What a Dull Market Today
- Thread starter Flashboy
- Start date
you know what I have been wondering since the early nineties??
Why guys don't wait until their day is OVER before making any trading declarations whether about an equity or an index... !
It is really not a flattering trait when someone writes the day off at 2:00 pm. And I have heard guys for years... i.e., go online or declare on the phone, that a certain stock (or index) is definitely going lower... only to find it reversed in the last hour or so, to make a higher high or low! Etc!
Why is that?! Impatience?
Now correct me if I'm wrong.. since I haven't done many futures trades recently... but, didn't the last half hour provide a 1/2-way decent "set up"... ?
regards,
ICe
The bottomline is that the index futures have become considerably more choppy, more mean reverting with less range, but more velocity in between pt A and pt B. Much more of the actual movement is the reaction to economic reports, not the natural ebb and flow of yesteryear. I think alot of guys on here who have tunnel vision towards the index futures as their sole trading vehicle are actually missing whats going on beneath the surface. It has clearly become a two tiered market. Leadership stocks, the ones that have the most index weighting are a mixed bag. Some continue to churn higher, while others have grossly underperformed. And recently, quite a few of these have just cracked altogether. On the other hand, the "flier" market has as much action as it did in 99-00. I have never seen so many small cap and micro cap stocks with so much buying pressure. Its literally like an "IBD market" in many of these stocks and sectors. The big difference is that in the so-called "bubble years" the Indicies actually were a good tell for the entire market. Now they seem to have become arbed towards perfect efficiency, with a few momentary price vacuums following the reports. Its definitely an entirely different market than we have ever seen.
It's not so much a matter of tunnel vision, vulture, as it is another stage. I like the futures very much. And even though I traded stocks for a number of years, I like not having to do the research, not having to care about fundamentals, not having to concern myself with overnight debacles. Once the day is done and I've made my notes, I'm done. The next morning, I don't have to do anything but turn the computer on and begin the data stream in order to see where S and R lie.
This isn't to say that I look at nothing but futures. There are times to buy, but I'd rather stick with ETFs and buy them only when the time to buy is exactly right, in this case, March. Guys who want to spend hours running scans and pouring over stock charts are welcome to it.
This isn't to say that I look at nothing but futures. There are times to buy, but I'd rather stick with ETFs and buy them only when the time to buy is exactly right, in this case, March. Guys who want to spend hours running scans and pouring over stock charts are welcome to it.
man i dunno maybe its because im just sucking as a trader, but it seems that lately there's no follow thru on ANY classical setup in the ES. Almost all failures or whipsaws. Basically range days with program buy/sell spikes within the range. How the f one supposed to trade that. Kick me.
