing trading stocks. Your solution is to substitute options. With over 700 stocks that have liquid options you have an abundance of choice. 

Plenty of new traders shy away from options. Their perception is they’re complex and hard to learn. They can be complex, and they can be...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5861.25 offered a 4-point scalp. Shorting 5859.00 offered a 6.75-point scalp. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5823.25 stop 5820.00. Short 5908.50 stop 5912.25.

The World Index: (+100/-100) slides from -29 to -36 with most major world markets Bearish on modest volatility. 

Catalysts: Import/Export Prices @ 8:30. Earnings continue (individual stocks can have a big market impact, consider ASML/NVDA yesterday). 

Quick Tip: Invisible Demand

All markets are influenced by the forces of supply and demand. More demand than supply will push the markets higher. This natural law works on every tradable asset. 

But is all demand visible on a price chart? For indexes, currencies, and commodities, I would argue yes. They are mostly institutional markets, and the footprints large traders leave can be found. Our team trades a chart-based Supply/Demand strategy that has a real...

Yesterday’s results: No trades triggered.

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5861.25 stop 5858.25. Short 5859.00 stop 5862.00 if price retraces up from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) falls from +21 to -29 with mixed sentiment, China/HK down firmly. 

Catalysts: Empire State MFG Index @ 8:30. Fed’s Daly @ 11:30, Kugler @ 13:00. Contrarian Alert: VIX near 20 is unusual at new highs. 

Quick Tip: VIX Explained 

Have you ever heard of the stock market's “fear gauge”? That’s a nickname for the VIX, or Volatility Index. The VIX helps us understand how much uncertainty or risk there is in the market at any given time. 

It measures how volatile the stock market is expected to be over the next 30 days. In other words, it shows how much the prices of stocks might swing up or down. The more the market is expected to move, the higher the VIX goes. 

It's often called the "fear...

Friday’s results: No trades triggered.

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5823.25 stop 5820.00. Short 5820.75 stop 5824.00 if price retraces up from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from zero to +21 with mixed sentiment on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Kashkari @ 9:00, Waller @ 15:00. 

Quick Tip: Performance Dips

Dedicated traders devote plenty of attention to reviewing their performance, just like professional athletes do. Sometimes we’ll see a dip in our results. Our equity curve will be flattening. We’ll ask ourselves “Is it the market or me?” 

In his excellent book Atomic Habits author James Clear named chapter 20 The Downside of Creating Good Habits. Darn good title! 

Here’s the gist of it: once we practice something enough to become skilled and automatic we become less aware of improving it. We stop looking for the mistakes....

Yesterday’s results: No trades triggered; the levels remain on the chart. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5789.50 stop 5786.25. Short 5787.00 stop 5790.25 if price retraces back up from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +21 to zero with mixed sentiment. 

Catalysts: PPI @ 8:30. Fed’s Goolsbee @ 9:45, Logan @ 10:45, Bowman @ 13:10. UofM Consumer Sentiment & Inflation Expectations @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: Market vs. Limit Orders

Market orders all get filled. Limit orders may not get filled. Which is best? 

For stop loss orders market is better. You may experience some slippage in a fast market but that is preferable to seeing big slippage because your limit didn’t fill, and the market ran away. No big losses. 

For entries this is more of a style question. 

If your trade setups are planned like our volume-at-price and supply/demand strategies, you can set a limit order and...

Yesterday’s results: No trades triggered.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5789.50 stop 5786.25. Short 5787.00 stop 5790.25 if price retraces back up from below (filtered out during CPI release). 

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from zero to +21 with sentiment mixed with Asia somewhat volatile, not so much the west. 

Catalysts: CPI & Jobless Claims @ 8:30. Fed’s Cook @ 9:15, Barkin @ 10:30, Williams @ 11:00. 30-Year Bond Auction @ 13:00. 

Quick Tip: Multi-Strat 

Yesterday’s price action did not trigger any trades in the S&P futures for two of our strategies, Volume Profile and Volatility Reversal. Plenty of patience is required when day trading and not getting a quality setup. 

Fortunately, we also trade an intraday Trend/Momentum strategy that ran for 38.25 points (see chart above). It’s not uncommon for the strategies to diverge....

Yesterday’s results: Shorting 5797.75 only offered a 4.75-point scalp. Buying the breakout occurred at the close and was passed. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5768.00 stop 5764.50. Short 5765.25 stop 5768.75 if price retraces from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -36 to zero with sentiment mixed, China/HK imploding, other major markets mildly Bullish. 

Catalysts: Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. 10-Year Bond Auction @ 13:00. FOMC Minutes @ 14:00. Fed Speakers, Bostic @ 8:00, Logan @ 9:15, Goolsbee @ 10:30, Jefferson @ 12:30, Collins @ 17:00, Daly @ 18:00. 

Quick Tip: Trading Athletics

Once you’re proficient in trading a strategy it’s time to add another to your plan. 

Athletes do. They perfect a motion, play, or strategy and then add another. They continuously expand their playbook. Teams do too.  

I had the privilege of teaching trading to a retired...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5745.00 stopped out. The short idea didn’t trigger. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Short 5797.75 stop 5801.25. Buy 5800.50 stop 5797.00 if price retraces from above. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +33 to -36 with extreme sentiment differences on higher volatility. For example, HK -9.4%, Shanghai +5.9%. 

Catalysts: Trade Balance @ 8:30. Fed’s Bostic @ 12:45, Collins @ 16:00, Jefferson @ 19:00. 

Quick Tip: Black Swans

Popularized by Nassim Taleb in the book of the same name, Black Swan simply means a rare, unpredictable, and high impact event. 

Hurricane Milton is a Black Swan. It is the first hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico to travel from west to east in the last 100 years. My hometown for most of my life was the Tampa Bay area. If Milton continues on the forecast track he will make landfall near Tampa Bay, which could be devastating. Obviously, I’m...