Yesterday’s results: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5701.50 stop 5695.75. Short 5740.75 if price trades below and retraces back with a stop at 5745.75.

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -17 to +42 with most major world markets Bullish. China closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: Non-Farm Payrolls, Unemployment Rate @ 8:30. Fed’s Williams @ 9:00. Middle East crisis. 

Quick Tip: Skepticism

Being skeptical is good. It provides the questions you need answered to decide. In trading you should have a plan with rules of entry and exit. But not all plans perform in all market conditions. Being a little skeptical, asking yourself “Is this the market I should trade with this strategy right now?” is helpful. 

This happened to me yesterday, but my skepticism was late. I took a couple of trades, a loser and a breakeven, before I questioned the market condition...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5790.75 was only good for a 5-point scalp.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5701.50 stop 5695.75. No short suggestion. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +30 to -40 with sentiment mostly Bearish. China/HK closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: ADP Non-Farm Employment Change @ 8:15. Fed’s Hammack @ 9:00, Musalem @ 10:05, Bowman @ 11:00, Barkin @ 12:15. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. Mideast conflict accelerates. 

Quick Tip: FOMO/DOMO

If you watched the Chinese stock market’s reaction to the huge stimulus program recently announced you’ll have experienced FOMO. The charts for the internet related stocks were parabolic for days with massive gaps up. 

Fear Of Missing Out, FOMO, is an emotional reaction traders have when seeing what they could have had. Price is gaining momentum and you’re on the sidelines. Impulsively, you break your...

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: Buying 5775.50 was only good for a 5-point bounce if filled. The short idea never triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5755.75 stop 5752.25. No short level today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) dumps from +71 to +7 with sentiment mixed on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: New Home Sales @ 10:00. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. Fed’s Kugler @ 16:00. 

Quick Tip: Synergy

In Stephen Covey’s bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the 6th habit is Synergize. The concept is that two (or more) things working together produce a result that is better than the sum. 

Think about this: If everyone agreed with you about the subject at hand, would there ever be any improvement to the subject (process, strategy, plan, etc.)? No change, no synergy.  

That is precisely why you should embrace disagreement… from a constructive...

Friday’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) remains at +7 with sentiment mixed and volatility low. 

Catalysts: S&P Flash MFG/Services PMI @ 9:45. Fed’s Bostic @ 8:00, Goolsbee @ 10:15, Kashkari @ 13:00. 

Quick Tip: Expectations 

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

I respect her self-awareness. Expectations is not a commonly voiced trading challenge. But it is real. You can expect too much and foster disappointment. You can expect too little and minimize your profits. Neither view is healthy for your ultimate results. 

If you are documenting all the...

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: No trade triggered. 

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

The World Index: (+100/-100) soars from +8 to +93 with all major world markets very Bullish. Contrarian alert (there will be profit taking, maybe today). 

Catalysts: Jobless Claims & Philly Fed MFG Index @ 8:30. Existing Home Sales @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: Herd Following

Trend following as a trading strategy is effective and popular among hedge funds. But they don’t all use the same algorithm. They want to be different enough to compete for better returns and the new money to manage that will come pouring in. 

With AI gaining popularity in the trading world, you can imagine that one day there might be no one to trade against. As AI matures, everyone will have access to “all knowledge.” Why wouldn’t everyone use the best rule set? 

This is an interesting...

Yesterday’s results: No price levels available due to contract rollover. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5698.00 stop 5693.25. No short levels above. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from zero to +33 with most major world markets Bullish on rising volatility. 

Catalysts: Retail Sales @ 8:30. Industrial Production @ 9:15. Business Inventories, Housing Market Index & Fed’s Logan @ 10:00.

Quick Tip: Complacent?  

We all trade to win and make a profit. The ups and downs happen along the way. The time to get laser-focused is when you’re feeling like you don’t need to. 

The recent rally in the S&P has the stock indexes at or near all-time highs. Our team’s swing trading portfolio had some incredible gains last week. One trade earned over 700% in two days. It’s natural when everything is effortlessly going your way to relax and enjoy the ride. 

But...

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...