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 sentiment.

Here are two popular metrics that you can analyze for edge: 

Short Interest Ratio (SIR) or Days to Cover - Tot...

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 edge. 

For individual stocks I would argue yes, but not always. While instituti...

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 complacency is a dangerous condition. It precedes fear. You’ve likely heard Buffett’s famous quote “We try to be greedy wh...

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 time. 

The main problem with the tick chart is interpretation. Using a one-minute time ...

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 strategy uses two unique tools that automatically take diversification into account. And r...

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

Monday’s results: This strategy is on hold. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +21 to -14 in a world of mixed sentiment and rising volatility. 

Catalysts: Home Price Index @ 9:00. Consumer Confidence & Richmond MFG Index @ 10:00. Fed’s Cook @ 12:00 and Bowman @14:10.  

Quick Tip: Rotation

If you swing trade stocks and options you’re likely to have a portfolio of positions open. It’s easy to get mesmerized by the movers, like NVDA, and lose focus on a key and important consideration, diversification. 

All sectors of stocks don’t move in the same direction all the time. Looking at the heatmap of yesterday above (courtesy of Finviz.com) it’s interesting that while the S&P was down on the day, most of the sectors were up!

Since the S&P is a market cap weighted index, companies like NVDA, AAPL & MSFT have a larger impact. The rotation out of technology yesterday benefited others. If you had all your trades in t...

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

Thursday’s results: This strategy is on hold. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from -43 to -36 with the Western world the most Bearish.   

Catalysts: Import/Export Prices @ Fed’s Mester @ 8:30. UofM Consumer Sentiment @ 10:00. Fed’s Mester @ 13:15, Goolsbee @ 14:00.  

Quick Tip: Position Trading

If you’re too busy to trade short term, or simply don’t prefer that style, buy-and-hold is probably how you’re invested. You can potentially improve your results by treating those positions as trades, hence the name Position Trading. 

The stock market is an excellent source of position trade ideas. The selection is second to none. The returns over time can be incredible. The capital efficiency is not great though. You can do better by substituting options for stocks. 

I’m surprised by how many people I talk to don’t realize that you can buy options on stocks with long term expiration dates. One year, 18 months, two ye...

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

Monday’s results: This strategy is on hold. To understand why, read yesterday's newsletter.

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +57 to -29 with most major world markets Bearish.  

Catalysts: JOLTS & Factory Orders @10:00

Quick Tip: Your Hot List

If you’re a directional stock or options trader you know the importance of stock selection. All the trading skills in the world don’t matter if you’re trading assets that don’t move. 

You could look at the historical performance of stocks to assume their past will repeat in the future but that’s not ideal. 

There is a better way… a true Leading Indicator. Insider buying. Key executives have only one reason to write 7 and 8-figure checks to own more of their company. They think it’s going up and research has proven this to be true.

From "The Effect of CEO Insider Trading on Firm Performance” published in the Journal of Business Research in 2021. This study found t...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5321.50 stop 5317.50. Short 5318.25 stop 5322.25 if price drops below and retraces up to entry. 

Monday’s results: No trade triggered in a narrow range day session.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +50 to -57 with all major world markets abruptly turning Bearish. S&P futures stable so far. 

Catalysts: Fed Speakers: Waller & Barkin @ 9:00, Williams @ 9:05, Bostic @ 9:10, Barr @ 11:45. Waiting on NVDA earnings tomorrow. 

Quick Tip: Catalysts 

Directional trading strategies require movement to succeed, and that movement is usually initiated by a catalyst. Once the buying (or selling) catches on momentum kicks in. Simple enough. 

Popular catalysts include earnings releases, new product announcements, expansion plans, C-level changes, economic news, geopolitical events, and interest rate changes, etc. 

On occasion a company becomes so important to the overall market direction that they become a catalyst. Apple has enjoyed this ...