Small guys like me or what? I was on IB last night at 10pm PST just checking out what the futures were doing and decided to through some offers out there. I ended up making $200 in about 2 hours...what gives? Not meant as a joke or a boastful post, but I am just wondering how that's even possible. Probably 99% luck as I was simply trading noise (retail scalping). I will be on again tonight It was quite fun
Good luck trying to do that on a Friday night... let me know how it goes. Seriously though, ES is arbed against the Asian indexes at night and the European indexes in the morning. You were essentially trading Asia via a proxy. And since the Nikkei was rangebound last night, it makes sense that your mean reversion scalping worked. It's not always like that.
Good to know. Like I said, I was lucky and probably don't want to go up against the sophisticated guys. I don't even trade futures on a regular basis...
Night trading ES is a lot different since you obviously don't have any movement in the underlying S & P index to watch. Of course, the Asian and European markets have their influence in turn but they definitely are not determinant. In my opinion, we are all guessing what will happen in the U.S. market when it opens. The trading in the off hours is in slow motion compared to regular hours.....you can be lulled to sleep and then "bam" a big shot up or down can happen, so use stops if you leave the screen or might doze off. It seems like trading at night would be a good way for a newbie to learn some trading. Stosh
Matador: The ES is really not a good contract to play at night with, if you must trade with real dough at night, try out one contract of the 6E or EC (EuroFx futures). Keep an eye on news releases in EURUSD, and you will see plenty of volatility. BTW: markets are all closed tonight for The Feast of Garotas! el surdo
It follows the pivot points very well at night from what I've seen, and it's fairly easy to tell when a move is starting because you'll get a surge of volume. I think someone probably just owns an algorithm that starts pushing it in a direction by putting a large bid or ask out there, then small guys have to up the bid/lower the ask to get a piece of the action, so the direction is forced that way, then they dump it when it gets to where they want it or when they give up or at a set time (don't know on that one, but there's usually another volume surge at the end). The action during the Japanese market's lunchtime is fairly consistent.
I just noticed your question was "Who typically trades ES after hours?" I really don't know where the bulk of the trades come from. I hope there is someone on this forum who knows if it is mostly individuals or if there is much interest from hedge funds, foreign banks, any big traders. I doubt if anyone has ever studied this but I am curious. Stosh
I'm on now and most b/a size is between 10-40, but occasionally I'll see an ask size of 1000+... whoa