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This room will provide ALERTS to trading in the futures market. I will provide areas I am taking a trade from with my Take Profit (TP) and Stop Loss (SL) prices. YOU can only decide when is the right time for YOU to enter a trade.
Alert Times
8am-2pm EST (Monday-Friday)
- CL (Crude Lite/Oil)
- GC (Gold)
- NQ (Nasdaq 100)
- ES (S&P 500)
When searching for a micro of these products, put an “M” in front, so MES is the Micro ES. Also the letter and number after the future contract is telling you what month we are currently trading in with the digit of the year behind that. We always trade the month or quarter ahead of where we currently are. If we are in June, we are trading July for CL/GC and Sept for ES/NQ.
- CL- Changes every MONTH (Jan-Dec)
- GC- Changes every MONTH (Jan-Dec)
- ES/NQ/YM- Change every QUARTER (March, June, Sept, Dec
Futures Markets are open from 6pm-5pm EST Sunday-Friday. Each day the trading stops at 5pm and resumes at 6pm. Some brokers will only allow you to trade until 4 or 4:15pm, so make sure you know when you have to be out for the day if for some reason you are taking a trade late into the afternoon. Once the futures market opens up at 6pm it is a whole new day until 4/5pm the following day. The Indices (ES/NQ) take a half from 4:15-4:30pm each day. Then they resume until the normal futures market close at 5pm. The futures market is closed every weekday from 5 to 6pm.
- Japan/AUS markets open at 8pm EST
- China markets open at 9pm EST
- London markets open at 3am EST
Long (buying in hopes it will move up).
Short (shorting in hopes it will go down).
Lot/Contract – Quantity of contracts you are taking (similar to shares)
TP (take profit)– My goal/profit in the trade where I will be taken out of the trade with profit if it is hit.
SL (stop loss)– My “risk” in the trade where I will be taken out of the trade with a loss if it is hit.
Tick (this is each time the commodity moves one movement, up or down, on the price ladder. So Oil from 24.93 to 24.92 is a TICK). Point/handle (whole dollar amount so ES from 2623.25 to 2624.25)
Line in the Sand (LIS)- A very strong level, both as resistance and support.
B/E (breakeven) This means after I am green on the trade due to my TP 1 hitting, I will move my stop loss to my entry price of the trade (breakeven) this way, if my second position comes back and doesn’t move further to hit my TP 2, it will be taken out at breakeven or no loss to me. This protects the gain I made on the first position.
www.fxstreet.com/economic-calendar – I check this every morning for important reports that could be coming out and/or speeches that may be happening throughout the day. I filter by the USA and make sure I am on the correct timezone.