Friday’s results: No trades suggested. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Short 5808.00 stop 5812.75. Buy 5812.00 stop 5807.25 if price retraces from above. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +57 to -14 with China wildly Bullish and the remaining major world markets somewhat Bearish. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Bowman @ 8:50 and Powell @13:55. Chicago PMI @ 9:45. Dallas Fed MFG Index @10:30. 

Quick Tip: Ratio Exits

Our volume-at-price strategy usually performs better in the Globex session. We know this from thousands of documented trades. The challenge for most of us is we’re sleeping! 

Setting a planned entry before bedtime is no problem. Optimizing the exit is the tricky part. 

One common exit is the trailing stop using initial risk. The downside is price can get spiky taking you out of what became a great trade. 

One great trader on our team uses what I’ll call the Ratio Exit. 

For...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5781.50 picked the bottom of the session and ran for 26.75 points just before the close. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No high-probability levels today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) dips from +86 to +57 with all major world markets Bullish except the S&P futures. 

Catalysts: PCE Price Index @ 8:30. UofM Consumer Sentiment (revised) @ 10:00. Fed’s Bowman @ 13:15. 

Quick Tip: Trailing Stops

The technique of adjusting your stop loss so it follows or “trails” price while moving in your direction is attractive. There are several ways to place a trailing stop. The first decision you must make is whether you want your platform to automatically adjust it or you to manually adjust it. 

For automatic trailing stops any decent trading platform will allow you to enter the trailing stop by points, dollars or percentage. If your...

Yesterday’s results: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5705.75 stop 5700.00. No short level today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +93 to +7 with Asia Bullish and the west modestly Bearish. 

Catalysts: Nothing on the economic calendar. Fed’s Harker speaks @ 14:00. 

Quick Tip: Choices

The first serious sports car I bought was painted gold. It was the only one of that model the dealer had at the time and they were hard to get. I didn’t love the color, but I really wanted the car. 

Most of the time we have choices and that’s a good thing. Traders have plenty of choices. Maybe too many. Which asset to trade, how many shares/contracts, entries, exits, etc. That’s why you should have a plan and stick to your rules. 

One of the choices I’ve noticed many traders don’t have is which strategy to execute. It seems they...

Yesterday’s results: Neither trade idea triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: No price levels today due to contract rollover. 

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

Catalysts: Empire State MFG Index @ 8:30. 

Quick Tip: Futures Rollover

Futures contracts are buy/sell agreements between two parties. Every contract has a delivery date at which point the transaction ends and goods/money are exchanged. 

Many futures traders have no intention of fulfilling their contractual obligations. They’re either speculating on price direction or hedging against price changes. For these traders exiting the current contract before the delivery date and entering the next contract further out on the calendar is called rollover. 

For stock index futures the rollover is quarterly near the middle of March, June, September and December. The symbols will change...

Yesterday’s results: Neither trade idea triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5569.75 stop 5564.00. Short 5688.25 stop 5693.50.

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +57 to +21 with most major world markets mildly Bullish on declining volatility. 

Catalysts: Import Prices@ 8:30. UofM Consumer Sentiment @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: More Price Levels

This blog suggests two good setups every day. One long, one short. They are not the only setups that are presented from the volume-at-price analysis. 

Every trading day offers a different “map” of volume levels. They only work for so long, then they’re taken off the chart. That happens when the level is stopped out. 

Hint: Save the levels that didn’t trigger a trade or stop out. They’re good until they’re violated. 

In Wednesday’s blog post the suggested short was 5581.25. New levels were offered on...

Friday’s results: Buying 5461.50 only bounced for 6.50 points. Shorting 5521.00 stopped out for a full loss. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5382.75 stop 5379.25. Short 5581.25 stop 5584.75.

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -43 -7 with Asia Bearish and the Western world Bullish. 

Catalysts: Nothing obvious. 

Quick Tip: Tick Trick

A popular indicator for day trading stocks and index futures is the NYSE Tick. It’s a sentiment indicator that measures the number of stocks moving up versus down. For example, with about 2300 stocks on the NYSE if 1500 made an uptick on the last trade and 800 made a downtick the tick index would be +700 (1500 – 800). 

You can use it as supporting evidence to take long/short positions and as confluence for trend. Readings above zero support buys and readings below zero support sells. Keep in mind that it’s only effective for very short periods of...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5469.75 filled in the Globex session catching the low of the session and ran for 14.00 points still open and running. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5461.50 stop 5458.00. Short 5521.00 stop 5525.75. No trades suggested around the Non-Farm Payrolls release. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from -7 to -43 with most major world markets back to Bearish. 

Catalysts: Non-Farm Payrolls/Unemployment Rate/Average Earnings @ 8:30. Fed’s Williams @ 8:45 and Waller @ 11:00. 

Quick Tip: Night Moves

One of the nice features of trading the volume levels from this newsletter is the set/forget entry available on the reversals. 

Yesterday’s buy at 5469.75 didn’t fill until 3:20 AM ET. You were likely sleeping. Placing the order beforehand brought you a welcome “Good Morning!”

You had a choice of stops: leave the initial stop level and potentially give up...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5616.25 stop 5611.75. Short 5688.25 stop 5693.50. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +64 to -21 with most major world markets mildly Bearish. 

Catalysts: S&P MFG PMI Final @ 9:45. ISM MFG PMI & Construction Spending @ 10:00 

Quick Tip: Drawdowns End

Are you plotting your strategy’s equity curve? If not, get started. It’s a modest amount of record keeping, and it will give you confidence and warn you to drawdowns and restarts. 

It’s important that the equity curve represents all trades your strategy teed up, not just the ones you took. Knowing the difference between your results (behavior) and what you should have done is critical to improving your results. 

The primary purpose of the equity curve is to view strategy results for continuing or halting trading. Our Volume Profile strategy went into a drawdown (losing streak) a while back, so it was halted....

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Nothing tradeable today.  

Monday’s results: This strategy is on hold... but is improving and likely out of the drawdown soon.

The World Index: (+100/-100) reverses from +36 to -14 with many major world markets motionless. 

Catalysts: Existing Home Sales & Richmond MFG Index @ 10:00. TSLA & AMZN earnings after the close. 

Quick Tip: Strategy Death

This Volume Profile strategy has been in a drawdown for some time. It’s getting painful to document the setups/results every day, but it must be done. Otherwise, how would we know if the strategy is worth trading again? 

What I’ve noticed in the daily review is that the levels are not the main problem. It appears the entry and exit rules are. Fortunately, we have thousands of trades documented, each with 47 data points, and this offers us a significant research opportunity to solve the problem. Stay...