Never Sell A Quiet Market:

China and the U.S. are set to sign the trade deal Wednesday and the Trump administration lifted the currency manipulator tag ahead of signing. This created a very positive atmosphere for stocks. AAPL closed up $6.63 at $319.96 and TSLA closed up $47.49 at $525.64. Stock buyers were paying above the offer all day long.  

Friday’s weak close ended up being another big buying opportunity. After settling at 3265.75 the ES made its Globex low on the open and rallied all the way up to 3284.50. On Monday’s 8:30 CT futures open the ES traded 3273.00, made an early low at 3268.00, rallied up to 3274.50 and then back and filled under the vwap for the next two highs and then rallied up to 3281.00, going into 10:30 am. After the high, the ES traded back down to 3276.25 and then rallied up 3284.50 at 11:17 CT. After another small pull back down to 3281.50  we rallied back up to 3283.75. The ES then sold back off a few handles down to 3280.25 and then up to a new high at 3285.00.

At 2:00 the ES traded 3284.50 as the early MiM showed $400 million to sell. At 2:30 the ES traded 3283.00 as the MiM showed $279 million to sell, traded 3284.25 on the 2:45 the final cash imbalance remained $279 million for sale, traded 3288.75 on the 3:00 cash close and settled at 3289.75 on the 3:15 futures close, up 26.25  handles or 0.80% on the day.

In terms of the ES’s overall tone it was very firm. Part of this had to do with the trade deal getting signed this Wednesday and the other part was all the shorts getting squeezed and the final part was all  the short calls being rolled higher. In terms of the ES’s over all trade, total volume was LOW, 940,000 futures traded with 161,000 of that volume coming from Globex.