Yesterday’s results: No trades suggested. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5936.25 stop 5931.25. Short 5932.00 stop 5937.00 if price retraces back from below (filtered out during FOMC volatility). 

The World Index: (+100/-100) eases up from +36 to +50 with most major world markets Bullish. J

Catalysts: Jobless Claims & Preliminary NFP @ 8:30. Wholesale Inventories @ 10:00. FOMC Statement @ 14:00, Press Conference @ 14:30. 

Quick Tip: Confirming Trend

If you trade a trend strategy you know that the biggest challenge is filtering out the whipsaw, range-bound conditions. Arguably the king of using Wilders’s RSI indicator for trend identification was the late Andrew Cardwell. 

His quote applies to all trading but especially for trend trades: “You do not have to make a lot of trades you just need to make a few good trades.”

Cardwell introduced the concept of “Range Shift” using RSI...

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 5939.00 stopped out. The short suggestion didn’t trigger. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5851.50 stop 5846.25. Short 5904.50 stop 5909.50.

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from +7 to +14 with mixed sentiment on low volatility. 

Catalysts: Durable Goods @ 8:30. UofM Consumer Sentiment & Inflation Expectations (revised) @ 10:00. Fed’s Collins @ 11:00. Final day of IMF meeting. 

Quick Tip: Change It Up

Great performers, traders included, never quit when the inevitable roadblocks and challenges arise. They learn from their mistakes, adjust, and move forward. 

You’re heard the term “reinvent yourself.” Out of favor actors do it. Corporations do it. Sometimes traders must do it. 

Like many traders who enjoyed the Tech Bubble in the late ‘90’s, I was trading a momentum strategy that printed money. It was simple and easy. Even during...

Yesterday’s results: Shorting 5869.00 stopped out. The long suggestion didn’t trigger.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5939.00 stop 5834.25. Short 5895.00 stop 5998.25. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from -14 to +7 with the East bearish and the West bullish. 

Catalysts: Jobless Claims @ 8:30. Fed’s Hammack @ 8:45. S&P MFG/Service PMI Flash @ 9:45. New Home Sales @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: Update Your Plan

Your trade plan probably started out simple. You had rules for entry, exit, risk, position size, candidate selection, and some filters for changing market conditions. The historical performance was positive. Great start. 

Once you started trading real money you likely encountered trade setups that didn’t make sense at the time. What to do? Grit your teeth and follow the rules? Pass on the trade? 

You felt compelled to be a rule-based trader, but your growing experience...

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 trades triggered.

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5861.25 stop 5858.25. Short 5859.00 stop 5862.00 if price retraces up from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) falls from +21 to -29 with mixed sentiment, China/HK down firmly. 

Catalysts: Empire State MFG Index @ 8:30. Fed’s Daly @ 11:30, Kugler @ 13:00. Contrarian Alert: VIX near 20 is unusual at new highs. 

Quick Tip: VIX Explained 

Have you ever heard of the stock market's “fear gauge”? That’s a nickname for the VIX, or Volatility Index. The VIX helps us understand how much uncertainty or risk there is in the market at any given time. 

It measures how volatile the stock market is expected to be over the next 30 days. In other words, it shows how much the prices of stocks might swing up or down. The more the market is expected to move, the higher the VIX goes. 

It's often called the "fear...

Friday’s results: No trades triggered.

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5823.25 stop 5820.00. Short 5820.75 stop 5824.00 if price retraces up from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from zero to +21 with mixed sentiment on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Kashkari @ 9:00, Waller @ 15:00. 

Quick Tip: Performance Dips

Dedicated traders devote plenty of attention to reviewing their performance, just like professional athletes do. Sometimes we’ll see a dip in our results. Our equity curve will be flattening. We’ll ask ourselves “Is it the market or me?” 

In his excellent book Atomic Habits author James Clear named chapter 20 The Downside of Creating Good Habits. Darn good title! 

Here’s the gist of it: once we practice something enough to become skilled and automatic we become less aware of improving it. We stop looking for the mistakes....

Yesterday’s results: No trades triggered; the levels remain on the chart. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5789.50 stop 5786.25. Short 5787.00 stop 5790.25 if price retraces back up from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +21 to zero with mixed sentiment. 

Catalysts: PPI @ 8:30. Fed’s Goolsbee @ 9:45, Logan @ 10:45, Bowman @ 13:10. UofM Consumer Sentiment & Inflation Expectations @ 10:00. 

Quick Tip: Market vs. Limit Orders

Market orders all get filled. Limit orders may not get filled. Which is best? 

For stop loss orders market is better. You may experience some slippage in a fast market but that is preferable to seeing big slippage because your limit didn’t fill, and the market ran away. No big losses. 

For entries this is more of a style question. 

If your trade setups are planned like our volume-at-price and supply/demand strategies, you can set a limit order and...