There are many different index that tracks gold, oil and others. Different exchanges seems to track changes of same commodities such as gold or crude oil, which one to use to properly gage on the market condition? I know there is no one master list of important indices a trader needs to follow(eg. ES and NQ), but what do you use and recommend? This is my first post and I hope to be here for a very long time, lurking and asking questions. Thanks!
For the instruments you mentioned and various stocks, I have an idea of S/R levels and notice when they are being tested. I think you will find that a lot of traders here only use price action and moving averages. My point is that if i wake up tomorrow and gold is at 1270 i'm already sure that ES is tanking. If APPL is breaking surging, its pushing NQ/tech stocks. Is this what you mean by pulse? You need to have a general idea of the correlation between your instrument and "the list", however complicated that relationship may be.
If someone tells you their list without telling you what exactly they trade...the list is useless information to you. Simply, a list to a Eurex BUND trader may be different than a market indice list for a Emini ES trader. I've recently been trading the Russell 2000 Emini TF futures and my list can be found at any website (e.g. Yahoo, bloomberg, marketwatch, cnnmoney) that does a "market indices summary". In fact, most data vendors offers key indices of the worlds markets for free with basic subscription or for a small monthly fee. Thus, their list is good too in the data vendors market summaries. Recently I've added the VXX exchange traded fund to my list of key markets to help with "market pulse or gauge". Mark