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 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 gauge" because when investors are nervous—like when there’s bad economic news, political uncertainty,...

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. After all, once it’s a habit we’re not thinking about it that much. 

Think about how well this applies to our trading. We ...

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 presumably get your fill. But you may not. Market orders will get filled, but frequent...

Yesterday’s results: No trades triggered.  

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 (filtered out during CPI release). 

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from zero to +21 with sentiment mixed with Asia somewhat volatile, not so much the west. 

Catalysts: CPI & Jobless Claims @ 8:30. Fed’s Cook @ 9:15, Barkin @ 10:30, Williams @ 11:00. 30-Year Bond Auction @ 13:00. 

Quick Tip: Multi-Strat 

Yesterday’s price action did not trigger any trades in the S&P futures for two of our strategies, Volume Profile and Volatility Reversal. Plenty of patience is required when day trading and not getting a quality setup. 

Fortunately, we also trade an intraday Trend/Momentum strategy that ran for 38.25 points (see chart above). It’s not uncommon for the strategies to diverge. Market conditions change and so should your choice of strategy. 

We did utilize the Volume Profile levels to our advantage, however....

Yesterday’s results: Shorting 5797.75 only offered a 4.75-point scalp. Buying the breakout occurred at the close and was passed. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5768.00 stop 5764.50. Short 5765.25 stop 5768.75 if price retraces from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -36 to zero with sentiment mixed, China/HK imploding, other major markets mildly Bullish. 

Catalysts: Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. 10-Year Bond Auction @ 13:00. FOMC Minutes @ 14:00. Fed Speakers, Bostic @ 8:00, Logan @ 9:15, Goolsbee @ 10:30, Jefferson @ 12:30, Collins @ 17:00, Daly @ 18:00. 

Quick Tip: Trading Athletics

Once you’re proficient in trading a strategy it’s time to add another to your plan. 

Athletes do. They perfect a motion, play, or strategy and then add another. They continuously expand their playbook. Teams do too.  

I had the privilege of teaching trading to a retired pro football player. He was having a hard time understanding why we were putting so much effort into ...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5745.00 stopped out. The short idea didn’t trigger. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Short 5797.75 stop 5801.25. Buy 5800.50 stop 5797.00 if price retraces from above. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +33 to -36 with extreme sentiment differences on higher volatility. For example, HK -9.4%, Shanghai +5.9%. 

Catalysts: Trade Balance @ 8:30. Fed’s Bostic @ 12:45, Collins @ 16:00, Jefferson @ 19:00. 

Quick Tip: Black Swans

Popularized by Nassim Taleb in the book of the same name, Black Swan simply means a rare, unpredictable, and high impact event. 

Hurricane Milton is a Black Swan. It is the first hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico to travel from west to east in the last 100 years. My hometown for most of my life was the Tampa Bay area. If Milton continues on the forecast track he will make landfall near Tampa Bay, which could be devastating. Obviously, I’m deeply concerned and saddened. 

With hindsight afterward, locals will probably make...

Yesterday’s results: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5701.50 stop 5695.75. Short 5740.75 if price trades below and retraces back with a stop at 5745.75.

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -17 to +42 with most major world markets Bullish. China closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: Non-Farm Payrolls, Unemployment Rate @ 8:30. Fed’s Williams @ 9:00. Middle East crisis. 

Quick Tip: Skepticism

Being skeptical is good. It provides the questions you need answered to decide. In trading you should have a plan with rules of entry and exit. But not all plans perform in all market conditions. Being a little skeptical, asking yourself “Is this the market I should trade with this strategy right now?” is helpful. 

This happened to me yesterday, but my skepticism was late. I took a couple of trades, a loser and a breakeven, before I questioned the market condition compatibility. Following up on subsequent trades that I did not take proved that it definite...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5790.75 was only good for a 5-point scalp.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5701.50 stop 5695.75. No short suggestion. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +30 to -40 with sentiment mostly Bearish. China/HK closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: ADP Non-Farm Employment Change @ 8:15. Fed’s Hammack @ 9:00, Musalem @ 10:05, Bowman @ 11:00, Barkin @ 12:15. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. Mideast conflict accelerates. 

Quick Tip: FOMO/DOMO

If you watched the Chinese stock market’s reaction to the huge stimulus program recently announced you’ll have experienced FOMO. The charts for the internet related stocks were parabolic for days with massive gaps up. 

Fear Of Missing Out, FOMO, is an emotional reaction traders have when seeing what they could have had. Price is gaining momentum and you’re on the sidelines. Impulsively, you break your entry rules and chase the trade. 

The problem with chasing is regardless of the outcome, win or lose, y...