Well, what I believe is that the market is impersonal and at the end of the day it's simply a order-matching engine with orders going off against others, i.e., market orders crossing with limit orders. When market orders (demand) exhaust the available limit orders (supply) at a given level the market will move higher or lower. That's really all there is to it, regardless of the reason for that happening. Markets can move higher or lower on both high and low volume. Markets can be in equilibrium on high and low volume. Markets can gap, too, with no prices traded in between, i.e., no volume. I'm sure traders, both retail and institutional gets "trapped" all the time, but I think they do it largely on their own. Mostly, I don't think anyone (they?) is trying to do anything to anyone, although I'm sure it can happen. I may very well be wrong.
I can't 100% say with certainty that I always identify them correctly, am sure sometimes mixing them up or there's times when it's equally split between actual buying and short covering. But generally speaking there is a difference between buy setups and short covering. Strong buy setups generally generate after a healthy sized pullback on the chart you're trading and can require a retest of the current relative lows, therefore if trying to catch a trend move tend to require a larger stop. Where as short covering setups generate near the middle to higher end of the chart and generally require very little stop and work in your favor instantly(if it isn't going to fail). For example if you go check timestamp when I posted I was long there was very little pullback / drawdown. A lot of it has to do with how the larger time frames are setup, where we are in the chart and what pattern we're currently in. Other factors include: What level is current momentum at(if it's above a certain threshold on that chart it indicates sell signals are likely to fail or produce less, hence prime time for short covering as well) What angle are the indicators I use? If it's an sharp up angle, at the same time that another indicator is also at a matching up angle, than it indicates a pattern of both shorts and longs being actively aggressive, which if momentum is above a certain theshold than shorts very rarely win this battle short term. I know that's a lot of information and I tend to ramble, but to be fair you did ask. Hopefully the explanation makes some sense. It wasn't necessarily all inclusive answer, but just tried to generally explain how I personally see the difference. Again my theories could be 100% wrong in what is actually going on. All I know is that it works and it's pretty effective, that is the important part to me.
We have a 100 handle IHS working on the 15/30M currently…. NL at 40… which we broke north… if this does indeed come to fruition, we’re looking at 4325 print target!
Given FED catalyst tomorrow and how it typically gives decent movement in both directions, if there's anybody home at all, than I think there's a decent chance we will test at least 4305(which I have as ES Daily resistance) regardless of the final outcome. Above 4305 and particularly if Daily candle closes above it, than I will lighten my bearish bias temporarily for intra-day trading. Let's see what the overnight brings and if it changing anything. See ya guys tomorrow.
My BS-thesis: I think everybody’s grandma’s guinea pig is bearish now so we get a relatively big leg up again (eg es 4600). Semi-conducters and arkk-stocks join. edit <- BS larger font
Yup, hate when they do it. Was going to look for a long setup to at least 4305. Now that it's hit will have to play it more by ear.