<<During the overnight session (from a US perspective) it is the European & Asian markets driving things. Why not watch these rather than the overnight session? >>
I have the
DAX chart on my screen but my problem with it is just that I can't seem to make any sense of that chart. This is something that I keep saying is what I really need to work on. I just don't really understand the dynamics of 'time of day' and the
DAX. I would like to learn this but the
DAX chart is just a big choppy mess to me most of the time. I do plan on spending more time on this in the near-future as I agree with you in its importance.
In my view, europe does drive action on US markets before maybe 8:30am New York time but Asia is usually just reactive to what happened that day in the U.S. That is my opinion right now, Europe drives early morning, US takes over and then Asia responds to the US action. If asia does something dramatically different than what happened on US markets -- then that is significant -- but this seems to me to be the exception rather than the rule.
Admittedly, trading globex is not my strength -- I generally wait for the cash market to open before I initiate any trades. Part of this is that I have so much 'supporting information' when New York opens that I don't watch on
DAX... In US, I watch the adv-decline line, volume vs previous day, put-call ratio, VIX, TICKS, sector movers (brokers), upside/downside volume ratio etc... You also have confirmation between contracts (did YM/NQ/ER2 confirm a new high or new low) etc... All of these things offer clues.