Wed. 03/24/2010 - E-Mini S&P 500 Futures Review/Analysis

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures
Last night's post called for a consolidation day with narrower range (8-10 points), which played out well today. The day session range was 7.75 points, and the 24-hour session range was 9 points. I was anticipating Responsive Buying at 1161, and that turned out to be the low tick of the day. We're continuing to build acceptance (volume) in the 1163.50-1164 area. I expect selling pressure below 1164, and buying pressure above it.

ES 5-Minute Chart


ES Day Session Volume Profile Chart

Wed. 03/24/2010 - S&P 500 Futures Key Support/Resistance Levels

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures
After Tuesday's late afternoon upside breakout, a test of the breakout level (1165.50) is expected; and it looks like we may even get it in overnight trading (ES currently trading at 1167). My plan for tomorrow is to buy the dips into the Key Support Areas, and Short the upside moves into Resistance. There wasn't much buying interest in the 1170-1170.50 area, and I'll be looking to Short it on first touch. I'd be cautious initiating Longs above 1170 since I'm anticipating significant rotation in the 1170-1180 area. If the break-out is "real", I would expect 1163 to hold; a break of 1158.50 would make me suspicious of this upside breakout move and we may get a stronger move down (failure of breakout). I'm expecting consolidation here, and a narrower range day (8-10 points).

Econ Data
Durable Goods Orders at 7:30 AM (CT), New Home Sales at 9:00 AM (CT), and EIA Petroleum Status Report at 9:30 AM (CT).

ES - Daily Chart with Volume Profile and Key Levels

Wed. 02/24/2010 - E-Mini S&P 500 Futures Review/Analysis

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures Review/Analysis
Sorry if I sound repetitive, but the Scenario and Key Levels worked out great -- To the Tick on a few price swings. Price remained above 1100 for most of the day, and we got heavy acceptance (volume) in the 1103-1103.75 area. 1097 is an area of interest, and as long as price remains above it, we could see the buying continue into tomorrow.

ES 5-Minute Chart


ES 30-Min Volume Profile Chart


ES Day Session Volume Profile Chart

Wed. 02/24/2010 - S&P 500 Futures Key Support/Resistance Levels

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures
Bulls have a fighting chance as long as price remains above 1091 tomorrow. I know there's a lot of Bearish sentiment in the market right now, and we very well could head lower tomorrow, but I have to be open to both scenarios. Lets look at today's price action objectively: Price hit Resistance at 1112.75 and broke below the mid-point, VWAP and Initial Support Zone in the overnight session. So from a technical/charting perspective, we were already setup for some Selling going into the Consumer Confidence release. The negative Consumer Confidence # brought in the Other Time-Frame Seller and we sold off 11.75 points in 20 minutes and consolidated below the mid-point for remainder of the day. OK -- sounds pretty damn bearish, but then we got quick and repeated rejection of the 1090.75-1091.75 area (keep that area in mind for tomorrow), and price rotated above the IB Low and closed at the VWAP. I'd feel more confident on the Sell side if price had closed below the IB Low. As long as Initial Support holds tomorrow, I think we could see a rotation back to 1100+. Pending any news, I'm anticipating a range-bound, rotational day tomorrow where price reaches an area of Support or Resistance and rotates/chops back and forth before moving to the next area. Bias is Bearish below 1091, Bullish above 1102 and neutral to slightly bullish in between. Another Key Level to keep an eye on is today's IB Low at 1094; a break of that area tomorrow could take us back for a re-test of 1090-1091 quickly. Expecting Strong Responsive Buying ahead of the 1076-1077 area, if we get there. Best trading!

Econ Data
New Home Sales at 9:00 AM (cst), Ben Bernanke Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, before the House Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives at 9:00 AM (cst), EIA Petroleum Status Report at 9:30 AM (cst).

ES - Daily Chart with Volume Profile and Key Levels

Wed. 01/27/2010 - E-Mini S&P 500 Futures Review/Analysis

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures Review/Analysis
Typical range-bound movement ahead of FOMC, followed by some range expansion on the announcement. I've been posting that 1080.50 area as Strong Support this entire week, and so far, that area has proven to be a great place to get Long.

ES 10-Minute Chart for 01/27/10

Wed. 01/27/2010 - Euro FX Futures Review/Analysis

Euro FX (EUR/USD) Futures
So far, I'm really liking the price action in 6E. It's a trader's market offering swift swings in both directions. I traded the 6E today, and the Key was to keep losses small (that's true of trading any market though). The instrument offers more than enough entries, so I just focused on keeping losses to a minimum and re-entering at the next setup. The rest took care of itself. Going forward, I'll definitely be focusing on 6E in addition to ES.

EC/6E 10-Minute Chart for 01/27/10

Wed. 01/27/2010 - No Key S/R Levels Tonight

No Key Levels post tonight due to too much homework and too little sleep. Anticipating range-bound action in the morning, and range expansion in the afternoon on the FOMC Announcement.

Econ Data
New Home Sales at 9:00 AM (cst), EIA Petroleum Status Report at 9:30 AM (cst), FOMC Meeting Announcement at 1:15 PM (cst).

Wednesday 12/23/2009 - S&P 500 Futures Market Review

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures
The key levels worked very well today. The overnight stop run above the previous high of day paused at 1119 to the tick -- and that level worked multiple times. Sellers kept price under 1121, and shorting below 1122 with a tight stop was fine. The morning sell off stopped and reversed at the Initial Support Zone. Sellers kept price under the IB High (was also the High of Day) in the PM session. I was anticipating another stop-run if the buyers had been able to push price above 1117.25 in the afternoon. 1117.25 is now acting as Resistance in the overnight Globex session. The charts below show how the Levels worked out.

I won't be posting Key Levels tonight since tomorrow is a short day. 1119-1121 is still the Resistance Zone to watch. Above 1122, we could easily get to 1127.

Best wishes to everyone this holiday season! 2009 has been a very educational year and I feel confident going into 2010!


ES 5-Minute Chart for 12/23/09 Includes Overnight Globex


ES - Volume Profile and Key Levels 12/23/09

Key Levels & Scenarios (S&P 500 Futures) for Wednesday 12/23/2009

E-Mini S&P 500 Futures
Three important economic releases tomorrow morning: Personal Income and Outlays at 7:30 AM (cst), Consumer Sentiment at 8:55 AM (cst), and most importantly New Home Sales at 9:00 AM (cst). I'm anticipating range expansion on the New Home Sales data. My bias is bullish above 1110.50, bearish below 1107 and neutral to bullish in between. Watch out if we get above 1122; anticipating a stop-run to cause a strong upward surge. Beyond 1122, there's no use estimating the range potential since it's a fresh and untested scenario and price area. All I can say is, keep your subjective bias in check. Instead, identify key reference points to establish directional bias objectively. Be careful with counter-trend trades; we're at an inflection point and could get a strong trend day. Also have to be extra cautious since it's a short week and there's little to no participation from the big institutional players.

ES - Daily Bar Chart with Volume Profile and Key Levels

Key Levels and Scenarios (S&P 500) for Tuesday 12/01/2009

E-Mini S&P 500
Scenario and levels played out beautifully today...very structured moves and consolidation at known levels. Today's price action helped solidify the support in the 1082.50-1086 area. We can discern two things from that: 1) We'll probably get a bounce on first touch and 2)If price breaks through support, anticipate a fast move down to the extension targets. Monday's range was also within the top half of Friday's range (bullish). Price is currently at 1095.50 and building value above Monday's VWAP (1091). 1089.50-1091.25 is strong support at this point and I'm anticipating a bounce on first touch. My immediate bias as of this writing (11 PM CST) is bullish.

Redbook data out at 7:55 AM (cst) and ISM Mfg Index, Construction Spending and Pending Home Sales Index out at 9:00 AM (cst). Monday was an inside day. We've consolidated and accepted value here. Anticipating range expansion tomorrow!

Bullish Scenario (above 1089)
My bias will remain bullish as long as price remains above 1089. From here, I'd like price to break through that 1098 level, and test 1101.75. We may get some consolidation in the 1101.75-1103.25 zone, but if we break above 1101, I would anticipate a test of the 1106-1108 (a lot going on there). That would be a great place to scale out of a Long position, or if you're adventurous, even reverse to the short side for a rotation down to 1104-1105. Beyond 1108, the 1110-1112 is solid resistance. If price manages to crack above that level, which is possible, tagging 1115 shouldn't require too much effort.

Bearish Scenario (below 1089)
I will not consider shorts unless price breaks below 1089. That is an important area IMO, and if the market is truly gaining steam, the level should hold. At a minimum, I'm anticipating a bounce on first touch in the 1089.50-1091.25 area. If price bounces and starts heading down again, entering short with a tight stop would be a good risk/reward setup. If we break 1089, we could go down to 1082.50 in a hurry, and to 1079.25 below that. Again, the safer play would be to short the bounces from that point on. We have strong support in the 1076-1078 area so scaling out ahead of that would be prudent.

ES - Daily Bar Chart with Volume Profile and Key Levels

Wednesday 11/25/2009 - Market Review

I can't stress this enough: Enter trades at Key Levels! Don't get caught up in the DOM, the tick moves or the color of the current bar/candle. Have a plan prior to the market open, then be patient and wait for price to get to the areas where YOU want to conduct business. A few benefits to this approach:
1) You will have better control over your anxiety/psychology since you're waiting for price to get to the area you want, and you'll be prepared to enter the trade at that level
2) You'll avoid the chop in the middle
3) You'll be able to use a tight stop-loss since the difference between the level where you enter a trade, and the level where you're proven wrong will usually be within 2-3 points, if not less.

Following is today's 5-minute day-session chart. Look at the 5-min chart in conjunction with the Key Levels and Scenarios post from last night. This is simple stuff, just requires some patience and discipline. Happy Thanksgiving!

ES 5-Minute Day Session Chart for 11/25/09

Key Levels (S&P 500) for Wednesday 11/25/2009

E-Mini S&P 500
Scenarios posted last night worked out great today! I mentioned last night that "1098 could provide a bounce, as well as 1094-1095." - and we got a solid bounce at 1095 into the VPOC cluster, with price peaking at 1106.75. ES is currently trading at 1105.50, building value above 1100. Going into tomorrow, my bias is still bullish. From a seasonality perspective, we saw a huge up move on the day before Thanksgiving last year, but 2008 was a crazy year! At this point, I'm bullish above 1100, neutral above 1089 and bearish below 1089. This doesn't mean I won't initiate shorts if we move into the range extension areas (1115-1119), but above 1094, I'd rather buy the pullbacks. Below 1089, I'd like to sell the bounces. Today was an inside day, and the bullish/bearish scenarios haven't really changed since yesterday.

Lot of Econ #s coming out between 7:30 am and 9:00 am (cst). Durable Goods Orders, Personal Income and Outlays and Jobless Claims out at 7:30 am (cst). Consumer Sentiment at 8:55 am (cst). New Home Sales data out at 9:00 am (cst). Be prepared and keep an open mind; even though it's a day before a holiday, we could see some big moves tomorrow!

ES - Daily Bar Chart with Volume Profile and Key Levels

Thursday 05/28/09 - Running on Empty

Today was bad from the get go; no motivation, lousy focus, and lack of sleep weighed on me, and I missed some nice trade sequences in the morning. The mind just wasn't sharp enough, and I was still half asleep when I got to the screens around 9:00 AM (central). Just felt super tired all day. I wasn't around much for the afternoon since I had to take care of some additional paperwork. I got back to the screens around 2:30 PM and placed 3 more trades into the close (2 winners, 1 loser). All in all, a pretty bad day but somehow managed to end with a +3.75 pt gain. For the full-time traders, how do you maintain focus throughout the day? Here are the Stats:

# of Trades	7
Longs	3
Shorts	4
% Break-Even:	0.00
% Win	57.14
% Loss	42.86
Avg Win	1.81
Avg Loss	-1.17
Largest Win (pts)	2.50
Largest Loss (pts)	-2.00
Total Win (pts)	7.25
Total Loss (pts)	-3.50
Net Gain/Loss (pts)	3.75
ES Daily Range	22.50
P/L as % of Daily Range	16.67

GDP out at 7:30 AM tomorrow morning, Chicago PMI at 8:45 AM, and Consumer Sentiment at 8:55 AM.

ES (5-Min)


ES (Daily) - Lower high and lower low, with a Close near the highs on today's Daily candle. Support in the mid 880s below.

Friday 04/24/09 - Be aware of Market Moving News

Started a bit late on Friday morning due to the economic data being released in the morning. It's safer to let the market digest the data, and then enter trades based on some fresh support/resistance levels. I essentially had two trading ideas/sequences on Friday. The first trade was entering Long at the 857 area with an expected initial target of 860.75. That worked out OK for me and then I sat on my hands for the next move. The next area in-play was 860-865.25. My plan was to short a break of 860 (I had a sell stop order in at 859.75) or to buy a break-out of 865.25 with a 3-4 point target in either scenario. I was aware that some "stress-test" related news was going to be out at 1:00 PM (central), and based on price action (trend was up), I was long at 861 with a reversal-stop at 859.75. Seemed like a safe play at the time. Once the news came out, I got stopped out of my Long position, and entered into a Short position, but the move came in so fats & furious, that my short position got stopped out for a 2 point loss on that swing up. I entered long again expecting the up-side to continue since we were in an up-trend prior to the news. But, I got stopped out yet again, so I again, entered short around 860 and exited around 855 (853 was a support level). I ended my trading day there at 1:15 PM (central) with a net gain of +$425.10 with a win rate of 38.4% and an average profit factor of 1.64 (the profit factor on my short trades was 8.85!). I could have certainly handled the situation better by NOT entering Long simply because price reversed after that break of 860. That would have saved me a few hundred in losses. The better play would have been to remain flat into the news, and then enter short on break of 860 with a tight stop or enter long on a break-out of 865.25. Lesson learned! Here's a snapshot of my 610 Tick bar chart from Friday. It should give you an idea of what I look for, and how I read price action:



Looking at this past week's results in TradeStation, my net gain on the week was +$897.40 with a win rate of 39% and an average profit factor of 1.53. This number doesn't include the gains from Tuesday, when I was experiencing technical problems with TradeStation (caused unnecessary losses), and used the Infinity AT trading platform. If I count those trades, the weekly gain would probably be around +$1,600.

Going forward, I'll be looking at 868.75, 872, 878 and 883 as possible areas of resistance. I'll be looking at 860, 850, 848.75 (OPEN GAP) and 833 as areas of support. Hoping for continued upside action!

On to the regular charts...

ES/$TICK (3-Min) - Open Gap at 848.75 Below


ES 15-Minute - Price above 34 and 200 EMA. 850 level held support.