Tag Archive for 'ES'

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Coming this week…

Published on February 27, 2011, 10:22 pm in Opinions and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I went small into this end of month, mutual fund and merger Monday with a couple long-term longs and short-term shorts. Cash is a position….as I am unsure with what is happening at the marketplace. 8) Oscar

Lotsa employement news this week, with Challenger and ADP on Wednesday, Jobless Claims and Monster Index on Thursday and the BLS Employment report on Friday. Of course they’ll mix in some PMI, ISM, construction spending and the Beige Book to keep the week jumping.

Futures on Sunday evening are down but not by too much…ES down by 5 and YM down by 40…nothing drastic…yet. US dollar and oil not very active at all. I’ll wait for Europe to open. Guess I’ll check on Oscar.

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Now what?

Published on February 22, 2011, 10:03 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

What Difference A Day Makes….all my SPY puts and SDS calls that expired worthless on Friday would have made some money today! Some remaining SDS calls along with TLT calls and IWM puts did come into the money today, so I grabbed it while I had a chance.

As I mentioned yesterday, volume and volatility were up big. ES contract volume was up 50%+ over Friday’s volume, SPY volume up 40% over the 6-month daily average, and the VIX was up 37%….those are some big moves. 8O

I don’t think we’ll follow-thru right away. I’m expecting a bounce on Wednesday on lower volume to get short again….I’m still short, but not much. It would be healthy for this market to have a deeper correction…say 10%. If the Libyan situation clears up any, we may see another run up!

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Dull day, interesting night

Published on February 15, 2011, 10:31 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

No exciting news today….so the market wasn’t either. But, don’t short a dull market. The markets came up off their lows near the end of the day and the future markets continued the up move in early trading after hours.

Also another low volume day, although the volume was higher on the down moves than on the up moves. Wish I could figure this out.

ES and TF hit new highs this evening. YM still lagging. Could be an interesting night as the ES tests a 100% move from the March 2009 lows…all in just 2 years! (666.79 x 2 = 1333.58)

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Is it over?

Published on January 20, 2011, 9:40 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Wow, what a great day trading the S&P e-mini futures…in both directions! Definitiely a traders market today. But the question is…is the correction over?

I don’t think so. The S&P had 33 continuous days of closing above the 8-day exponential moving average. Yesterday the index closed just below the 8EMA and today it closed a little below yesterday. Is there another trend starting….down?
33 days of closing above the 8EMA

The Dow and the S&P, although closing in the red, were well off their lows. The RUT closed near its lows.

No news on Friday, but some pretty big earnings reports from GE and BAC. Oh yes, and it is Options Expiration Friday. According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, the Dow has been down 10 of the last 12 January expirations. Let’s see if history repeats.

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Bizarro World

Published on December 20, 2010, 9:32 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , .

Everything opened up today, dollar, oil, gold and indexes…and then they went in different directions…bizarre! S&P futures volume was about 50% below average and SPY volume was 40% below. I’m wondering if today was the high volume of the next 2 weeks?

Looks like AXP kept the Dow below the other indexes. AmEx Slide Weighs on Dow. And it still looks like it’s pointing down. Oh boy, how about a mish mosh holiday market place?

The dollar heading down from this evenings open and ES taking off in direct opposite reaction…bizarre. Think I’ll just watch.

“China is holding about a trillion dollars in U.S. debt. Next time you go for Chinese food and the bill comes, tell them to put it on the tab.” – Jay Leno

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Rollover

Published on December 8, 2010, 9:33 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I wish I was writing to say that the market was rolling over. But, not yet. If you are an index futures trader, you know exactly what I mean….the index futures December contracts will rollover on Thursday. That is, the March 2011 contract becomes the front month. So if you are trading ES, YM, TF and/or NQ, it’s time to change to the ‘H11′ contract.

Back to today…did you see those banks/financials takeoff? Wow! Explosive type move. But even with the financials taking off, the markets themselves were pretty tame. The last half hour of trading were strong and it looks like the futures have continued that move well into this evening….YM up +40 and ES up +5. Of course we still have 12 hours before the U.S. cash open.

My net short position is gasping for air and Thursday may be the day to get out…Friday at the latest. Weekly jobless claims tomorrow, China inflation info Thursday night, and consumer sentiment on Friday. Not a whole bunch of economic data but enough to rile markets. And Options expiration next week is upon us again!

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Sure looked exciting

Published on November 18, 2010, 9:35 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , .

You wouldn’t think of GM as a penny stock, but it sure looked like a pump-n-dump! But the markets were excited about the new IPO and seemed to rally around the government diluting its stake.

Still feeling a bit under the weather, I didn’t do much trading…just a few scalps in ES and TF futures…needed some cash for some cold medicine. 8O

Remember next week is Thanksgiving and usually an up week. Market closed Thursday and open just a few hours on Friday.

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Let’s try that again

Published on October 17, 2010, 10:52 pm in Trading. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

Well my October puts didn’t do so well by expiration day so I rolled them into November….QQQQ and VXX….and I’ve still got some FXI puts from way back. So I guess I wasn’t wrong, just early! :D

GOOG brought the Q’s up big on Friday…helped along with AMZN and AAPL. But besides these big caps, the smaller techs really didn’t do so good. And if the rest of the market isn’t so happy, we may be just experiencing a bit of that irrational exhuberence. Tomorrow’s reports from AAPL as well as IBM will give us a hint.

S&P futures are down this evening as the US dollar shows some strength….short futures so far so good and puts looking good too. Let’s see what morning brings.

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Slow!

Published on October 11, 2010, 11:14 pm in Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Gee, were the markets open today? Not many trades…SPY and ES trading was less than half the average volume. Ugh! Makes for a boring day. But I was busy loading Tradestation and Infinity on the new machine. Tomorrow I start trading with it…I’m excited. Plus I can give my backup PC a breather.

The Beige book comes out tomorrow is all the news, but INTC reports after the close. Futures this evening are under the weather, which is just fine with me.

I did make some trades today, buying some November VXX calls and a position in QID….yes, I’m looking for some pullback here.

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Crazy Day

Published on September 30, 2010, 11:24 pm in Trading. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

…or is that crazy week? The old adage, “As goes AAPL, so goes the market,” sure has been holding true this month….not to far behind “As goes oil, so goes the market.” If you had either of those charts up on your screens you could watch the dance with the ES….not sure which was leading the others!

I’m hoping that the reaction to the China PMI this evening is similar to today’s Chicago PMI….sell the news, even if it’s good. I picked up some FXI puts that were green at the close, but are now looking like they will turn red at the open. That’s trading for you :!:

TBT on the other hand took off on the good PMI number as traders answered the question, “Why keep rates low?” The short Treasuries ETF is a bet that interest rates will be rising. I’m thinking it may be time to do that soon….how about you?

Overall this was a good week and September was a great month! If you didn’t make any money this month, it is probably time to take a break and reassess your trading plan. You may also want to read this: The Proof Is In The Numbers: America Is Getting Poorer. Misery loves company.

See you on the trading field!

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