Just curious how you all trade the afernoon ES session? I find the moves provide bad R:R and the predictability goes down the toilet close to around 3:30 b/c of all the re-balancing. Hell even at 3:00 it gets tough. Just curious how some of you all that kill the morning session handle the afternoon session. I'm almost at the point where I'm going to stop trading afternoon ES session all together and start learning another instrument to trade in its place come afternoon time. I do very well from 930-1200ish. After that seems to be a shit show. I'm finding that only a few times per week is the afternoon ES session even worth trading. Any thoughts ?
Irrespective of you get any tips or not - one thing is clear. Simply trade mornings everyday and trade afternoons only that 1 or 2 time a week when you get a good trade. you don't have to trade everyday buddy to make a lot of money with leverage of futures
Thanks but I do need to trade everyday b/c I find edges everyday. I'm just curious as to what others do here. I know Im in the minority at only trading one instrument but i wanted to perfect it before moving on
To put it mildly, frustrating. To state it bluntly, crappy. It sure ain't what it used to be. I think this is due to the slow death of pit trading. Everything is automated now and machines lack emotion, which is what propels the market momentum, no?
+1 This is a very important lesson to learn. You don't have to trade. Don't try and perfect a market, try and apply what you know to other markets. You've already learned that the market is no good for you in the arvo. You may well find that while the ES is giving you nothing, another market is giving you a signal.
By the afternoon session, are you referring to what happens after the first 2 1/2 hours? Just looking at last week, there's just as much and even more points offered in the afternoon, so I don't agree with your assessment applied to recent market activity. I do however remember times in the past where what you're saying hold true and what was even worse was that most of the action happened in the pre-market, with very little movement even during the open. Regarding predictability, I find it much easier to predict the rest of the day after some time has passed, but maybe that is because I have not learned yet to utilize the pre-market activity in a meaningful way? Anyway, if you do well in the morning, why not just take the rest of the day off and enjoy life? I know a trader who does exactly that and only trades the afternoon session if he did not do well in the morning or did not find any trade opportunities. Good 'luck'.
A wiser choice would be, simply have your pre-defined edge to trade only if and when your signals (edge) is setting up properly. Example: This trend is still intact but you are anticipating a TEST of the "20". Keep in mind TESTS are not normal retraces within a trend, TESTS are more nervy and require a TEST of the trader as well as the trend. "never shift to reverse and head EAST when still heading WEST on the freeway, that is what exit ramps (reversal signals) are for.. The time of the day is mox-nix when your plan is correct. Price defines your plan, not the time of day. But indeed, your observations are basically correct. As day traders we follow TA, the BIG MACRO picture controls the fundamentals. There are times in any instrument when the macro picture is telling you to just relax, things will pop later. ES in general is still great for a daily average to capture while getting the biggies now and then. Narrow your plan down to a SELECT 2 or 3 conditions and you will be far more happy. LESS IS MORE PS: I will agree though that nothing is wrong with just "booking what you have and calling it a day", trading after all has no time clock to punch.
Apparently you don't find edges very often in the afternoon stretch... by your very own words. Just because the market is open for accepting trades does not mean said market is open for profitable opportunity. That's the part where most individual traders go dead-wrong. Open market does not equate to opportune market. Chart attached is the ES from yesterday. Noon thru 4:15pm est was a four (4) point total sideways chop range. Know how many ES traders out there make big money, or even any money at all consistently in tapes like that? None, zero. Not a single soul on earth. When volatility is low, i.e. VIX average readings below 20+, afternoons are dead because institutions are not active in the market. They square up in the morning ala POMO pumps and news, then idle off. So the market drifts along with HFT chop as the only working participants for hours.
In the present market conditions for roughly past twelve months, crude oil (CL) offers profit opportunity between 9:05am and noon est, then again from 1:30pm thru 2:30pm est. Other than 2am - 4am thru roughly 7am est, there is nothing consistently moving. 7am thru 9am and then noon - 1:30pm are dead zones way more often than not. Trading those dead zones over months to years at a time will result in net loss overall in those periods. Eminis vary but are similar. MOST of the real movement happens 9:35am thru noon and again past 2pm est into the pit close. Not quite as narrowly defined as CL, but similar in behavior. Those are the overall best daily volume periods, and volume is the lifeblood of short-term trading potential.
There are a fair number of very successful traders that pack it in on ES as Europe closes. Some trade other instruments and some are simply done for the day. As Livermore once pointed out "you are not working for wages." As an opportunist it may well pay to increase your size a bit when the "sweet spot" -- your sweet spot -- is there and cut size to zero when it's not. Working smarter frequently outperforms working harder.