for much of the last few weeks, NQ will often set up one of my long or shorts and then just go dead off of the set-up. you don't necessarily lose money, it just corrects sideways rather than shooting the other way. if my set-ups aren't working with immediate and dramatic profits, then that is a lousy market
today did have 1 nice morning swing and then ended up a very weak 12 point narrow range day. I would like to see NQ go back to the 22-25 point range days with multiple 10+ point intraday swings. volume was up a bit today so I am anticipating some better swings tomorrow and beyond.
NQ is made up of choppy tech stocks that usually like to rinse daily swing traders out. IBD defines a 'distribution day' for nasdaq as a -0.80% day.. Tradestation shows that there have been 38 days this year where NQ has traded -0.80% vs previous days closing price (not distribution days with price closing that low, just trading down that far intraday).. this is vs ~130 trading sessions. So this kind of 'distribution day attempt' has happened on about 29% of all sessions, a significant number. We have now gone 8 sessions without a 'distribution day attempt' -- this is unusual lack of selling. maybe its a sign of extreme strength. but the odds at this point say we are overdue for at least a little 2-way action in the short-run. I don't need big down days to make good money -- just asking for a little bit of 2-way trading.