afternoon session vs morning session

Discussion in 'Index Futures' started by swing-scalper, Mar 12, 2008.

  1. I've been intraday trading stock index future for 4 months on a full-time basis. I've noticed that my performance in the afternoon session is significantly worse than the morning session. I'm very curious to figure out what's behind this huge discrepancy.

    Is this due to myself or due to the nature of the market? I'm a little more tired and less focused in the afternoon, which may contribute to the worse performance in the afternoon to some extent.

    Is the market more difficulty in the afternoon than in the morning? If so, why is that?

    I'm wondering whether some other traders face the same problem. If so, how to overcome the problem?

    Any comments and suggestions are appreciated.

    Thanks.
     
  2. My observations is that the price action in the morning is different and thus you may have to adapt to that style on your scalping or swing trades in the equity futures markets.

    I think that we have more of a counter trend market in the morning and that changes up in the afternoon when we get more new lows or highs and continuation on the moves.... We have tested this and than you add in days of the week and you can see pattern on the first part of the week vs Thur and Friday.

    Why is this present? Not sure but that is what my systems and testing say about the price action....Hope this helps you....Trade well.
     
  3. If you look at the charts of mornings and afternoons, you will find no difference. That leaves only one explanation about your performance: yourself.

    The possible scenarios are:
    1. you make money in the morning, you lose money in the afternoon.

    2. you lose money in the morning, you make money in the afternoon.

    3. you make money in the morning and afternoon, you lose all in the final minutes.

    4. you lose money in the morning and afternoon, you win a big sum in the final minutes.

    5. you make a big sum in the first minutes, you lose in the morning and afternoon (this kind of people said they should have stopped trading after the first minutes).

    6. you make money all day.

    7. you lose money all day.
     
  4. Actually, I'm not in all the above situations.

    I do best at the opening (before 10:00 am EST). Then come with morning. Afternoon is my weak part currently.
     
  5. I have noticed that in the morning 70-80 users are logged in our trading alerts room. After 1pm its about 55-60. People tend to do their trading in the morning then get out. This would decrease overall volume. I don't trade after 3pm.

     
  6. The final hour offers some good opportunities. If the market offers you money, you should take it.
     
  7. eagle

    eagle

    High volatile in the morning than in the afternoon. The trend is blurry in the morning but less blurry in the afternoon. Your success seems to be at when the volatility is high.
     
  8. jmoo

    jmoo

    saavy way to promote your site stating the number of people in your room!
     
  9. Back in the nineties, someone suggested to me that the best trade is to fade the 9:30 AM ET open. Sell if the futures are up and buy back when/if they pullback to the previous day's close. Do the opposite if the futures open down. I never really studied this. Anyone know if this technique has a high win/lose ratio? anyone make consistent money doing this? How far away would you put your protective stop in this situation? Just curious.
     
  10. Find this person who told you in the nineties, I bet he is not trading any more.
     
    #10     Mar 14, 2008