Regarding rollover I find the best way to look at it is this: HSI rolls over on the day before the last business day of the month. That means that late in the afternoon the current month will stop trading. If you watch it you will usually get reasonable movement in the morning but it will flatten out after lunch. So you could trade the current contract in the morning of the last day if you really wanted. I find that the volume on HSI isn't higher in the new month until the morning of rollover day. So now I trade the current month until the close 2 days before the last business day of the month (ie close of day before rollover day). Then on the open of rollover day I start trading the new month.
Charting is on Metastock Pro, Trading is on brokerage's software, which list bid 1 to bid 5, and ask 1 to ask 5, latest transaction price with latest transaction volume, OLHV and other stuffs... This is how I do it. 1.) Look at the movement of the orders throught Bid 1~5 and Sell 1~5 2.) Look at the movement of the transaction price 3.) Ignore small volume I compare 1.) and 2.) to get a feel of which direction the market is heading, until it stopped, it works for me since my eariler equities days.. I think you can use a tick chart for that, but I am not too good with a tick chart. Mind you, I have no formal financial trainning other than trading equities before I trade the HSI full time...
X6's rollover was good compare to the month before, enough volume to trade in the morning, unlike the month before... Something like 40k contracts transacted before lunch so little volume today...
Not surprising after yesterday afternoon. I've surprised myself by having a good day anyway (normally I give a bit back on the choppy days after a big move).
Are u using metastock quotecenter? Is it the asian package? 135/month plus exchange fee? I am using IB and having a hard time reading tape when the data is not updated tape by tape and i am shopping for a new quote vendor.
E signal throught local data supplier. Trading from a quote screen is quite different from trading from charts, huh? My lowest trigger is an intraday signal, then I look at the 1 min chart along with the quote screen to see when I actrually push the buy/sell bottom, that's part of the workflow, but not consider in the decision making process... My last exit is a 4 min delay, I think it make up 10 or 15 points on the HSI. When you trade a system you try to replicate your backtest result, but anything helpful will being in a little bit more, or at least helps to fight slippage... I think if you can make sense between price and volume on a tick chart, then you can properly do without the quote screen...