Believe it or not, but there's been a bit of volatility on forex eur/usd during the wee hours of the morning the last couple of mornings
As far as the attraction to the eminies - I think that it might have something to do with that effing PDT rule! Also, with the leverage of the minis a small trader can have the opportunity to make a fair amount of dosh on a small amount of capital.
I can't speak for others, but I articulated my reasons in another thread, which I will replicate below: "Main reasons: - Cheaper execution for an equivalent $ face value... - More favorable tax treatment... - No fucking around attempting to shift what would be size in the stockmarket... in the futures markets, even 20 contracts of ES (face value not far off $1million) is easy to shift, cos 20 cars is small fry in the world of futures... Secondary reason: - Laziness: got fed up with scanning for stocks plays... easier to just play one or two futures contracts all day long... The trade-off to my laziness is that I don't get the major occasional runs on stocks benefitting from news... however I guarantee you that your life as a stock trader is more intense than mine... so, as with many things, individual personality has a lot to do with what you trade... That said, in relative size, you can make a living off anything with reasonable volatility... and, in my view, ES is more consistently volatile than any stock you care to name... bearing this in mind, my philosophy is to make things easy for myself by eliminating the need to scan..."
I understand ...appreciate your all letting me know.... I'm looking into the taylor pivots (?) and other technicals re e-minis .. trying to match up an open range breakout/breakdown strategy with the pullback/trend moves in eminis to see what's consistent.. let me know if any ideas ..
We have made the consolidation: 9405 is the first local bottom target on weekly scale (better precision see on lower scale : it was 9370 see chart incidentally here http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21973&perpage=6&pagenumber=3) and bounced back from there so bulls don't worry yet on that scale. The 10000 target is still valid and must be confirmed by passing the yellow resistance at 9563 (at daily close and weekly close since it is weekly scale which must be confirmed by opening of next period). <IMG SRC=http://www.econometric-wave.com/consolidation_on_weekly_scale.gif>
As for people that have spoken earlier on this thread about a "lack" of volatility, I hate to break it to you, but these are the REAL FACTS OF THE MATTER: Over the last 3.3 years, the frequency of a monthly move in which there was OVER a 10% move ( from low to high, or vice-versa ) was 41%, or roughly 5 out of 12 months. On a historical basis, over the past 54 years the market has averaged a monthly move > than 10% just NINE PERCENT OF THE TIME, OR ABOUT ONE MONTH PER YEAR. P.S. The last time that we saw some very high frequency of monthloy moves > 10% was 1973, 1974, 1975. 25%
You might want to look at three other places to get a nice handle on the comtemporary scene, vis a vis volatility. They aren't a big deal but it does show that creating profits nowadays is really just there and grinding right along. Most are indirect measures that replace or front run the coming volatility stuff. The H/L's that were almost continuous "consolidation" in the market as near term history, summer, up to mid last week have ended. The expanding H/L is setting up at least four trend trades a day now. So the fireworks are here for the last quarter at long last. The IT legs in the quarterly time between rollover's (third Q have all been movers except 1 flat leg of the 10 in the Q). This is a high number of IT legs. The compression in equities cycles showed up as half the "normal" variation with almost no lessening of the cycle H/L range for high beta (volatility's bro) equitities. Both these items fit together nicely. The indicator that has come up that favors increased volatility has shown up also in the Z. The offset of cash to indexes is six times greater at the beginning of the Z than it was for the beginning of U. The transients at open are neat and orderly as the offset is stabilized each morning as well. So retraces on gaps will not be in vogue for a while as we found out last week too.. There hasn't really been a case for volatility for quite a while for all the reasons derivative of the above. Who cares, when it really isn't a possibility. Now it is going to be a reality, but a lot of people are shell shocked by not understanding it's reasonably explained absence. A lot of "hope" stuff being expressed in the space at present. Forget about measuring volatility in longer than partial day terms. The 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, day stuff is silly.
I could not agree more! The fat from a move such as we have had must be worked off, if it is not, then an unpredictable and action packed reversal will occur with no volatility contraction. Needless to say, that is rare on something like the S&P which is both an index (relatively diversified event risk) and has very substantial institutional interest! Once new positions are entrenched, we simply need a spark and volatility will take off again. Nice post vegasoul, -TD80