make sure your computer clock is set to the atomic clock in Colorado. Use this program or another one http://www.philex.net/clock/ (this one is freeware) Sync your clock with the atomic clock and listen every 15 minutes when the floor rings the buzzer. Look at your clock and make sure it is exactly at the ??:15:00 mark when they ring buzzer. THis will tell you which is a better one for your area. rtharp
I'm just listening to the guy at realtimefutures.com. Is this guy talking about llarge S&P contract price? What is the key to listen for here? Speed of his talking or background noise? Or something else. If he is talking about large S&P contracts I can observe that emini's are moving first.
michaelday I listened to him them yesterday (realtimefutures) and noticed the same thing (that he lags the e-mini). Of course one day is not long enough to make a judgement and yesterdays range was tight most of the day with volume on the low side as well. I'll give them another listen sometime today or tomorrow I guess.
Squakers are calling out the bid and offers of the "large" s+p contract, as you called it. Not the mini. They will often lag the minis. Speed of his talking is not important.you want to listen to when the bids and offers are rising and dropping, just like you want your stock to do. Crowd noise is important, and the degree of the noise, but you have to know which way the futures are going when the crowd noise picks up. I don't know how to explain it, but you will get a feel for it after awhile. Making a judgement after a day or so is ridiculous, especially in this crappy market.
Locals are short-term traders in the pit. Think of the locals as market makers or âhit and runâ artists. Theyâre there to provide liquidity by capitalizing on short-term movement and/or making the spread. The locals will run the market around in the absence of dealer (institutional houses) participation or press the market in search of stops at certain critical areas. They are quick to jump on the bandwagon and quick to cover when wrong. Generally, the localâs directional influence is most significant in a low volume environment.
The locals are traders trading their own accounts. When it is locals only, there is no paper or institutions on the bid or offer. When all the locals are caught short or long, that is as close to a layup as we get these days.
think of layup as the locals hanging out to dry. Being on the wrong side. As a listener listen for the background noise. This is the biggest thing. If it starts to sound like you are near an airplane engine compared to a person whispering behind a closed door. I'm not kidding on that airplane engine. You should have heard the squwak box when the FED did their first SURPRISE rate cut. The roar was huge and 6 seconds before anything hit news on CNBC or about 5 seconds before I saw wierd quotes on my screens. That's an edge!!!!!!!!! and worth it's weight in gold. If you hear big buyers/sellers going on , lots of background noise and markets are moving then you know the market has momentum. If you hear the noise go quiet or EVEN louder (opposing orders) than it's time to reverse. I was in the Bond Pit for over a year. It takes awhile to get a feel for the sound levels but imagine how I described above and use that for reference. rtharp
What I mean by a layup is this. When the locals are caught the wrong way, institutions will make them pay. And as long as you go opposite the locals, you are usually in for a profit, sometimes a couple dimes, sometimes 3-4 cents. It all depends on what stock you are trading and how it corresponds to futures movement. rhtarp mentioned the rate cut in Jan, and that brought back good memories. (I tend to think of them more since trading has sucked so bad for a few months now) Our squawker erupted with the pits noise, and he enabled us to get in before our newsboys had the news out. The squawker made our office alot of money that day by getting us all loaded up before 95% of America did. If you scalp, you have to have a squawker. Other things you want to listen for. What are the big houses doing during the day? Are they huge buyers or vice versa. Also, a good squawker will tell you the size that is being offered when it is important. If the futures have been slowly crawling up and GSCO is offering 100 contracts at the next tick, it isn't going to crawl through that, and it is a good time to get out of your position and possibly reverse. Size also varies depending on what type of market we are in. fast markets will chop through size, slow markets can be stopped by 15-20 cards. Just get a service and dedicate some time to learning how to read it.