Yesterday’s results: : No trades triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5936.25 stop 5931.25. Short 6002.75 stop 6007.75. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from -7 to -21 with all major world markets neutral to Bearish on low volatility. 

Catalysts: Retail Sales, Empire State MFG Index, Import Prices @ 8:30. Fed’s Collins @ 9:00, Williams @ 13:15. Industrial Production @ 9:15. Business Inventories @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: Tuning Your Watch List 

Stock and option traders have a challenge that futures and Forex traders don’t have. How to winnow down your trading candidates from nearly 9000 stocks. 

There are some common filters that are easy to implement like price and volume. Picking stocks that are between $10 and $50 reduces the selection to 2200. Add in average volume over 1 million daily and you’re down to 562. 

You can keep adding filters to get to a manageable number,...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5996.50 stopped out. Shorting the retracement to 5993.50 offered a 6.75-point scalp.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Short 6032.75 stop 6037.75. Buy 6037.50 stop 6034.75 if price retraces down from above (filtered out during CPI release). 

The World Index: (+100/-100) soars from -71 to zero with the major world markets mixed on falling volatility.  

Catalysts: CPI @ 8:30. FOMC speakers; Kashkari @ 8:30, Logan @ 9:45, Musalem @ 13:00, Schmid @ 13:30. Federal Budget Balance @ 14:00. 

Quick Tip: Trading in the 5th Dimension

You could argue that chart trading is 3-dimensional. You’re analyzing price, volume, and time on a chart.

If you add fundamental analysis to your plan that would be your 4th dimension, and it would very likely improve your performance. Knowing more about the assets, sectors, and economy can only help you. 

There is a...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5789.50 stopped out. The short idea didn’t trigger.

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5705.75 stop 5699.00. Short 5696.50 stop 5702.25 if price retraces up from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -43 to +21 with most major world markets Bullish on relatively low volatility. 

Catalysts: Non-Farm Payrolls @ 8:30. S&P MFG PMI Final @ 9:45. ISM MFG PMI @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: Time Horizon

Establishing the time horizon for your trades is critical. You’re committing capital, which is limited, to get a result. Deciding on the win or loss amount is not enough. You should have a “time” stop as well to free up the capital for another opportunity. 

Here’s an example: 

Our swing trading strategy for equities and options utilizes a key catalyst for stock selection: Large Insider buying. Why? Because Insiders know best about...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5847.75 stopped out. Shorting 5891.00 filled in the Globex @ 20:42 ET and ran for 15+ points, still open. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5908.75 stop 5903.75 if price retraces down from above. Short 5865.00 stop 5869.75 if price retraces up from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +21 to -43 with most major world markets Bearish on rising volatility.

Catalysts: ADP Payrolls @ 8:15. GDP @ 8:30. Pending Home Sales @ 10:00. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. GOOG revenue/earnings beat gives AI a boost. 

Quick Tip: Insider Influence

Your trading toolbox probably includes tools for the analysis of technical, fundamental, and sentiment data. All good. 

Significant research by Wall Street and academia has proven that Insider buying is predictive of positive abnormal future stock price performance. Of course, when that abnormal positive move happens varies widely...

Friday’s results: Buying 5851.50 was only good for a 4.25-point scalp. The short idea didn’t trigger. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5847.75 stop 5842.25. Short 5904.50 stop 5909.50.

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from +14 to +36 with all major world markets neutral to mildly Bullish on low volatility.

Catalysts: Dallas Fed MFG Index @ 10:30. 

Quick Tip: Alpha Searching 

Our day trading team meets every morning between 9:00 and 10:30 AM ET to swap ideas on trades across several strategies. Some days are very active, others quiet. Lately it seems the market has chopped sideways during our sessions and made the better moves later in the day. 

As the host it’s challenging to find commentary when setups aren’t setting up!

For those that also swing trade options, there is plenty to talk about. Our swing trading team only meets once weekly but when you’re running a portfolio...

Yesterday’s results: The suggested trade didn’t trigger. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5908.75 stop 5903.75 if price retraces back from above. Short 5869.00 stop 5873.00 if price retraces back from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) eases from -29 to -14 with most of the world mildly Bearish on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Bowman @ 9:00, Barkin @ 12:00. Existing Home Sales @ 10:00. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. Fed’s Beige Book @ 14:00. TSLA earnings after the close. 

Quick Tip: Short Interest

Short interest is a great “off-the-price-chart” indicator you can add to your research for stock and option trades. It’s the number of shares of a particular stock that have been sold short but have not yet been bought back (closed). 

If short interest is high, it suggests bearish sentiment and an unusually low short interest suggests bullish...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5861.25 offered a 4-point scalp. Shorting 5859.00 offered a 6.75-point scalp. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5823.25 stop 5820.00. Short 5908.50 stop 5912.25.

The World Index: (+100/-100) slides from -29 to -36 with most major world markets Bearish on modest volatility. 

Catalysts: Import/Export Prices @ 8:30. Earnings continue (individual stocks can have a big market impact, consider ASML/NVDA yesterday). 

Quick Tip: Invisible Demand

All markets are influenced by the forces of supply and demand. More demand than supply will push the markets higher. This natural law works on every tradable asset. 

But is all demand visible on a price chart? For indexes, currencies, and commodities, I would argue yes. They are mostly institutional markets, and the footprints large traders leave can be found. Our team trades a chart-based Supply/Demand strategy that has a real...

Yesterday’s results: No price levels available due to contract rollover. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5698.00 stop 5693.25. No short levels above. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from zero to +33 with most major world markets Bullish on rising volatility. 

Catalysts: Retail Sales @ 8:30. Industrial Production @ 9:15. Business Inventories, Housing Market Index & Fed’s Logan @ 10:00.

Quick Tip: Complacent?  

We all trade to win and make a profit. The ups and downs happen along the way. The time to get laser-focused is when you’re feeling like you don’t need to. 

The recent rally in the S&P has the stock indexes at or near all-time highs. Our team’s swing trading portfolio had some incredible gains last week. One trade earned over 700% in two days. It’s natural when everything is effortlessly going your way to relax and enjoy the ride. 

But...

Friday’s results: Buying 5461.50 only bounced for 6.50 points. Shorting 5521.00 stopped out for a full loss. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5382.75 stop 5379.25. Short 5581.25 stop 5584.75.

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -43 -7 with Asia Bearish and the Western world Bullish. 

Catalysts: Nothing obvious. 

Quick Tip: Tick Trick

A popular indicator for day trading stocks and index futures is the NYSE Tick. It’s a sentiment indicator that measures the number of stocks moving up versus down. For example, with about 2300 stocks on the NYSE if 1500 made an uptick on the last trade and 800 made a downtick the tick index would be +700 (1500 – 800). 

You can use it as supporting evidence to take long/short positions and as confluence for trend. Readings above zero support buys and readings below zero support sells. Keep in mind that it’s only effective for very short periods of...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Nothing tradeable today.  

Thursday’s results: This strategy is on hold... but is improving and likely out of the drawdown soon.

The World Index: (+100/-100) reverses from +29 to -36 with most major world markets Bearish. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Williams @ 10:40, Bostic @ 13:00. Banks, airlines & exchanges challenged by Crowdstrike/Microsoft bug, apparently fixed. 

Quick Tip: Critical Add-On

If you're trading stocks or options you need to ensure your portfolio is adequately diversified. Hot sectors in the market come and go, sometimes simultaneously. 

This is a critical component of your plan regardless of your entry and exit rules. 

The problem with trying to diversify your picks without a proven method is difficult. You can easily get stuck trading one hot segment of the market (think AI) and ignore others that are primed to explode. 

Our swing trading...