Results of Tuesday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buying 5242.00 ended the plunge in price and offered a 9-point run before chopping sideways for the remainder of the day. The better trade was the breakout short from 4274.25 which ran 32.25 points to the turn. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5201.75 stop 5196.75. Short 5291.00 stop 5295.75.

The World Index: (+100/-100) reverses from +29 to -29 with most major world markets mildly Bearish. 

Catalysts: ADP Employment Change @ 8:15. Fed’s Bostic @ 8:30, Bowman @ 9:45, Powell @ 12:10, Barr @ 13:10. Final Services PMI @ 9:45. ISM Services PMI @ 10:00. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. 

Quick Tip: Adjusting Targets

Your trading plan should have a basic set of entry and exit rules. Think of them as useful for “typical” market conditions. You can define typical by data...

Results of Monday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buying 5311.00 only offered a 6.25-point move. Shorting 5306.25 ran for 24 points but not before just stopping out by a few ticks. Hoping your stop placement was looser. :-)

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5242.00 stop 5236.25. Short 5311.25 stop 5316.00. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) improves from +7 to +29 with most major world markets modestly Bullish on lower volatility.  

Catalysts: JOLTS & Factory Orders @ 10:00. Fed’s Bowman @ 10:10, Williams @ 12:00, Mester @ 12:05, and Daly @ 13:30. 

Quick Tip: Best Option Setup

Unusual Options Activity (UOA) is a great leading indicator of price. 

What are they? Identifying the best candidates starts with an extreme volume spike relative to small open interest (existing contracts not yet closed...

Results of Wednesday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5280.00 stop 5274.25. Short 5274.25 stop 5280.00 if price drops below and retraces to entry. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -14 to +21 with most major world markets mildly Bullish.

Catalysts: GDP & Jobless Claims @ 8:30. Chicago PMI @ 9:45. Pending Home Sales & UofM Consumer Sentiment/Inflation Expectations (revised).   

Quick Tip: Expectations 

“What are you struggling with?” was the question I asked a group of traders a while back. One woman said she had “expectation” challenges. She felt she needed to acknowledge that every trade cannot be a home run, or “10 to 1” as she phrased it. 

I respected her self-awareness. Expectations is not a commonly voiced trading...

Results of Tuesday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5242.00 stop 5236.25. Short 5314.50 stop 5320.25 (same as yesterday). 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +36 to -14 with major markets mixed. 

Catalysts: Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30.  

Quick Tip: Great Job

Your focus when trading should be on doing your job well. Don’t think that winning is good and losing is bad though. You can do your job well and still lose. Why? Because we have no control over the outcome, only our behavior. 

Here are your main “job” components as a trader: Research, practice, preparation, execution, and review. Your trade plan should be organized along these lines. 

There are plenty of analogies that compare traders with athletes, musicians, artists,...

Results of Friday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No trade triggered in another narrow day. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5242.00 stop 5236.25. Short 5314.50 stop 5320.25. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -50 to +36 with most major world markets mildly Bullish. 

Catalysts: Durable Goods @ 8:30. Home Price Index @ 9:00. Consumer Confidence & Richmond MFG Index @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: Your Behavior

Imagine starting in trading without any historical information. No price charts. No patterns to study. No economic information. No annual reports. What would you use to determine if it was time to buy or sell? 

Thankfully, we needn’t dwell on that question at all. We have incredible historical information available that we can research for potential edge in our trading. The fact is that historical information is ...

Results of Friday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No trade triggered in a choppy narrow day. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5242.00 stop 5236.25. Short 5314.50 stop 5320.25. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) dumps from -14 to -50 with most major world markets Bearish. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Bostic @ 8:25. New Home Sales @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: No Setups?

This blog suggests two potential turning points for the S&P futures. There are many more volume levels that our team uses. But for the past two days price never touched any of our volume levels. 

No problem. Our team has multiple strategies with edge to fill the gap when one isn’t providing setups. There are more reasons to trade multi-strat though: 

1. Diversity. Markets change character. They’re either trending or not, volatile, or not. No single...

Results of Thursday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No trade triggered.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5286.50 stop 5280.75. No short trade today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) dumps from +43 to -14 with Asia Bearish and the West mixed. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Powell @ 9:00 and Barr @ 12:00. 

Quick Tip: New Paradigm

What are your beliefs about successful trading? How have you been taught? 

Technical analysis – “All I need is a good indicator or two to be a winner, history repeats itself enough for me.” That’s OK. 

Fundamental analysis – “Indicators are lagging, I want to study and KNOW the asset I’m trading to predict the future with confidence.” That’s OK too. 

Chart analysis – “Patterns on the chart are predictive...

Results of Wednesday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No trade triggered.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5242.00 stop 5236.25. No short trade today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from zero to +43 with most major world markets Bullish on rising volatility. 

Catalysts: Jobless Claims & Philly Fed MFG Index @ 8:30. PMI MFG & Services @ 9:45. Existing Home Sales @ 10:00. Fed’s Barr @ 12:00. 

Quick Tip: Consistency

Having taught over 4000 traders in the past 16 years the goal I’ve heard most often is the desire for consistent profitability. 

You know what profitability is but how do you define consistency in trading? Time enters the definition. Wanting a daily paycheck from the market is more challenging than a weekly or monthly paycheck. 

In Dr. Brett Steenbarger’s excellent...

Results of Monday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Shorting 5236.75 picked the top of the session and ran for 26.50 points before closing the session +22.50. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 5184.25 stop 5179.00. Short 5221.50 stop 2527.25. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +57 to -7 with major world markets mixed on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: Building Permits & Housing Starts @ 8:30. Waiting on FOMC tomorrow.

Quick Tip: Exit On Close

If you traded yesterday’s short suggestion (see chart) and let it ride to the close you had an awesome start to your trading week. 

However, watching that open trade all day would have been difficult given the swings and spikiness of the price action. Just about any trailing stop rule set would have limited your potential. 

There is one great trader I know of who...