Dailyfx has some great data about what their traders are doing, what they're long and short. Retail traders tend to be range traders so they get short/long at top/bottom of ranges. They also tend to fight trends, so when a trend takes off, the retail traders will fight it. But what's interesting is that the crowd tends to be right and reach extremes at crucial bends in the trend, and right now an amazing 85% of the Dailyfx traders are short S&P. I think that means that we are near a top, or maybe not. The ratio here is 85:15, so about 5.6 longs for every short.
How frequently is this updated? For instance, if you told me that 85% of the traders were short the S&P prior to Yellen's speech yesterday I would completely believe it...The technicals set up a very convincing bear trap...I'd be curious to see how those numbers changed on the open today since I doubt that many retail traders would stay short for 20+ handles...
you can go over to the Dailyfx site, it's updated in real time. i think they actually got even more short . . . retail traders tend to be very stubborn and double down.
Yeah, her cronies did an excellent job of jaw boning it down on Monday. Sure looked like a false break up 30 mins after the open.
That is fascinating...I was watching the futures (small bit of trading) during European hours last night...ES just ripped higher after re-testing last week's highs around 47.50...That follow thru this am up to 64.00 would have me believe that the majority of shorts capitulated there...the rest of the day traded like the market was "too long"...Nonetheless, if this is how retail traders are doing it nowadays it makes sense how many squeezes we see...I would have guessed 5:1 the other direction the way the market slid off of 64 back down into the low 2050's.
They really did...It's pretty clear in hindsight that the only way the market made it back down in the vicinity of 2000 was following back to back Fed governors going "hawkish"...As we've seen, this market now bides time in algo controlled ranges until Ole Yellen gives the green light...I actually remember a time when there was a real market.
Retail traders tend to be right but tend to lose more on their losers and close out their winners too fast. Once this market goes down (if it does) you will see them close out their shorts far too quickly.
Do you have more of this data saved (from other trading days)...I'd love to see what it looked like at the major lows back on 2/11 or even 3/1...
or you could play around with the address here, it's updated every thursday (sometimes friday) https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/technical/ssi/spx500/2016/02/11/ssi_spx500.html