I notice in your charts the pivots are based on the previous day's intraday prices, that is highs/lows etc. that took place during the 09:30-16:15 trading time. So in the NQ you used H: 1514.0, L:1498, etc. and in the ES you used H: 1158.75, L: 1152.25, etc. to calculate your pivots. Those might have been the 2/17 intraday prices but they weren't necessarily accurate for the entire trading day, where the correct NQ low was 1487.0 (not 1498.0), and the correct ES low was 1145.25 (not 1152.25). These create entirely different pivot points (even if your High and Close match up) and I was wondering if anyone has addressed this discrepency between price extremes from 09:30-16:15 compared to price extremes from 16:30-16:15 which is the range the CME uses to post its prices for the "day". P.S. A current example is the 2/18 ES High for the day. Intraday it was 1157.00 but the CME lists it as 1158.75 because that was the high that took place pre-market which it considers part of the trading day.
I tried to follow previous discussions on this topic, and found it to be too cluttered up with people trying to be exact. I've calculated floor pivots 6 ways to sunday it seems like, and no matter which way, they were never consistent for me. But I did notice that when a floor pivot seemed not to be important, I could look to the left of the chart, and see prior price action, reacting at the same level as the current price action. So, I decided that for me, the only way to be comfortable with taking a poss. at a floor pivot level, was to also have a prior H/L of some sort to accompany it.If I don't get my double line, I don't sweat it, I just look ahead to the next possible opportunity. I don't think its all that fired up important which O/H/C any body uses, Just getting to know how price reacts with the ones you do use, is whats important.
You wouldn't believe how long it takes for some people to understand this. Or maybe you would. And many people never do. Instead of looking at where the activity is, they're worrying about whether their MACD settings should be 12/26/9 or 12/26/8. Yesterday was practically a template for study. Nearly everything one might want to know about S/R and divergences is within yesterday's ES and NQ charts. The trader behavior at the extremes is especially interesting, particularly since the NQ and ES seem not to match.
Note, however, that even tho volume increased, buyers were unable to push price higher. This made a short with a stop just above 25 a fairly low-risk trade, esp considering the gap and the coincident R in the ES.
Agree, but with the caveat that the pit boys do their calculations and price often bounces off those pivot points, even if there was no prior price "activity" there. In effect, they create activity there today and people who solely watch price S/R scratch their heads and wonder why price bounced "there". So while those numbers may be arbitrary it would be nice to align with what they are seeing, even solely as a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that's what my question was about, has it been addressed as to what numbers the floor traders tend to use since there's often a wide discrepency between intraday numbers and total trading day numbers.
If everyone were using the same numbers, you might have something. But they don't. Therefore, sulong's point stands: focus on price action. That will tell you where the "pivot level" is, even though you may not have it drawn on your chart.
Personally I use the intraday action only, as the volume in the pre/post globex hours are often very light and I don't feel it can properly assess where the "balance" in the market is. While the s/r pivots may be arbitrary and more than likely only "work" in a self-fulfilling manner -- I don't belive the same is true as it pertains to the mid-pivot or what I refer to as the "balance point". PEACE and good-trading Magna, Commisso