S&P 500 & other indexes - intraday. Plus chat

I enter/exit using the xtrader DOM, but I dont really look at it much. I look at DT's product since it does a much better job of showing the actual trades going through. Honestly I'm having a more difficult time finding signals with the DOM/TS than I thought I would after reading the NO BS book and DT's site. Again, just watching what is trading right now still doesn't give me the confidence to know whats gonna happen next. For example, often I'll see iceberg orders which might lean me to a reversal, only to watch price keep going through. Today at one point there was a massive 6000 contract iceberg at one point, the largest I've seen at one level yet in my few weeks of watching, and price eventually broke through anyway.

I would strongly suggest you persevere and I would also make sure (if you haven't) that you have both DOM & T&S up on screen. Default for x_trader is just the MD trader screen.

Right now, there is nothing discernable to see because you are only just starting to use it (I guess). Over time you will start to notice changes. This might be as simple as the general thickness of the DOM and the propensity for orders to get pulled. Alternatively this might be the speeding up and slowing own of orders on T&S and the subtle shift to it being more 'red' than 'blue'. All these visual cues are generally pre-cursors to what happens next on a chart and it is only because it is rich, voluminous and complex that it is difficult to dissect right now.

I will try and illustrate with the 3 alternative scenarios we were discussing earlier:

1). Low holds. DOM/T&S might exhibit one of two types of behaviour:

a) Lots of orders being traded at the low, bid holding and sell orders plentiful, sustained pressure on the bid and it is just being absorbed. Volume spike at that level. Sustained selling is a burst of activity. After a few minutes and probably a couple of waves of pressure it ceases and T&S thins out.

b) Sell orders start to dry up, activity levels drop, the odd little poke down to the low but nothing exciting to report. T&S flow is relatively constant, smallish orders.

2) Low doesn't hold.

You have probably been watching price grind down and as it gets to the low it slows down a little. It then pokes the low, looking for a reaction, nothing happens, the flow of blue on T&S doesn't increase. There is a tentative push below the low and then a small pause, no buyers turn up, then the sellers push hard through the LVN and take out a few levels below the low as it continues the move down.

3) Doesn't reach the low.

See 1a)

This is an example of what 'I' see. It is not specific. In fact trying to write this was quite difficult. Over time you will develop your own eye for this and be able to get into moves earlier and out later as a result of this additional information. I am not denigrating DT's plug-in btw. I can see it is good and I'm going to have a go with it in the next couple of weeks but my feeling (currently) is that it is just another piece of information about order size (which is useful) but in itself it is not the whole picture of a change of sentiment or money flow. It is complimentary.

So stick with it. You're doing ok.

I assume you are on demo right now or are you burning cash and trading 1 lots?
 
Morning all

1:00am JPY Leading Indicators 95.1% 95.2% 96.4%
1:45am CHF Unemployment Rate 3.2% 3.2% 3.2%
3:00am CHF Foreign Currency Reserves 303.8B 237.6B
3:00am GBP Halifax HPI m/m 0.5% 0.3% -2.3%
3:15am CHF CPI m/m 0.0% 0.1% 0.1%
4:30am GBP Services PMI 52.6 53.3
Tentative EUR Spanish 10-y Bond Auction 5.74|2.4
Tentative EUR French 10-y Bond Auction 2.96|2.0
7:00am GBP Asset Purchase Facility 325B 325B
7:00am GBP Official Bank Rate 0.50% 0.50%
Tentative GBP MPC Rate Statement
8:30am USD Unemployment Claims 381K 383K
10:00am CAD Ivey PMI 53.5 52.7
10:00am USD Fed Chairman Bernanke Testifies
10:30am USD Natural Gas Storage 57B 71B
12:10pm USD FOMC Member Lockhart Speaks
3:00pm USD Consumer Credit m/m 10.8B 21.4B
7:50pm JPY Current Account 0.62T 0.79T
7:50pm JPY Final GDP q/q 1.1% 1.0%
7:50pm JPY Bank Lending y/y 0.3%
7:50pm JPY Final GDP Price Index y/y -1.2% -1.2%
9:30pm AUD Trade Balance -0.92B -1.59B
9:30pm AUD Home Loans m/m 0.1% 0.3%
 
What a big sell off last night and back in buying this morning !!
 

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I am experimenting with different time frames all at once.
The ones I have picked are:-

long - daily
medium - 1 hr
short - 2 minutes

a bright idea or daft ?
I have 2 shorts and 1 long.

:smart:
 
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I am experimenting with different time frames all at once.
The ones I have picked are:-

long - daily
medium - 1 hr
short - 2 minutes

howzat for a bright idea ?

:smart:

Have never got on with anything shorter than 5 mins for short term to much noise,also don't know if you've noticed but you seem to get more movement towards the end of a 5 min candle,probably because so many trders use it.

I think you get used to how certain time frames behave after time.
 
I am experimenting with different time frames all at once.
The ones I have picked are:-

long - daily
medium - 1 hr
short - 2 minutes

howzat for a bright idea ?

:smart:

Too many imo. Use them in pairs. One to identify trend and one to time entry.

What I prefer to do is.

Monthly / Weekly
Weekly / Daily
Daily / 4 hr
4 hr / 1 hr
1 hr / 15 mins
15 m / 5-1mins etc

Using so many TFs I wouldn't know if I'd be coming or going? Two is good for TFs.

What do you look for in so many TFs?
 
..


PARIS, June 7 (Reuters) - * U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Thursday following the previous session's sharp rally, with futures for the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC - news) up 0.33 percent, Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI - news) futures up 0.20 percent and Nasdaq 100 (Nasdaq: ^NDX - news) futures up 0.22 percent at 0923 GMT.

* European stocks were up 0.6 percent in morning trade, adding to the previous session's sharp rally, as investors bet policymakers in Europe (Chicago Options: ^REURUSD - news) could soon unveil measures to prop up ailing Spanish banks and that further U.S. monetary stimulus may be on the way.

* The Federal Reserve's second-highest official on Wednesday laid out the case for the U.S. central bank to provide more support to a fragile economy as financial turmoil in Europe mounts.

Janet Yellen, the vice chair of the Fed, cited risks from ongoing housing problems, a weak jobs market and worsening financial conditions in a speech in Boston. Her views carry great weight with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and her comments suggest that the Fed may be close to easing policy again.

* On the euro zone front, even though Spain has not yet requested assistance and is resisting being placed under international supervision, Germany and European Union officials are urgently exploring ways to rescue the country's banking sector, sources said.

* Spain met strong demand when it sold 2.1 billion euros ($2.62 billion) of medium- and long-term bonds, passing a key test of its ability to tap investors after a minister said earlier this week the country was being cut off from the markets.

* Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co acquired 100 percent ownership of its Nippon Giant Tire (NGT) unit in Japan (EUREX: FMJP.EX - news) for an undisclosed amount.

* Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc is in talks with pharmaceutical companies about developing drinks for its Keurig brewers that it hopes could aid the health of consumers and company margins, a senior executive said.

* Chesapeake Energy Corp (NYSE: CHK - news) need not delay its scheduled annual meeting on Friday to allow shareholders more time to investigate the financial dealings of the natural gas company's embattled chief executive, Aubrey McClendon, a federal judge ruled.

* Shares of HTC (Other OTC: HTCXF.PK - news) fell to their lowest intraday level in more than two years on Thursday after the smartphone maker warned of lower revenues and was named in a patent lawsuit by rival Apple Inc (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) .

* May's stock market rout dealt a blow to many on Wall Street including several big hedge fund stars whose bets on prominent U.S. companies looked badly timed.

* Oracle Corp launched a new suite of cloud-based products on Wednesday to try to catch up with smaller but nimbler vendors, such as Salesforce.com Inc, in the business of hosting and distributing software via the Internet.

* Twitter has generated more advertising revenue from its mobile platform than from its website on many days in the last quarter, CEO Dick Costolo said on Wednesday, highlighting Twitter's progress in squeezing ad dollars out of the growing number of smartphone and tablet users worldwide.

* U.S. stocks jumped on Wednesday, giving the S&P 500 its best day since December, as talk of a rescue of Spain's troubled banks and hopes for more monetary stimulus sparked a rebound from recent selling.

* The Dow Jones industrial average was up 286.84 points, or 2.37 percent, at 12,414.79. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 29.63 points, or 2.30 percent, at 1,315.13. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 66.61 points, or 2.40 percent, at 2,844.72. (Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Adrian Croft)
...
.
 
Just been passing a bit of time watching Oscars vid posted on the ftse thread http://www.trade2win.com/boards/uk-indices/120172-anyone-scalping-ftse-futures-970.html#post1875622 .

Towards the end he talks about a change in the exchange rules which will lead to much greater volatility in S&P etc. What's that all about?

Thanks Jon - good find.
Has anyone tracked Oscar to see if he gets it right ?
He reckons 1330s for today's S&P.
I didn't know that they have cleared the banks out, so I guess he will be right about the volatility.
One does learn from others on these threads imho.
 
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Too many imo. Use them in pairs. One to identify trend and one to time entry.

What I prefer to do is.

Monthly / Weekly
Weekly / Daily
Daily / 4 hr
4 hr / 1 hr
1 hr / 15 mins
15 m / 5-1mins etc

Using so many TFs I wouldn't know if I'd be coming or going? Two is good for TFs.

What do you look for in so many TFs?

2 have been stopped out already. Perhaps my stops were too close.
I look back at previous 1 hr charts and see such obvious entry/exit points I thought I might give it a try. Obviously need a bit more practice.
 
D*amn a 10 point spike at 12.00 has taken out my 3rd stop !!
Don't know what that was all about. My sky telly can't get a signal in all this rain/cloud.
Stupid idea it seems.
(n)
 
Thanks Jon - good find.
Has anyone tracked Oscar to see if he gets it right ?
He reckons 1330s for today's S&P.
I didn't know that they have cleared the banks out, so I guess he will be right about the volatility.
One does learn from others on these threads imho.

dunno about oscar, but he's always entertaining :)

really just wondering if the change was going to affect you guys (and me by ftse proxy) - maybe that spike........

jon
 
Have followed Oscar for many years and kind of respect him he has a clear plan and sticks to it.

The change he is talking about is something to do with prop trading he explains in the video below.

He has however had a shocking run of late with numerous trades stopped out infact its the worst performance I can remember him having and can't help but feel he may be looking for an excuse,markt does not seem that diffrent to me.

With memberss paying $199 or $399 a month and tardes usually having wide stops I can imagine that is not good for trade!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvPIQZmd7rI&feature=player_embedded#!
 
He has however had a shocking run of late with numerous trades stopped out infact its the worst performance I can remember him having and can't help but feel he may be looking for an excuse,markt does not seem that diffrent to me.

With memberss paying $199 or $399 a month and tardes usually having wide stops I can imagine that is not good for trade!

#873 Oscar Carboni Presents Bear Flags are Flying All Over - YouTube!

Some have said that even succesful systems wear out. Maybe his has had its day.

At that sort of money he should at least be ahead.
 
Finished for the day. Hard target for the week hit. Will post up trade in a bit, have something else to attend to first.
 
I would strongly suggest you persevere and I would also make sure (if you haven't) that you have both DOM & T&S up on screen. Default for x_trader is just the MD trader screen.

Right now, there is nothing discernable to see because you are only just starting to use it (I guess). Over time you will start to notice changes. This might be as simple as the general thickness of the DOM and the propensity for orders to get pulled. Alternatively this might be the speeding up and slowing own of orders on T&S and the subtle shift to it being more 'red' than 'blue'. All these visual cues are generally pre-cursors to what happens next on a chart and it is only because it is rich, voluminous and complex that it is difficult to dissect right now.

TS is very tough to read. DT's product combines both the DOM/TS so its much much better. Seeing a wall of red on the TS would lead you to believe that theres a lot of aggressive sellers hitting the bid, but unless youre are speedreader, theres no way youre gonna know exactly how many. Yes, you can filter the TS and highlight large orders, but many block orders are broken up (ala icebergs). With DT's depth+sales product, I can see exactly how many contracts have hit the bid. Probably sounds like I'm plugging his product, but its just very good for this purpose. Only CQG's dom offers similar, but they only show the traded contracts for the current inside bid/ask. DT's will show a history until you clear it.

I will try and illustrate with the 3 alternative scenarios we were discussing earlier:

1). Low holds. DOM/T&S might exhibit one of two types of behaviour:

a) Lots of orders being traded at the low, bid holding and sell orders plentiful, sustained pressure on the bid and it is just being absorbed. Volume spike at that level. Sustained selling is a burst of activity. After a few minutes and probably a couple of waves of pressure it ceases and T&S thins out.

This is what I most look for. Either a bid or an offer holding and absorbing most of the market orders. I'm probably biased to this because its what the NO BS guy places a good amount of weight on. So this is easiest for me to see.

Let me explain the problem I'm having with this absorption (kinda relates to the iceberg thing I mentioned earlier in the thread), maybe DT will chime in too.

Say the support level is 69. Price is moving down. Suppose on average it takes 500 contracts to move a price. We move down to 71x72 and 1000 have hit the bid, but its holding. It increases to 1500, bid still holds. Then up to 2000 while the bid holds. (On the TS this would be a wall of red). I start thinking, hrmmm perhaps this is the bottom, some nice absorbtion here, two ticks off the low. Say by the time 500 more trade for a total of 2500, price ticks down to 70x71 and the same thing happens. lots of orders at the bid. Again I start thinking to go long. This time it takes 2000 to move price down to the level. Price is down to 69x70. However, the last two prices have shown some nice absorption, yet price couldn't hold. Suppose I start to see the same at 69, maybe 3000+ are absorbed at the bid. So far it hasn't been reliable that it will hold. And all this usually happens ALONG with plenty of contracts hitting the offer as well. As if the buyers are trying to support the price and push it upward. Its not like 3000 go through at the bid and only 400 at the offer. It might be 3000 and 2000. Sometimes that 3000 that was just absorbed is enough to break 69, and then youll see at least 3-4 ticks go as stops are hit, but sometimes the move continues too.

1). Low holds.

b) Sell orders start to dry up, activity levels drop, the odd little poke down to the low but nothing exciting to report. T&S flow is relatively constant, smallish orders.

This one is much harder for me to detect, its so anti-climatic. Sometimes there is no interest at all at a price, so little trades take place. It might bounce up but then re-test a third time.


I assume you are on demo right now or are you burning cash and trading 1 lots?

I started on simulation, then I said fk it, went live, traded 5 contracts and blew up half the acct. Now I'm churning commissions on 1 lot. :D
 
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a. ONH 1329.50, ONL 1314.50
b. Gap close at 1315.75, confluence with ONL
c. NVPOC at 1331.50, ON VPOC 1325.50 which moved up after the news about China
d. The NVPOC and the ONH are close, possible confluence here too
e. Single print area on ON MP from 20.75 to 23.75
f. Benny and the Inkjets talking at 15:00 GMT
g. 1334 has been significant resistance recently
h. OAOR to upside with about 500k CBAVOL. Out of balance to upside, would be suprised if this stayed up here without a test to the downside for value
i. Opened, pinged ONH looks weak
j. Short market order at 1328.25 at 14:32GMT (1) - conservative entry today, could have been a bit more aggresive
k. This isn't dropping like a stone, I smell something here, watch for signs of buyers coming in
l. It's creeping down again rather than a concerted long liquidation
m. Seems to be struggling to make it past 6 ticks here, no like this.
n. Out market order at 1327.00 at 14:37 GMT (2)
o. 5 ticks profit before commissions
p. MAE 4 ticks, MFE 7 ticks, Exit efficiency 71%
q. Best trade, this one
r. Todays coffee - Decaf Latte again
s. Todays opera - Axur, re d'Ormus by Salieri
t. Hard target for week hit on a short week, take tomorrow off now.
 

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This is going to sound really weird Wekim - I am focussed on the general behaviour of the DOM/T&S but I am not absorbed/concentrating on the exact numbers. I kind of know the number of contracts going through on both sides of the inside market and I have rough idea of whether somebody is happily hoovering up market orders but for me it is more a sense of the money flow. Sometimes individual orders broken up have significance but you cannot hide the magnitude of the flow even if it is broken up through iceberging them. If you were in a car without a speedometer, you'd be able to tell roughly whether you're doing 10kph or 120kph which is kind of the distinction level I am applying to watching the DOM/T&S.

DT is far more eloquent than me and I think he knows what I'm trying to say. He may be able to articulate it better than I can.

You need to loosen up :p

BTW, well done for blowing (partially) your account - it is a right of passage - we've all done it :LOL:

The turning point for me is I just got sick of losing money.
 
Anyone got that sinking feeling that so-called communism has won when talk of nationalising banks etc starts to be heard ?

The Chinese variety has hoovered up such a large chunk of the world's money and resources in only 40 years ! It must be more efficient than wobbling democracies.

Do we adapt to a variety of their model or plug on with outdated, uncompetitive systems ?

The crunch is coming in the next few months imho. The useless politicians will not be able to kick the problem away for much longer. It needs solving soon.

The markets may well get very excited and volatile as the political jellies um and ar !
 
I wouldn't worry Pat. Capitalism will just reinvent itself and prevail once again.
 
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