From a trading perspective, what is the relationship between the es and the s&p? Should I be analysing the index when trading the future? If so, what should I look for? What should concern me? Thanks
well, in the old days nobody paid much attention to ES and occasionaly you could make a small bet on the divergence. But nowadays everything is arbitraged on the sub atomic level so there isn't much opportunity for the small retail trader. If I was trading ES again I would have on my screen DX GC ZN CL EUR/USD DIA QQQ SPY YM NQ and ES and today you probably need to keep your eye on all the foreign exchanges, especially DAX
the es is the s&p - by definition they are related b/c they are each other - the es is just the futures contract of the s&p index - the values have to equal (accounting for net cost of carry) otherwise arb would eliminate the diff immediately
on a microstructure level: es is faster update than spx because spx require calculation which in fast markets or the open can be delayed slightly.
If you are trading the ES, then just look at the ES in multiple time frames and nothing else. Watching any of that other stuff will just be additional uselsss noise that can only negatively affect your judgement.
I trade both ES and the SSO ETF. They are the only two charts I watch. Used to have a chart of the Index, however it has a lag time of a few seconds, and I found it to be redundant and not needed. Use to keep more charts up, but found them to be of no use, and made my eyeballs roll around in the sockets trying to keep up with the nonsense. My compatriots have 4 monitors going at once, but they never seem to be monitoring 3 of them. It just makes them look important in their own mind. But whatever. I also tried the multiple time frame method. Once again to much conflicting input. KISS for me, which works after 10 years of fucking around with things. Also, opinions are like armpits and assholes. We all have them, and they all stink.
A lot of truth in this post. By my nature, I'm a multi-tasker, therefor I'm MUCH more efficient with 6 monitors in front of me. It can get very confusing if you don't KISS. The key is to not have a lot of indicators, and the ones you do have, understand and study the time divergences between them. I strictly tick trade the TF and I'll sometimes take a look at the ES and DX if I'm a bit confused.