It seems that many have always "complained" that the ES trades with a lot of back and fill, especially during the RTH session. I think this is why many are, or at least were attracted to the NQ when starting out as it tended to have "better," i.e. more tradable swings between retracements than the ES.
That's another discussion, but personally, I fail to see the big difference between the two. Sure, NQ may move further and exhibit more momentum at times, but it still does its fair share of back-filling.
But I have noticed no change other than an increase in range. The retracement percentages are the same as they were pre-crash. I can print out an ES chart I took last year or the year before and compare it to yesterday's and if you take away the price scale you'd see no difference.
I'm not making comparisons with last year and now or pre-crash, crash, post-crash. I said 10 + years. So, the comparison is between recent times (feel free to discard the crash) and say 10 years or longer ago.
I also know that a 50 % retracement is the same whether the range is 10 or 100 points.
So yes, the retracements are deeper, but only in raw points. In terms of price action I do not feel anything has changed. Bigger stops required to trade the bigger targets offered.
One specific example can be the break of a support level. Again, I rely on memory which is subject to many flaws, but I seem to recall that breaks of support were cleaner and sell-offs had more follow through.
Let's say a clear support level is defined at 1000. Let's say the break is successful. In the past - this would happen:
a) Price breaks and never looks back.
b) Price breaks to 995, retraces back up to 1000 to test the level from below and sells off again.
These days - it can break to 995. Pop back up to 1005 and then finally break lower again. When price goes up to 1005 you're either stopped out or at a loss for whether it was an actual break or if we're now seeing a false breakout that reversed.
But again - I may be wrong here. It's just how I seem to recall it...
