Market ProfileA way of reading the market that recognizes either time spent or volume traded at a particular price level. A market profile can be either made up of “TPO’s” (time price opportunities), or volume. TPO’s measure how much time was spent at a particular price, while volume-based market profiles measure how much volume traded at a particular price. Generally, market profile is used in the trading of futures, especially the /ES. ShadowTrader utilizes volume based profiles. Value Areas and POCPoint of Control, also known as the "fairest price to do business". It is the price level in the /ES where the greatest amount of volume in the prior RTH session traded. ShadowTrader measures the POC using volume but the traditional way is to mark off the widest point of the day's distribution where the most TPO's printed going across from left to right, indicating that that was the price where the most time was spent. It's important to pay attention to both the volume POC and the TPO POC. figures for /ESH7 and /NQH7 Futures are posted free every morning HERE. Click on any posts in the list on the left pane to see them in the main window. Don’t click on the ST logo as it will just refresh the page and you’ll get only the topmost post over and over. Click on the title or text.

Value broke away from the prior day’s range yesterday but didn’t move out of the larger balance area. Volume was very low, and prices reversed intraday to close at the lows. Not a sign of high confidence.

Currently futures trading up 5.25 (8:48am EST) and will have us opening within balance on overnight inventoryA way of measuring overnight activity in the futures market by just noting how much of the overnight activity happens to fall above the prior day's settlement value (4:15pm EST close) and how much falls below. If more activity is above the settlement, then overnight inventory is said to be net long. If more is below, then it is said to be net short. If all of the overnight activity is above the settlement, then it is said to be 100% net long. If all of the activity is below the settlement then it is said to be 100% net short. The overnight inventory situation matters most and has the most impact on early trade when it is skewed 100% in either direction because when the imbalance is very large like that then the odds of an early correction increase greatly. This is due to the fact that most... that is 100% net long. The play this morning is to watch closely early if that situation will correct itself through lower prices, if not, the play is long.

I believe there is still the holdout for Dow 20,000 which missed by a scant 20 points yesterday (and less on a prior day). As yesterday was the first trading day back after the Christmas holiday and volume didn’t increase at all, this tells me that larger players are waiting for the calendar to flip before committing to anything more seriously. I expect more of the same action we’ve had for the next three sessions.

Have a wonderful day,
peter