So I've been bearish on the biotech sector for quite a long time now as well as US indicies... Today I ended up covering my IBB/XBI shorts since the Dow couldn't break key support for the 4th time in a row and made a higher low. I thought I traded it well since I didn't get too greedy, took profits, and was open minded to acknowledge that the Dow made a higher low and could not break key support for the 4th time. Then After Market the market/Dow breaks key support on China/Yuan news, and of course I was getting my beauty sleep after a busy day trading today..WHAT is going on??? Am I supposed to be just trading the futures market nonstop or something to keep up to date with the smart money selling??
chalk it up to Murphy's Law. Though I believe that the Chinese currency devaluation may have further repercussions for the global economy resulting in risk taken off the books. It shows that China has no other means to push up demand for its products and that indeed rumors were true that the 140 billion USD equivalent in market support measures pretty much used up all the fire power the Chinese central bank had at its disposal.
Your biotech short was valid. Your trading seems pretty disciplined. Sometimes we do everything right and still hammers come out of nowhere. But to be fair, China, Greece, Rico have been distractions all summer and yes these countries are overnight and early morning venues. But once Sept arrives I have a feeling NY trading time and US based events will be the dominate trading influence. Because of Greece and China I started staying out of the market and doing investment reading, studying, research and back testing lately. PS...Oct may be a volatile month because of many events coming together around then (Fed moving, central banks pushing back, currencies blow-off, emerging markets breaking down, commodities volitility)
Thanks for validating my trade/analysis, feels somewhat good when I am still trying to understand more about trading/the market. Although I still feel biotech has a lot more to fall before we hit the true bottom. I was wondering if any other trader on here has experienced these large fluctuations based on global macro factors after market hours??? What usually happens after? During the first big move during Sunday night based on Greece 6/29, I did not mind since the market made a lower high on Daily charts and already was backing off resistance. Even yesterday when we ramped straight up, I did not mind what the market did after hours based on China news because we rallied on little volume to a resistance area. However holding key support during live trading hours and rallying into the close, to then sell off and break key support levels after hours seems somewhat unfair... I'll shutup until we see what happens premarket before open
All the time man. During the Greek thing the market was all over the place. Unfair? There is no fair in trading. If by key support you mean 2072, that's just one support, and I'm not sure if I'd say it's key and it was below this just 3 days ago. 2056-2064 on the other hand would be more significant... If anything it's at a more significant support area now. Just watch what it's doing here to try and determine how to act.
In fact this year (and many other years prior) the largest moves in equity indexes, interest rates, and currencies did not occur during US market hours. Why do you think most macro guys sit in London? It is the best time zone to trade a bit of each zone. In fact anyone who trades from outside the US will most likely attest that trading US markets in recent years is quite boring and uneventful. For most of non US based traders NFP numbers are a mere disturbance and not much more. And I still don't get all this ridiculous guessing of which month the Fed will lift rates. It's completely irrelevant. The fact that they will if or when inflation starts to pick up and when labor markets are stabilized enough (which they kind of are by now) and the trajectory is what matters not the exact timing. Aside that the moves in the US are little bumps in the road compared to what is really going on around the world. For example the slowdown in China and how it will deal with the slowdown to protect its powers is much more market impacting than when the US Fed will move it's rates by 25bps or so.
I don't think it's the timing of the rates specifically that's the issue it's the matter of IF they'll actually raise rates - and what might come along before the point if/when they do. With specific regards to timing, they've been jawboning that September area quite a few times now, so if they back off, it says something.
But during the selloff of the Greek fiasco, the market already gave clues beforehand such as making a lower high from its peak high/near resistance before a sell off. This time, the market held key support on /YM at 17306 almost 8 touches, and even made a higher low on support which promoted the market to rally for the remaining hours before the close. For whatever reason there were not enough sellers to push the price down when the markets were opened, and now on news and after hours...they break it down...LOL Gotta love em right? haha. As far as the ES it stalled on a somewhat fake support level(as well as NQ)...I couldn't figure out why the market wanted to rally from there but after redoing my charts, I found the levels they were looking at although it seemed fishy. Maybe something with the price action today will give me clues for the future fakeouts. Such as there wasn't any capitulation selling on volume. A lot of volume buyers and no sellers. Also not very clear support levels(except on YM), the TF was on a bull flag pattern support, ES in a intraday area from the 28th of July and NQ off recent lows......Who knows? Shrugs Volatility also made a lower high and /VX ramps up after markets closed.... I wonder if it's better to just trade after the markets are closed to join the big boys.
Hmmm that is a very interesting comment. I will need to look for more information on trading big moves for futures instead of US markets in US time zone.
I wouldn't try and find technical meaning or reason to this move. It's a reactive move due to international news. What you want to see is what levels hold (or don't) on said news weighted against the importance of the actual news.