Traders, do a time and sales on this: “Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, Where Did the Volume Go” [UPDATED]
11:22:19 CT TRADINGDATA2: (driley) I think we are at or near the early low
No, it’s not the Seven Dwarfs singing “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho” as they dig deep and then come back up from their mine, it’s the S&P 500 futures and its friends the (NQM15:CME) and YMM15:CBT) singing the song too, down and then back up again. It’s an old song the PitBull and I used to repeat on the floor: run the buy stops and run the sell stops!!!
First off … no, we are not your normal run-of-the-mill read that most people go to for a recap of the day’s trade. And yes, it’s true I do not believe in watching CBNC, nor does the Street.com have much to offer me. They do what they do, but for a working trader, it’s pretty much worthless fluff. Yes, the S&P 500’s 0.50% advance was boosted by energy shares, but the real fact of the matter is all the little selloffs have done is add to the overall short positions. Over the last few days the S&P 500 futures have been “back-and-filling,” but that did not preclude an early morning selloff down to 2067.00. If we’ve learned anything about trading the S&P futures it’s that it must go down to go back up. I’m not going to do all the net changes of the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ futures today. Quite simply, they all closed higher across the board.
Overall trading activity has been at an extreme low. On Monday the S&P futures (ESM15) did a total of 938,000 contracts including Globex. On Tuesday the futures did 1 million contracts and on Wednesday the total volume was 1.2 million including Globex. The question traders must be asking is, where has the volume gone? Next week is the April options expiration and the end of the best six months for stocks. After that the old adage “Sell in May and walk away” begins to apply. Over the last couple years it’s become sell in June or July, but either way traders should pay attention to the seasonalities.
In Asia 7 out of 11 markets closed higher and in Europe 11 out of 12 markets are trading higher this morning. On today’s economic calendar: Jeffrey Lacker speaks, import-export prices, Narayana Kocherlakota speaks and the Treasury budget.
S&P Up 4 of the Last 5 Sessions
Our view: The S&P is trying to move higher. It’s all a game of stops, and right now the larger ones are on the upside. Provided that there are no negative earnings or economic surprises, we think there is a good shot at seeing 2090 to 2100 today or Monday. The problem with this right now is if you look back in the last week or so there have been a lot of up days followed by down days. Overall, Fridays have not been all that good, but recently they’ve turned better.
I’m just an old floor hack and I don’t pretend to be smarter than you, but if past price action is anything like it’s been, it’s going to be a good old short squeeze. Our view is you can sell the rallies and buy weakness or you can just be patient and buy the pullbacks, because that’s where the money trade is right now.
“Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, Where Did the Volume Go” [UPDATED]
https://youtu.be/uAZskZn3f64
April Expiration Study:
https://mrtopstep.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ExpirationStats_4.pdf
As always, please use protective buy and sell stops when trading futures and options.
- In Asia 7 out of 11 markets closed higher: Shanghai Comp. +1.94%, Hang Seng +1.22% , Nikkei -0.15%
- In Europe 11 of 12 markets are trading higher: DAX +1.48%, FTSE +0.42%, MICEX -1.09%, Athens GD.AT +1.06% (at 7:00 am CT)
- Fair value: S&P -7.21, Nasdaq -8.37 , Dow -86.85
- Total volume: LOW 1.2mil ESM and 5.6k SPM traded
- Economic schedule: Jeffrey Lacker speaks, import-export prices, Narayana Kocherlakota speaks and the Treasury budget
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