Not exactly. All moves during the night session (NS) are automatically normalized against each other. So if someone says, a ten point move in the night session without a retrace is exceptional, by definition, they are already taking into account "thin liquidity periods, all kinds of goofy (and totally meaningless) stuff can happen." "Obviously", or at least I thought so, I was not implying that a ten point move during RTH should be compared to a move during the night session :eek:Quote from ArchAngel:
All things are relative and subject to personal perspective, but when you're talking about thin liquidity periods, all kinds of goofy (and totally meaningless) stuff can happen.
That is why I asked if you had done the following analysis:
1) During RTH, how many days and what percentage of all trading days since the inception of the NQ have had a ten handle move without a 1 handle retrace move off the bottom any time during the day.
2) Now do the same calculation after hours.
[clearly, this needs to be normalized to the average volume for each period. If you normalize by their respective stddev, you can then compare a 10 handle move without a one handle retrace during RTH to a 10 handle move without a one handle retrace during the night session]
Well, normalized for the stddev of the average volume at that time of the day, a 300 lot of trades that moved the NQ ten points would have statistical significance if over the entire life of the NQ contract, these events were rare, _by_definition_. That is why I asked if you had done the analysis above.A few hundred contracts at 3am can pretty easily twitch prices +10 on the NQ - then those few watching start speculating if someone knows something or if something's up and the few trading get into a temporary self-reinforcing ping pong game trying to guess if there's something going on.
Again, I have done the analysis and the data does not bear out what you are saying. A ten point move at any time since the inception of the NQ, not during realtime hours, without a handle retrace, _is_ statistically significant. "Vertical" to me is appropriate for this kind of a move. If the NQ had been up 20 without say a five handle retrace in the same time period as the move last night (I have not done that analysis, so I don't know what it would be,) the wording would have been "ballistic."That it took so long to realize there was nothing material maybe says something about the late night mindset.
Late night dynamics in the minis can be a lot like low volume OTC stocks. [/B]

Probably the disagreement or confusion comes from the fact that people expected the NQ to be up 20 points or something when they read the title of the thread.
What is funny is that, if the NQ had been up 20 points, and it had gone up ten then down ten then up ten, then up two then down one, then up two, and so on so that by 8:29, the NQ was up 20 points, some people would give have had less objections to that move than the one that I thought was impressive and given that move greater weight than the move last night.
Given the time period that it took to move and the amount of retrace, the statistical analysis of the data would assign roughly equal weight to both, assuming you are using certain "modern" statistical machinery, e.g., look at the recent section on time in the article by Vic N in Active Trader Magazine.
nitro
