Quote from jack hershey:
You are experiencing the way settlement affects the markets.
The big money does two things everyday.
In the AM they deal with management according to policies set by owners.
In the PM settlement has to be dealt with. Depending on the net of settlement, the the sentiment is affected. Satisfying the clients is a requirement of the industry.
What ever measurements you use for this or that. these can be overriden by the necessities of settlement.
In trading there are many considerations to make money. If you do not know how things work you will be screwing up more often than not.
Many people postpone making a lot of money by approaching the markets from a viewpoint of thinking stuff up to make money.
you might even call some of it "inventing stuff".
Inventing stuff is humor and postpones and limits making money is some realy severe ways.
One great thing to do is to not trade in the pm's for most people who are caught in the trap of not do what the market tells traders to do.
Everyone is telegraphed the settlement story daily. Big money needs money to handle the PM. They get it from traders who do not know what is going on.
It is a well established tradition of the financial industry.
Personally, I front run smart money so I get to be pushed by the settlement daily.

Quote from bdon:
This time frame seems to change periodically for me. Right now its
nyse 9:45-10:45
nyse 12:20-1:15
nyse 2:00-3:15