Traders have 3 choices right now
Tuesday’s session was rather uneventful
in the minis from Monday’s close. The ES futures finished about one point
higher, NQ six points and YM 20+ points above Monday’s final prints.
Intraday ranges remain muted as well. The ES
held inside a 7pt total span right into 4:00pm est. There were trade
opportunities for skilled scalpers, four different swings covering less than
4pts total were evident in our 3min charts. ES traders content with +2pt to +3pt
gains on a trade had several opportunities inside the pit-traded session.Â
Russell 2000 futures were once again the only real active emini symbol of the
“big four”. Its intraday range of 10pts or $1,000 per contract was almost
exactly 300% bigger than ES at $350 distance of dollar value travel.
Needless to say, it is much easier to pluck one
– several +$200 per contract swings out of a $1,000 total range than doing the
same thing from within a $350 span. Simple math at work here.
Stock index markets are following the same
general pattern they’ve traced since early November of last year. One or two
normal range sessions each week are interspersed with two or three of these
micro-range events. Our choices within the emini marketplace are:
1. Increase holding periods from intraday to
days or weeks in swing fashion
2. Trade the ES, NQ or YM for smaller than usual potential profits.
3. Trade the Russell 2000 and/or S&P 400 eminis with greater relative dollar
ranges.
Of course, individual stocks and especially the
FX markets are trading like true champs… they have been for quite some time.
It’s hard to imagine the S&P, NDX and Dow holding inside these recent non-range
sessions when trading at multi-year highs. If they do, traders will merely adapt
or migrate as they have since stock markets first began trading.
The greatest dollar per emini contract
opportunity right now exists within the Russell 2000 and S&P 400 index symbols.
That is where my own personal trading is confined, until the other big indexes
“wake up” and prove worthy of my capital applied within them again.
Summation
Upside bias until that fails to work. Sell signals are valid
intraday, but any hint of a dip that may hold brings in new waves of buying. The
trend is your friend until its end, so play the side with relative ease for
easiest trading success.
Trade To Win
Austin P
(Weekend Outlook trend-view section…
open access)
Austin Passamonte is a full-time
professional trader who specializes in E-mini stock index futures, equity
options and commodity markets.
Mr. Passamonte’s trading approach uses proprietary chart patterns found on an
intraday basis. Austin trades privately in the Finger Lakes region of New York.