rtharp, This isn't a 1,2 or 5 minute graph. That is a 250 tick graph. Those 5 point jumps were occuring within SECONDS. You are probably a much better trader than I would be out of the gates but to me, that is just insanity. As long as I've been watching ES (months), I've never seen it do that.
The ES is down 10 points already after the close. Could be just as wild during the after hours tonight.
That insanity is one reason why I almost never use hard stops. It was either the boyz (my guess) tearing you a new one, or some wierd computer malfunction somewhere, that kept executing size. Fast markets especially when there's no reason for it, are pure gambling.
That was beyond fast. That was Hyper-market on crack. I'm not even sure IB's computers would have had time to execute stops with that whipsawing. I can't imagine big-boys could execute trades that quickly -- unless it was some sort of computer aided trading. It was just moving much too fast.
I use a proprietary computer generated voice callout of the futures, and it sounded like it was being sodomized.
The wild action occurred at the price corresponding to the 50-day SMA (just above 88), for what it's worth. The longs were looking to close above it after coming back in just 4 sessions from a new multi-year low and I think some of the big players may have had other ideas.