Best Times of Day to Trade the Futures?

[StevenSJC 10]

I posted something similar in the Forex thread, but since I trade futures as well, I though it made sense to discuss this here as well.

 

My question is -- have you determined the very best hours in the day to trade futures, market dependent I realize?

 

I know in my trading it has shocked me how different the results can be using the very same strategy, at different times during the day. There are pockets of time that are quite profitable, and literally an hour later the same exact approach could be a total dog.

 

For example, I have traded Crude Oil Futures quite a bit and realize that from about 8:50am EST (New York) to 10:30am is the sweet spot. 10:30 to 11:30 is "ok" but definitely the results fall off -- and if I have some success in the 8:50 -10:30 zone I should stop trading after I hit some objective -- because the good trading conditions seem to be immediately followed by a consolidation - many times I quite just in time.

 

Curious if any of you experience similar? I know when I've traded the Russell e-Mini if I started exactly at 9:30am EST I did FAR BETTER than literally starting just 5 minutes later at 9:35. I always though it was better to wait right at the opening but turns out that was wrong advice - at least in my trading.

 

How about you? S&P? Dax? Nasdaq futures?

 

The good news is I think we can find ways to spend a lot less time and make more money -- if we can have the discipline to just s-t-o-p trading - and that's a whole other topic :crap:

[Studog 10]

In fact Steven, I would venture to go a little further with that hypothesis.

Its important to find a market, any market that has the volatility and depth you are looking for, at certain times to facilitate the trading method you want to implement.

You may want to di even a little further and consider the bar timing that works. I am currently using 2minute bars for entry on a particular market and 1 minute bars for exit.

This method works well on THAT particular market with my preferred methodology.

However, it doesnt work so well on other markets.

There are many reasons for these scenariosand the length of time for which they exist.

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will show you that consistency is the key. Methodology is key and finding the mkt and timing that matches your risk, money management and entry and exit scenarios means that consistency in results is on your side.

All questions happily answred

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[Tams 20]

shills, shills, shills, more shills.

this is really turning me off...

James would have shut this down before anybody noticed.

sigh... time to look for a new forum

Moderated Message:

Hello, just report them if you see it - we jump on those and remove the URLs and have already contacted this poster -- anyway, just let us know and we'll keep the forum clean -- but, sometimes the initial post is going to happen, but collectively we'll work together and remove - thanks for the heads up.

Edited May 6, 2010 by Tams

[tjnoon 10]

Oops.. Sorry guys. Somehow I thought I was posting this in our sponsored forum regarding the UTA. My mistake, although it is pertaining to best times of day to trade, it wasn't my intention to post in this section. -- TJ

[frank123 10]

best times ? the close time ...

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-bTt7zZ9ug]YouTube - scalping live trading dax wall street futures stocks[/ame]

[cuttshot 11]

StevenSJC,

 

I would agree that the open of the equity session is the best time to trade the index futures. With the volatility that we have seen over the past number of weeks I have been able to get done with my trading within the first 30 minutes of the equity session on most days.

 

The mini nasdaq (NQ) has been a market that has caught my eye here recently. Starting right at the open at 930 EST has produced some really nice results. Of course the many gaps that we have seen lately have helped out. I would say from 930-1100 EST is going to be the sweet spot for futures.

 

The TF is another market that has been on fire lately. Again the first hour of the session is key to trading this market.

 

Something to keep an eye on is an 11:00 EST reversal time. This is something that I have kept an eye on since my stock trading days way back when. I'm typically done trading by this time but if for whatever reason I'm trading later into the session I will look for this 11:00reversal.

 

Finally the afternoon session on the index futures tends to be very streaky as far as movement goes. When it's on it can produce some nice moves but when the market slows down it can be like watching paint dry. Of late I have found coming back at 2:00 EST has given some nice results. Don't know how long it will last but it's been giving some nice movement.

 

Cuttshot

[StevenSJC 10]

Cuttshot

 

Great points.

 

One thing I like to do as well is keep an eye on ATr average true range. When it goes above average and the $Vix is up I know afternoon trading will be good. Not to mention the sweet spot you call out in the morning.

[cuttshot 11]

Good idea StevenSJC. I'll have to keep an eye on that. My problem is that I don't feel as confident in the afternoon session. I would much rather get things done in the morning so I can focus on my swing trades in the afternoon. However, when the afternoon sessions heat up it's hard to ignore the big moves that we can see as we head into the close.

[AmCan1 10]

I like to look at the pm session as a seperate session altogether. I lower my goals and trade a bit more modestly. If I could come back and get a winner, I'm happy with that. I begin looking for my setups at 12:40 est. Also, I'm more inclined to trade the pm session if I didn't end positive in during the am. I have found that the pm session tends to improve my overall daily result most of the time.

[cuttshot 11]

amcan do you change your time frames/tick intervals for the afternoon session? you said you treat it as a seperate session so i'm curious if you use a completely different system to trade it than you do for the morning session. Do you reduce your size at all? Do you trade the afternoons consistently or every once in a while? I'm still a little iffy on how streaky the afternoons are.

[Tiobingo 10]

I like the pm session too. Sometimes I like to sleep in.. lol..

[AmCan1 10]

Cuttshot, I don't change anything. I find my method to be equally robust during the pm session. In fact, given all through May, which was great for me during the am, I actually achieved a slightly better winning percentage during the pm by about 2.5%. Now though, I'm finding that I have become a lot busier with the other things I am into so I limit my pm trading to those sessions where I don't finish positive in the am. The effect is the same. The pm generally improves my overall daily results, most of the time.

[cuttshot 11]

thanks amcan. I completely understand. It can be very difficult to trade both the morning and afternoon sessions. Thats why I try to get done in the morning as much as possible. However, today was another example of why its hard to ignore the afternoon session. Missed another big selloff. I'll just have to continue to look into it.

[TimRacette 11]

I'd have to agree with that. I've tracked the profitability of my trades over the years for all times of the day and for ES and 6E trading 3-5a EST and 8-11:30a EST I've found to be the highest probability times to trade.

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Thanks for the input Tim.

 

I think it's interesting, over the years as much as I've tried to "test" my way to proving different timeframes are better -- I always come back to the same set of hours no matter how much I try to prove differently.

 

MMS

[TraderWill 11]

I find the best trading for index futures is typically in the first 30 - 45 minutes after the open. If the early session is choppy however then 11am EST often sees some nice breakout moves. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

 

Regards.