Space Summary
The Twitter Space FUTURES TRADING & EDUCATION hosted by WOLF_Financial. Explore the world of futures trading and education through a blend of social media insights, expertise from a former Goldman Sachs analyst now CEO, and the valuable role of a leading finance marketing agency. Learn about the significance of ongoing education, risk management, and market awareness in successful trading endeavors. Discover how networking, mentorship, regulatory compliance, and robust research methodologies contribute to informed decision-making and profitable outcomes in the dynamic futures market.
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Questions
Q: How can social media enhance wealth-building strategies?
A: Social media allows for real-time market insights and community collaboration.
Q: What unique insights can a former Goldman Sachs analyst offer?
A: Former Goldman Sachs analysts bring institutional knowledge and market expertise.
Q: Why is continuous education essential for futures traders?
A: Education ensures informed decision-making and adaptation to market changes.
Q: How can finance marketing agencies assist traders?
A: Finance marketing agencies provide promotional strategies and industry visibility.
Q: Why is it important to stay updated on market trends?
A: Being informed helps in making timely and accurate trading decisions.
Q: What role does risk management play in successful trading?
A: Effective risk management minimizes losses and maximizes potential gains.
Q: How can networking benefit traders in the futures market?
A: Networking provides opportunities for learning, collaboration, and mentorship.
Q: Why is regulatory awareness crucial for futures traders?
A: Regulatory knowledge ensures compliance and risk mitigation in trading activities.
Q: What research strategies are effective for trading success?
A: Thorough research methodologies improve decision-making and trade outcomes.
Highlights
Time: 00:14:28
Blending Social Media in Investment Strategies Exploring ways to integrate social media insights in wealth-building.
Time: 00:27:45
Insights from a Former Goldman Sachs Analyst Understanding the valuable perspectives offered by industry veterans.
Time: 00:35:12
Educational Resources for Informed Trading Accessing learning materials to enhance trading knowledge and skills.
Time: 00:44:59
Role of Finance Marketing Agencies How marketing experts contribute to the success of traders.
Time: 00:56:21
Utilizing Social Media for Trading Engagement Maximizing social platforms for communication and market awareness.
Time: 01:05:10
Importance of Market News and Trends Staying updated on industry developments for better decision-making.
Time: 01:14:37
Risk Management Strategies in Trading Mitigating risks and preserving capital through efficient strategies.
Time: 01:25:16
Networking and Mentorship in Trading Building connections and seeking guidance for trading success.
Time: 01:35:42
Regulatory Awareness in Futures Trading Understanding and complying with trading regulations and policies.
Time: 01:45:09
Research Techniques for Trading Success Implementing effective research methods for profitable trading decisions.
Key Takeaways
- Blend social media and investment research in wealth-building strategies.
- Former Goldman Sachs analysts can provide valuable insights for traders.
- Incorporate educational resources for informed futures trading decisions.
- Utilize the expertise of finance marketing agencies for effective promotion.
- Leverage social media platforms for awareness and engagement in trading.
- Understand the importance of staying updated on market trends and news.
- Develop a disciplined approach and risk management strategies in trading.
- Networking and mentorship play crucial roles in enhancing trading knowledge.
- Stay informed about regulatory changes affecting futures trading.
- Implement robust research methodologies for successful trading outcomes.
Behind the Mic
Initial Greetings
Hey, what's going on, man? Doing good. I'm just walking through the airport right now. Listen to space. Where are you going? Right now I'm in O'Hare and we're going to. The whole wolf team's going to Salt Lake City. Oh, really? Cool. Are you guys based in Chicago? No, I am one of the members from St. Louis. Gov, or wolf is from out east, so. Yeah, no, it's a lot of fun. Yeah, no kidding. Whereabouts are you? What was that? Whereabouts are you in Chicago? I'm in the suburbs. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Subject for another time. I am, too. I'm 30 miles north. Oh, where at? Lake Forest. Okay. You know where Rockford is? Yeah, yeah, that's where I'm from. I say the suburbs. I say the suburbs, but it's not really the suburbs. Right. You're in the back. Exactly. what's. What's going on? Smooth. Morning, wolf.
Introduction of New Participants
How you doing to. We're just doing fantastic. Good. Hey, panda in the bottom left, join us. Hit the cloud, the tab, and hit click to join a speaker or to talk. I invited him up if you need me. Okay. Hey, we got amp and Nara in here. I'll bring both of them up. Nara, what's going on? Sorry for my minute. Tardiness here, but, yeah, it's excited to be back and excited to get the space started. We'd love to hear it. I'll bring amp up as well. Emp, what's going on? Mandy? Hey. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Bright and early. Well, I say bright and early. The sun's not even out here where I'm at. But what's. What time zone are you on? right now I am. Well, we're central time, but we don't do daylight savings time, so I'm technically mountain time until you guys roll the clock back in a few more weeks.
Market Discussion Begins
So I spent half the year in mountain time, half the year in central time. So right now it's 06:00 a.m. for me. Got it. That is brutal. It's not too bad. At least it's not the west coast guys getting on here at five, so. Yeah. Pros, pros and cons to it. I don't mind that the. When the market closes for the day, like, I still have a lot of day left. I can kind of beat rush hour and get out and get some stuff done from time to time, but it also makes some early morning. So how's everybody doing this morning? Good. Good. It's okay. I have no concept of time right now. Because I'm in southwest Florida and all my storm shutters are up, so I feel like I'm in a cave. Oh, yeah. Stay safe. I've got some friends over in the Cancun area that are getting just battered right now.
Weather and Market Sentiments
Sorry, Bethe. That is brutal. EmP, you want to kick us off? Yeah, sure. Well, this is, we started doing this in episode three, I guess we could call it, of the futures trading space. So I've got some great futures traders up here and we're just going to talk futures. I mean, we're going to talk about risk management strategy. What we're seeing kind of lay out the day for some of us and toss it around a little bit. So, Nara, I don't know if you want to go first, if you want to kind of talk about what you're seeing as far as maybe yesterday's session into today and what maybe what your expectations might be for today and the rest of the week. Sure. So really on a sort of technical side and a trading side yesterday and I trade daily with gov and smooth and, well, actually you're in there now, but we've been talking for weeks is that we've been in these sort of oscillating ranges and really there hasn't been any trend in since the middle of September.
Technical Analysis and Market Expectations
So this is for futures traders. Great, because I'm a mean reversion trader. Most futures traders are mean reversion type traders. And you're getting every day some sort of reversion to the mean. Some are going to be a more significant move than others. But, you know, we've been able to find some trades and be able to figure out our top and bottom of that range until you sort of make, go into the new one. We've sort of had this range that was, that started off with like the, around the opex of September that's been 57 90 ish till down to 5725. And then you had a little higher range that was like that 5790 up to 58 30, 35. And now we've just been auctioning these zones and we're really coiled and which makes me every day that we don't break out of this zone, a little more cautious to buy or sell the top of it. And that's sort of when you see these longer ranges, it should tell you that a bigger move is coming at some point which has a mean reversion trader.
Cautious Trading Strategies
A trend day is my worst enemy. Some people trade trend days very well. I don't. I trade downtrend days pretty well. I don't trade uptrend days well at all. But as this range goes on and just continues to be sort of wide and swingy, there's some good trades to be had, but you've got to be cautious because these ranges don't last forever. And every time that you sort of touch that bottom end of your range or the top end of your range, that support or resistance is going to get weaker in kind. So just starting to every day that we haven't broken out here, being a little less aggressive at the bottom end or the top end of the ranges, because I believe we'll eventually break out of it. Yeah, I was looking at that as well. You look back.
Market Trends and Analysis
So we spent kind of late August in a range for a little while. And if you look back, I believe it was Thursday the 19 September. Yeah, I just pulled it up. Here we are trading exactly at that price that we closed at that day, Thursday the 19th. That's 13 bars that we've basically spent in this range now. So, yeah, this consolidation, at some point, once it breaks, whichever way it does, it's going to be a pretty explosive move, in my opinion, as well. So, yeah, it's very interesting. I trade very similar. I like to trade back to the middle. So these range days, honestly have been great. Now, yesterday, I think, was a very tough, fashion to trade. Overall, there was a lot of, kind of head fakes back and forth, but, you know, good risk management system, it'll keep you in the game and make you some money.
Smooth's Trading Approach
so it over to smooth. Smooth. Do you have any thoughts on, kind of where we're trading at right now, how you've been approaching it as we've been in the range? Yeah, you know, my bread and butter is trading harmonics. So, I look for those on an intraday level, but sort of zoom out and take a look at what the market's doing overall. And, you know, we're definitely up at these, a couple of larger harmonic pattern completion levels. So I've been overall looking for a bit of a pullback, which we haven't quite gotten yet until we start sort of compromising. You know, 5700 area will kind of sort of be more of a confirmation that we're looking for some of those extensions on the downside.
Levels and Setups
And I use obviously, Fibonacci off of those to sort of measure where we can go to and look for areas, you know, for. To look for some sort of a support before we start building out some other structures. So, and then I incorporate what we call the gov method which is just looking for those correlations, watching the NDX, watching the SPX and kind of tying in my Fibonacci levels with some of those areas, looking for some confluential levels. So on sort of the more intraday level, you know, looking for those areas where you get a bounce, you know, and you can have that decent setup where you have two, three points of risk for 810 points plus of rewards. So that's kind of how we trade level to level intraday. But like I said, big picture.
Market Expectations and Technical Analysis
I think we're just sort of waiting for the next catalyst to decide the next move. I have my levels on the upside, levels on the downside. But from a technical standpoint it makes a lot more sense for this market to pull back a little bit. But we'll see. Nothing's guaranteed. I never sort of talk in absolutes. I just look at my potential setups and draw my levels and go from there. Yeah, that's one thing that I do as well. I try to create that. Okay, what's my bullish thesis? What's my bearish thesis and what's my range thesis? See which one's the strongest. And I try to lean towards that one. But I always had that backup plan as well. So if it doesn't play out because I've kind of been the same way.
Extended Market Discussion
And honestly we've hung out in this range. You know, just building value up here above, you know, the previous range that we had back in late August and now into you know, September and October. We've been in this range for quite a while. We're building some value up here. So I. From a technical standpoint, a lot of things in my mind look like they want to pull back. But this market's just resilient. I mean we even saw when we had the data on Friday, we basically saw instead of a breakout, we usually get a trend type of day on those days. And we actually just traded within that reaction pretty much the entire day. So, gov, what are your thoughts on where we're at in the market right now? I keep it really simple.
Simplistic Trading Strategies
I start off, I bounce back and I bounce out and I start looking at a two hour chart, dailies, weeklies, just trying to get some gauge of established ranges and possible ranges for possible moves.
Understanding Bandwidths in Trading
And I really try to just break it down where I have like bandwidths so that, you know, when we enter a particular area and there's price acceptance there's in fact a good possibility to trade to the next higher range or to the bottom of the next lower range. So I really just try to stick to the bandwidths. And once we approach, you know, the, you know, the, you know, I don't like, I'm not interested in picking tops or bottoms. I mean, that's a fool's errand. But I mean, there are established ranges. So I like when the ranges are established and I'm able to just go in. And once we approach an area that I think is a potential for a longer short, that's when I start to zoom in and I start to look for confluence with, you know, the underlying NAsdaq, you know, the NDX, and, you know, the leading components of that particular day. And I look for price acceptance when we get down to that area for a possible entry on along. So that's when I kind of narrow.
Defining Entry Levels and Risk Management
I really define my entry level to further define my risk because I'd like to know that, you know, if I can get paid a quick three to five points, you know, on a quarter or a half my size, I've improved my theoretical basis. And I basically have that three to points, three to five points as a credit on my remaining three quarters or a half. And that gives me time. That gives me time to let the market price action tell me what it wants to do. So I'm big on looking at, like, how's price trading here? Where is it accepted? Where does it have resistance? And I really try to, I'm pretty good about avoiding getting too heady, thinking I have some sense of true direction. So I look for just the nice ranges, you know what? And I try to get in there and look, the trade, I mean, I think one of my recent best trades was Friday of just like, you know, I'm not a big fan of Fridays.
Trading on Fridays and Capital Preservation
By 10:30, I'm out. I mean, and if I haven't made any trades, I'm probably not going to make any trades. I mean, I just, you know, it's just capital preservation. I mean, that's just been a theme. A number of us. I mean, we just preach that, preach that. And it was just that low volume move up, and it was a big move. And off that close on Friday, I anticipated that we probably would give, like, it would probably cough a lot of that up, you know, for the Monday trade, and they attacked that on Sunday evening. And I'm enjoying that time with my family. I'm not participating and so there was a meat of the move that was missed. And then I looked for break of that 5763 area for the possibility to go down and retest 5725 to 5737 area. And that was a possibility I looked for.
Looking for Long Side Opportunities
And then I looked for price acceptance down there for possible move on the long side. So I was able to capture both sides of that, you know, and it worked out. You know, my risk was pretty defined and I like to just keep it that way, break it down in bandwidths where it's a lot easier to look and it creates more of a binary decision process. Yeah, I love that. When you look at, you know, the futures in general, you know, one thing that my style at least is I try to stay out of the middle. When I see, when I see that we've got some kind of a box kind of set up or range set up, I, when we're in the middle of it, I just, I think my risk reward is so poor that I just sit there on the side and I'll just wait.
Avoiding the Middle and Risk-Reward Ratios
And I'm kind of like you. I kind of take a little shot here and there. When we do get close to one of my levels that I think we'll get a reaction to. And, you know, we get, you know, on. Yes, for example, you get three or four points, five points in your direction. You know, go ahead and de-risk that trade and then let the runners kind of carry you a little bit there. So, yeah, Nara and something, you know, and Gov yelled at me and I say yelled because he did it with lovey texting me. And smooth, I think it was last Friday. We use volume profile a lot. And if you see on my chart I posted in the thread here, you can see I break it down to the daily volume profiles.
Volume Profile and Trading Strategies
That's an hourly chart, but every day it's showing you where that concentration of volume is. And like you said, sort of staying out of that middle area, because the middle area is where profits go to die, essentially. If you look at that volume point of control and if you're within 510 points of that volume point of control, you're not at an extended area where there's going to be that sort of mean reversion opportunity back to that volume point of control. And if you can stay away from taking trades where the meat of the auctioning is happening, where the market is deciding which way it's going to go and auction next. So that's sort of a whole auction theory where you've got these points where there's high volume, and then you're going to move in a direction to where there's lower volume and auction that area and then revert back to the higher volume areas.
Trading Mechanics and Protecting Capital
So staying out of those areas with that high volume concentration, and that's what volume profile has done for my trading. I used to be a trader that had all different indicators, used to look at a whole bunch of different stuff. And over the past year, two years, maybe even three years, essentially, since I met Gov, is really simplified the amount of things that I look at, because then you start getting mixed signals. You start getting, when you go into a trade, you've got to go into a trade with that confidence, and you've got to know where you're wrong, know where you're going to stop out, know where your scales are, know how to protect your downside and protect your risk capital. And if you stay away from those areas of the volume point of control every day, you have a much higher probability of protecting that capital because the market as a whole is going to want to trade back to those volume areas.
Market Correlations and Stock Performance
So you use those correlations of what is the Nasdaq doing? What is stock Nvidia, which is the one that the market's been following a lot? It was apple for a long time. What is that stock doing? Can the market move without that stock? Is if you watch those things, then you can pick your areas where you're seeing those areas of resistance where you could get sellers or buyers back to that volume point of control, and it can keep you out of that sort of middle area. Yeah, that's a big part of my strategy as well, is looking at your different mag, seven stocks. And when you see right now the three largest companies in the world, Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia, when you see one or two of those not participating in whatever direction the market's going, you know, a lot of times it's tough for the market to really get legs under it.
Assessing Market Momentum and Engaging Based on Levels
So, you know, sometimes that can set up nicely for that mean reversion or sometimes, you know, you're in that trade and you're wanting it to work out, but you're looking at it, you're going, I just don't know if this thing has the legs. So it's very interesting. I see we have Panda up here on stage. Panda, you haven't had a chance to share your thoughts yet. What do you, what have you got for us? Sure. Absolutely. Good morning, guys. Yeah, I really agree with a lot of the things you guys have talked about. So far, especially these basing ranges that we've seen lately, especially yesterday. I think the key for yesterday was pretty difficult for a lot of people.
Basing Ranges and Market Dynamics
And in kind of in review, what I saw was it started out on the Sunday evening open with this sweep of the Friday high. This, and this is kind of how I look at four hour structure and some of these things with the look above and fail. So we had a look above and failed to of the Friday high. And the way I see that is that in this range that we're currently in, potentially we can see a traversal through to the downside, through to the bottom of the range lows. And that is actually what we ended up seeing. It was just difficult because it was so slow and choppy. I think that it mostly chopped up everyone in the middle before finally making the full move to the downside.
Identifying Liquidity and Market Moves
But that's kind of how I see these basing ranges very much. Looking for liquidity sweeps at the bottom, look below and fail of the range lows and look for that traversal back to the midpoint, the pivot in the middle, and potentially the rotation, the full rotation back up to the range highs or vice versa. So we spent so much time in the middle there, I think it tricked a lot of people into thinking the bulls were going to hold that pivot and try to push back up to the top. But we ended up getting the full traversal back to the range lows. So, and then overnight, you know, yesterday, we've kind of set up this bottoming base overnight and all, you know, yesterday, the end result of yesterday was just traversal to the range lows.
Market Patterns: Bulls and Traversals
Bulls have defended the range lows and are now trying to traverse back to the midpoint and try to rotate back to the range highs. So for me, personally, today is going to be a little bit difficult opening up in the middle of this spacing range like you guys have talked about, not a place that I really like to engage. So, you know, I think one of the main things for newer traders, you know, is waiting for your spots, you know? So for me, this midpoint is, there's not really anything I want to engage here. So it's just having the ability. Can you sit on your hands until you get to an area of interest?
Patience and Market Engagement
Right. Something that's an actual high conviction area for you. So it'll be interesting. You know, I think we're, we're poised potentially after defending the lows and especially, you know, I don't know, if anyone was looking at Globex last night, but trapping the lows and then being able to defend there and kind of reclaim this area. So it looks to me like our momentum is going to be upwards until proven otherwise for today. Shooting for that traversal back to the range highs from yesterday potentially. But yeah, I think a lot of the things you guys are talking about are just so crucial for being consistently profitable.
Strategies for Consistent Profitability
Right. Being patient enough to say, I've only want to engage, you know, 57 50 today or whatever your key area is. And if price doesn't get down there, then I'm, you know, then I may not take a trade. And then the other thing is scaling out so crucial. You know, I take very few full losses because I'm fine with de-risking, you know, potentially half of my position into that four points or so on es and then my stop is then moved to negative four, right. So I can't lose on the trade. I'm okay taking a break even trade, you know, so if you end up taking break even trades, small wins and big wins, you know, you're going to be very profitable there.
Discipline in Trading
So those are some of these ideas of discipline that are so important. And the other thing is, yeah, just being able to sit on your hands in the middle of ranges, absolutely critical, but very interesting. I was actually disappointed. I was interested in trying to get long off the range lows last night and it ended up taking so long and happening very early this morning that I wasn't able to get positioned for this push back to the pivot. But that's a really nice move. That's kind of how I see price analysis a lot of times is I'm looking at both sides of price. Right. I'm saying, you know, what do sellers need to do here to maintain control?
Seller Control and Market Strategies
And, you know, I think sellers had a chance last night but were unable to find continuation lower. So if bulls are able to reclaim 5750 last night, that's kind of the area that I was watching. Then we're going to see that momentum higher. Right. Sellers must defend this area or we are going to potentially see a reversal. So I think being able to see both sides of the action and understand how sellers are positioned and how they need to defend the or keep certain areas offered. And if they don't do that's a long entry for me. That's kind of how I tend to see some of these intraday entries.
Understanding Intraday Entries
Yeah, some really great points there. What you're saying about knowing what buyers and sellers are wanting to do. We always say a good bull knows where the bears are at and a good bear knows where the bulls are going to be at too. Right? So that's very important. A great way to attack it there too. So. Well, I think everyone's got a chance to speak yet. So does anyone have anything they want to respond to that they heard? You know, and I just wanted to say something. So every morning in our room, we have a 09:00 a.m. eastern time.
Morning Calls and Market Analysis
And I know people are on different time zones, but 30 minutes before market open we have a call and a daily call sort of talking about what we're seeing, what we're thinking about, areas that we're watching. And something that I noted yesterday was, and if you refer back to that hourly chart I posted in this thread is we got one, two, three, and now yesterday is four tests of 5725 on the downside. So now sort of in my mind I think of, all right, so 5725 has now tested four times on an hourly chart. The higher low, which is like 57, 35, 36 area, has tested a trillion times on the downside. We have not broken. It's telling us sort of two things that clearly there's some demand there, but if we continue to press price down in that area, eventually we're going to break it.
Market Levels: Testing and Demand Analysis
So that's been a great area to get long because it's been good for a minimum of 20 ish points. If now we say we come back there, and I know it's, that's now 40 ish points below where we just traded or we're just trading right now, say we come back there, how do you all approach that area that we've now tested, 1234, do we keep hitting it until it doesn't work? Is that sort of there's that thought is, you know, I'll keep doing it until I'm wrong, or do you say, well, you know what, now I'm going to be a little cautious here because we have tested this area so many times, it's a matter of time before if we go there again or we're going to break it.
Risk Management and Trade Approaches
What are you guys thoughts? I think relative to what you said there, that's when it comes. I mean, I'll trade an area from the longer short side. As long as the market's saying me, I'm okay with paying these prices. But that's also if I start to suspect certain things when I question am I looking at too many things and overthinking it? The other thing is I that's when I start to look at the correlations every time when we're down around this area, you know, what are the leading components? What are they, how are they behaving, what's going on? And as it pertains to, you know, the NDX. So I look, that's when I'll look for the other indices or the other individual components that are leading the market to give some sort of provide some sort of tell.
Market Predictions and Trading Strategies
And because I think there's, if it does, there's a good chance of this rotating back up to the 5786 area. And I think that's what's a good possibility today. If we get below that 5760, I would say, I said, then there's a possibility of trading back down to 5745 into 38. It's possible to go rotate. There's a possibility of go rotating. Higher possibility of rotating down. I'll let the market price action tell me. So that's how I ferret that out, dude.
Interaction with Other Traders
Love to hear it. I think we're getting Frank up here, so I just wanted to swing it over to him. Everyone's kind of gotten a chance to speak. Frank, what's going on? Mandy. Hey, guys. So just, how are you? Good. All good. Good. Morning, Frank. Morning, Frank. We've been talking about the range, essentially, we've been in from, since, what's middle of September 17, 1819. And how to, you know, a lot of us and most of us on the screen, panda, I don't know as well, but I are mostly range traders and mean reversion traders and how this range has been a fun one to trade. But, you know, we're getting a little long in the tooth on the range trade going on three weeks ish now. So what are you seeing? What are you looking at and how are you trading it?
Concerns Over Market Volatility
You know, as you know, we trade together during the day a lot. And, yeah, it is getting long in the tooth for sure. you know, again this morning, I'm like, oh, God. But, you know, with volatility at 22, I think that's going to change soon. It's, it's odd to have a range like we're seeing with Vol as high as we're seeing now, at least it's odd for the last 1618 months. I mean, we've had periods where that's been the case in the past, but of late we've been sort of this volume up price not going down is a bizarre one and just should be a little eye opening, I think, to everybody. And to be a little more cautious and less aggressive when buying dips.
Trading Strategies and Market Analysis
Oh, absolutely. You know, it's been pretty profitable buying those dips, but especially in futures, you know, when you get that first drop, but it's the second and the third one that destroy you. Any of those charts that were talking about earlier, I went and I pinned them up top, if anybody's interested. I've got NARS chart up there. Smooth. Put out a chart with harmonic structure up there. And then I put a couple of my daily charts, just kind of highlighting those ranges of support. And it'll be interesting to see, especially when you look at the yes chart when we come down between that 725 and 733 area, I mean, what's that, 123456 times basically on the daily chart. Over the last 13 sessions we've supported there, I start to get a little nervous because it's like, I mean, you keep trying it until it doesn't, but when it doesn't, you know, that could be an explosive move down to the bottom side of that range if it breaks.
Market Observations and Price Action
But we are building value and basically just ranging out above a previous high volume node. If you look at the volume profile. Yeah, there's sort of two sides of that sword and it's, you know, you can bias is a very, difficult thing in trading to overcome. And bias in futures trading is especially deadly. And one of the things that can tend to create bias for me is looking at sort of these outside macro views of markets in my micro futures trading. So I completely agree that to me, I believe that the break in the market is going to be down. That's my sort of short to medium term belief in where the market's going. Now, how do I completely, almost disregard that and continue to trade my process and trade futures? Because if you're looking at futures with a macro view and you're, remember, we're taking no one, and I can't speak saying, say no one.
Intraday Trading Challenges
But futures trading is not usually the instrument of choice for swing trading. So futures trading is used for cash flow generation and for intraday trading on technicals or whatever it may be, or a strategy. You know, lots of people have different strategies, opening range or moving average. There's tons of different strategies that people trade. But for the most part, the retail trader is not picking futures as the instrument of choice to swing. And so avoiding that bias for I think the market is going down because we've got a high VIX. I mean, I'm looking at every single day, the UB, the long bond, all the bonds, TLT is the ETF that follow tracks the long bond. But you're seeing that just getting pummeled daily.
Risk Management and Trading Decisions
It's not, I think, what people necessarily expected with a fed rate cutting cycle, but how that bias of, okay, we're getting some pretty, a little hairy signals on the downside, but on the contrary. So now we have the VIX at 22, 23. What happens if they sell the VIX and say they, is the VIX going up because of war? You know, possibilities and threats? Yeah, maybe, you know, people, there's an increased desire for downside protection through volatility and protecting against a volatility spike. And now the possibility of, say, things cool down and the macro worries are, become a little tamed. Now you've got a absolute cannon going to the upside because you have all of this hedging that now has to come off.
Separate Macro Beliefs from Trading
So you've got to look at it two ways of, okay, these are the possibilities. But I need to completely separate my macro beliefs and macro insights on what I'm seeing in the overall market from my futures trading strategy. Because if I don't, it impacts your bias and your might impact your in a bill and make you enable to buy at an area where there might be a good trade to trade back to that mean. What are you guys thoughts on sort of separating? You know, that macro overall bias from your future trading? How do you, how do you do that? Thats a million dollar question.
Intraday Trading Difficulties
That is one of the toughest things ive found to balance is when youre trading intraday, when youre trading a move that maybe is half an hour to 3 hours somewhere in there. But youre looking at the broader scope and the bigger picture of things, its tough to balance that. The VIX itself is a very interesting thing because we have, we're a month away from the election now. We have all kinds of geopolitical stuff going on obviously in the Middle east right now. So there's all kinds of reasons for VIX to be elevated. And a lot of times people look at VIX and they think of VIX as just a, it's, you know, VIX is up, the market's going down.
Understanding VIX Behavior
A lot of times, you know, people make that generic correlation which doesn't always hold true. Right. It does in some cases. It does. It doesn't in others. But, you know, one way that just for the VIX itself that I look at things when the VIX gets really elevated like this, you know, I try not to let it skew my bias too much because I'm trading intraday. But what I do adjust is my position sizing and kind of, you know, I'll size down and maybe I'll look for a little bit broader moves, but I'm also a lot slower and a lot more patient. I think you, I think you have to take that vix into account.
Position Sizing and Risk Assessment
You know, right now we're, you know, we're in the twenties. You know, sometimes in the twenties, you know, you can take, you know, maybe a third or a fourth of your normal positioning size and still capture the same amount of profit without putting on all the exercise and risk. And keeping that in perspective, I think is very important because for a long time, you know, I was like, okay, here's my process. Here's my position sizing every single time. And I would never really adjust that. And then once, you know, Vix started getting elevated, I was like, I've got to find a way to size down. And so, you know, adjusting, you know, trading the micros, you know, the m and qs or the mes and sizing down, knowing that, hey, my average range is much wider than it is when VIX was at twelve and 13 and 14.
Macro Insights and Trading Strategies
So that's how I approach it. I'm curious to hear how other guys approach both the, you know, looking at the macro stuff and then the VIX itself being this elevated. One thing that I do is that, I mean, I'll look at both time of day. What sort of data is out there that people are sitting waiting for? Exactly where are we trading? We're kind of at this consolidated 63, 65 66 area right now based on where we're at this time today. While I mentioned that I really wasn't inclined to participate here, I mean, one thing I easily could have done is get long 64 65 and sell 65 68 and improve my basis.
Risk Management Techniques
And if it trades down, my stock would be break even. I don't really care, but I quickly, based on, and it's based on reps, based on the screen time, I will go in and I will only trade like a quarter half size. This is not a time of day to be entering full size. Even though I picked up, could have picked up quick scales there. It's just not the time of day to do that because if I hold onto my longs, you know, going into, you know, 830 central, I mean, you get stopped. I mean, that you break even. It's a bit of a market order there.
Defining Areas of Participation
So I'm exposing myself to a little bit more risk. So I associate risk not with just necessarily a defined area, but with time of day and what's going on. And if I just can't, you know, the moment I have, I start to question something. I quickly go to quarter size, half size, because something's. Something's telling me something. And I don't know if I'm picking up mixed messaging or what. And that's how I handle that feeling. And that you derive those feelings from screen time participating in the trades.
Emphasizing Preparedness and Setup
If you find people find that they're not participating in a trade or the fear of making a poor entry or a poor trade, you have not stepped back and done the proper homework to define the areas of interest for your longs or your short or what is going on with in the market. So if you're able to define that, there's sort of setup that you're seeing, and you're able to define where the trade is wrong, that correlates to exactly, you know, roughly how many points of risk you're taking. And if you can't ascertain if in three points I'm wrong, it's more like five points.
Assessing Risk Before Trading
Well, right away, I just know, I just want to have size because of the five potential points of risk. So, I mean, that's another way of doing it. And that quick scale that gives you, the market just gave you a pat on the back saying, good entry. We're now going to give you time to let the trade develop where you can achieve your reward through the various price targets that you see above or below. So that's the market tells me. The market tells you this stuff.
Overcoming Trading Paralysis
And in terms of the fear of trading paralysis that stems from just, it's the, again, the lack of screen time, just not stepping back and defining the areas. Getting too caught up on 32nd 1 minute, three minute charts. You don't ascertain or define ranges by looking at the small timeframe. You have to step away. Picture yourself in a forest and you're walking through the trees. And if you don't have a trail map where you know the macro before you went on the hike to see where the various trails are and roughly what your headings are, it's like, how do you know if you're just on that one trail, like right in front of you?
Risk Awareness in Trading
You can't see, you don't know. So that's where you have a lot more risk. And I, you know, just that this, don't be scared of trading. Define your areas where you can participate. Take your scales. It's a very binary decision. If you see a setup, it's yes or no, am I participating? Yes or no. And that's it. And sometimes you'll find, especially in trading, one of the quickest rules I learned, and that goes back to the trading floor days, is like, sometimes my best decision is getting out of a losing trade.
Reflecting on Trading Decisions
Sometimes that could be my best decision. So my mantra is to try to make as many good decisions as I can every day. Anyway. So I kind of shifted the range what were discussing there, but it's all relevant to the same point, I do think. Panda, any comments on that? Yeah, I think you're spot on with time of day. You know, we're ahead originally discussing Vix a little bit.
Adjusting to Market Cycles
And, you know, I think the things we discussed there, you know, potentially smaller size and wider stops, you know, you can combine those two things and then also, you know, you can afford to use less size because with the elevated Vix, potentially your typical five to seven point win is more likely to, you know, you can get it more of an eight to twelve point win with smaller size and you can still kind of have your same amount of profit there. So those are definitely adjustments. But time of day is huge, right.
Understanding Market Timing
So, you know, you need to know and it may be different for everyone, and it also changes a little bit with just some of these market cycles. You know, personally, I will trade, you know, kind of the London session, the Chicago, New York open, these kind of things. You know, I'll trade globex, but, you know, it's, whatever you have, your data shows you trade these timeframes very badly. Maybe you need to size down or avoid those altogether. I think everyone can pretty much agree that the middle of the day is generally going to be the worst for everyone, but it's just about knowing you.
Analyzing Trading Performance
And, you knowing what time of day is the most profitable for you. And if you and, you know, just knowing your own data, hopefully tracking your performance and journaling in some way that you understand that, you know, and lately, the last hour of the day, you know, I think, has been killing traders. You know, I think used to, it used to be, you know, this power hour, this momentum time of day. Lately, I have completely avoided the last hour of the cash session because I think it's, you know, for whatever reason, has become extremely trappy in both directions, and it's no longer this kind of momentum trend hour anymore.
Avoiding Unproductive Trading Sessions
So, personally, you know, I've, I'm not, there have been setups that I would normally say, you know, this is a, this is my playbook setup, but, you know, in this last hour of the day, I'm gonna have to wait because it just lately has not panned out. It looks, it looks just like every setup that you've ever taken, and it just doesn't, price doesn't quite act right lately. So for me personally, I've been completely skipping the last hour of the day, and then I come back in the globex open.
Evening Trading Sessions
And typically, if you're, if you had a long thesis after the close and then coming back into Globex, it typically will play out in the evening and that's when I'll get in. And, you know, lately, even the evening session, we've seen really choppy regular trading hours and then clean momentum trend moves in the evening session. And some, sometimes that's something you've got to adjust where, you know, just know that, you know, the regular hours have been very choppy and, you know, transition short term to wherever the clean trend moves are.
Adaptability in Trading
That's what you need to be trading and you need to set out the times that are not profitable for you. And don't just keep forcing, you know, I want to trade this time of day. And if price is not cooperating. Then just got to be able to say, I'm going to sit out because I know that it's not the most profitable time for me. Yeah, no, that's one thing that, the first half hour of the New York session, I, I started looking back, I do very poorly during that session.
Volatile Trading Environment
It's usually very volatile, and, I'll get, you know, wicked out or head faked a bunch. So I, I usually just sit on my hands for the first half hour and kind of let that I use the 30 minutes or strategy a lot. And so a lot of times I just let that kind of define itself and then go from there. So that was one big thing for me was like you were saying, kind of journaling the trades or looking back at executions and trades that I've taken and see, okay, where am I finding success? Let's stick with that. And let's stay away. And then. Yeah, the last hour of the last hour, the power hour, or, you know, some people would call it sour hour. It's just been sideways hour. It seems like, you know, just choppy. The last, gosh, probably two weeks. I hate trading that time of day.
Trends and Personal Trading Strategies
You know, I'm convinced it's just like the best odds. Trades are pretty much done by ten. 3011 central. And right away after that. There you go. There's another cue. After that timeframe, I automatically reduce my size because I just don't like the nature of that trade, especially going to the last hour, you know, where everybody trading these zero dates, expiration, you know, and, you know, just the movements and, you know, people trying to ascertain where the pin is going to be. I was just like, I just can't afford to have that crap in my brain at all, you know, it's too distracting. I like to keep my training very clean, very straightforward.
Market Readiness and Observations
All right, we got about ten minutes here until the top of the hour, and I think we'll wrap things up. I kind of want to throw it around and see. Let's narrow this in today. What levels are you guys looking at? What overall picture are you guys looking at going into today's session? And we'll wrap up with a little bit zoomed in look. I'm looking at. The 5763 is really a big line in the sand here. Us accepting this area gives us a strong chance to rotate back to 57, 85, 86 price rejection here at the open and a trade back down to pregnancy down into this concentrated area. 57, 47 ish pre market. And it at the tail end of the session yesterday with the possibility of retesting. 37, 38.
Market Indices and Key Assessments
The other point would be, I mean, es, we're up 20 points. So you're looking at SPX up 20. So that would be 5715. So I think I would definitely go look at SPX and look where 5715 is opening up as it pertains to SPX itself. A lot of people look at that for the possibility of closing gaps. So there could be the rotation back down that way to go and close the gap from yesterday. So that's another possibility. So I'm flexible. I don't, as long as the damn thing moves, I know I have a good chance of making money. I just want it to move.
Market Movement and Key Support Levels
Yeah, I'll be very interested to see, you know, we had this huge overnight base. I'll be very interested, you know, if we get a little correction off the open. You know, I think the response down there in this area, yeah, 45 to 50 area, you're talking about, if bulls continue to defend that and then, especially if they defend that and then reclaim this 5763 line like you're talking about, that's really going to give me a lot of indication that, you know, just the continued demand in that area and trying to rotate back to 5786 like you're talking about. So I'll be interested if we get that test of the overnight base and whether or not bulls can defend that. That will tell me a lot about how the rest of the day is going to go.
Market Analysis and Reactions
For sure. 100%. I see Natna has her hand up. Go ahead. Hey, guys, sorry. I know you guys are getting ready to wind down the show, but news just came in. Hindenburg research just put out a report on Roblox. I don't know if you guys saw this yet, but massive drawdown in Roblox right now, it hit a low of 37. It's trying to recover a little bit, but the stuff, the accusations are very interesting. Not sure I can pin it to the top or just add it to the comment if you like. I was actually just reading that. Yeah, somebody posted it over in discord. I mean, we're mostly discussing futures here.
Reflecting on Trading Behavior
I mean, just briefly. I know Hindenburg had something out on them a couple of years ago about some devious behavior in the Roblox averse. I'm not familiar with it, and quite frankly, to me it's noise and not something that is going to affect my day to day trading. I'll definitely more check it out for just curiosity. But as for sort of futures today, we're still in the range. And you can, we can reference that chart posted in the thread. We got these two ranges. We got the top of it pretty much here, 5767 to 5770. Overnight, we had the volume point of control, which I was talking about earlier, essentially at like 5741.
Volume Control and Trading Strategy
And on es, it just actually flipped up to 5767. So like what we talked about earlier, not trading with those volume points of control and where those volume points in that volume concentration is, are not entering a trade around there. So now here we are with, we're opening in 35 minutes. We got the volume point of control just flipped up to essentially current price, and now we have to see what it's going to do. It looks like we might be building out a little bit of an hourly flaggy thing to go maybe test the top end of this range, which I have at, I don't know, seven, eight points higher right now. If we get back into that higher part of the range, do we slip in there and reject back down? I don't know.
Decision-Making and Market Sentiment
But right now, this isn't an area that I have an interest in taking a trade potentially, and would be if we break below this, 61 5706, 165762, there could potentially be a short to be had because you've got essentially a little overnight double distribution type thing setting up here where you've got the high volume area where we're at now, and then the high volume area 20 points lower. So we could move pretty quick back down into that previous volume point of control area, which is 5740. 5741. So if we break back below this 5761.62, I might be looking at taking a short with a stop out back in over that 5761.62.
Risk Management and Market Behavior
But I want to see what the price does, and I'm going to be very patient this morning. But the top end of this range to me looks like a more of a short. But I agree with Gov, it looks like there's a little bit of price acceptance right now. Now, yeah, I posted a chart in the room that kind of gives, kind of defines those ranges we've been discussing because we're all talking about the same levels. You know, I'm noticing right up here the VPOP flipped up. And so when the VPOP flips up like that, you've got a perfect balance of buyers and sellers here. So, so that just kind of confirms so that, so we know the buyers are less likely to get support for higher right now.
Market Analysis and Expectations
And the sellers are trying to take a little bit of control, which brings a little bit more cell volume to balance that out and create a new VPOC. So that's interesting thing. And then if we do trade below that, 60 61, that definitely is short. I'll be looking for retrace. Retrace so that, and, you know, again, reject what's been, establishes a higher range of support port up here for that, for a gap fill play. And that would be back to that range in the 4550. So that's the play to the downside. So it'll be interesting.
Market Indicators and Closing Thoughts
But I want to watch NDX and a couple of the leading components of the open to see how they respond to where we're at. Yeah, I'm the same way. Going into the session today, overall, I will be watching that gap fill because we will have a gap up, I guess, if you go, you know, from close to open price. So I'll be watching that to see if that fills. And then I think it probably will. It doesn't have to, but that's kind of my, what I'm leaning towards watching is do we track down and fill that gap from basically closed to open both on, you can watch it on SPX.
Monitoring Economic Indicators
It'll, it'll be very clear to see over there. Or if you go to the NDX for QQQ as well and just look at your closing price yesterday and see if we go back, test that and then what happens there. So that'll be probably the main watches for me today. We are, as you guys were saying, right at the volume point of control, things get really choppy right here. So looking at NQ, which is what I trade the most, the volume point of control for the last two weeks, almost three weeks now at this point is exactly where we're trading right now, this 20,000, like 59, 60 area.
Trading Decisions and Upcoming Events
And if you put on a simple volume point of control, zoom out a little bit, you can see it clear as day, and then you can see the range as well. So right here in the middle, it's tough. I mean, I think maybe you have an opportunity, if we do track back down to fill that gap, maybe you can get long off the gap fill for a reaction trade there if it's going to hold. But other than that, today, I think I'm just going to take it pretty easy today. We do have a lot of data coming up later this week. Tomorrow we have a ten year node auction.
Anticipating Market Trends
I think will be very interesting to watch the way yields have been acting. We have the FOMC minutes coming out as well. And then of course we have CPI Thursday and PPI on Friday. So a lot of data points coming up later this week as well as some catalysts over in the tech side of things with Nvidia and Dell, Tesla with its robo taxi, a lot of things coming up. So honestly, I would be surprised if we did break the range today either way. If we did, I would think maybe it's downside, just people kind of de risking a little bit before, but sometimes we run up into these events too.
Final Market Reflections
So there's multiple arguments there, which tells me I just need to stay. Stay light, pick my spots very carefully, and, you know, keep myself out of trouble going into the rest of this week. See? Smooth. Did you have any, did you get a chance to give your final thoughts? Sure. I'll, I'll sort of go over a couple key Fibonacci levels that I'm watching today. On the low side, 5745. Surprise, surprise. That's been pretty magnetic level over the last four or five trading sessions.
Key Resistance and Support Levels
Below that, 57 29 and a quarter is the next key Fibonacci level down. And if we lose that area, I have a 56 92.50 and just above a 5699 monthly pivot level too. So that sort of would be an extended range I would be looking to target if we start losing that 5729 area. On the upside, I have 580650 and then above that a 58 37.75. So that's kind of my extended Fibonacci levels. That's kind of where I prefer to initiate trades, looking for support off the lows and looking for resistance up at those higher levels.
Trading Approach and Strategies
So that's kind of what I'm looking at today. Not too interested in participating here in the middle. I'm kind of right between my 5745 and my 5806 right now. So I definitely look at my technical areas, my patterns on larger timeframes, like four hour or daily chart and zoom into like the hourly 15 minutes, five minute. And I tend to sort of go bigger when, you know, I basically have signals on all timeframes in the same direction.
Final Reflections and Market Dynamics
That's basically going back to the previous question. What, what I look at for sizing. Awesome. Yeah, great stuff. Frank, final thoughts? We may not have. Frank. Panda, last one. All right. Panda, last one. All right. Yeah. Just again, this, the overnight reclaim is the biggest thing for me. So I want bulls to be able to defend that. And that's that 5750 ish area.
Market Behavior and Trading Outlook
So if we see that trade straight through and see continuation back down into this 5735, I'm going to be very concerned for bulls, but I think we see a reaction there, especially any tests below 5750 that then get bought and reclaimed, then I think that's a pretty good opportunity to get long near the range lows, which is always what I'm trying to do, especially in this market. Like we've talked about, where the range lows just defend longer than anyone would ever think possible, and then a few more times after that before it fails. So. Yeah, awesome. Great stuff.
Conclusion and Appreciation
All right, well, we've run the full hour. There's been some amazing stuff here. I'm going to throw it over to the wolf account to close us out. We appreciate everyone. Yeah, we definitely appreciate everyone. Thanks for everyone up on stage. Be sure you're giving everyone a follow up on stage. I believe our next space is at 03:00 p.m. eastern, our stock market analysis space, so be sure you're tuning into that. Hope everyone has a good day, and thank you to our co hosts.
