Good Afternoon,

For those of you who did not read my post this morning, today was rollover day for all of the major indexes. What does that mean? Take a look at this from the CBOT:

Quick Facts about Rollover Day

The following applies to many (if not most) futures contracts especially those from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

• Rollover is 8 days before expiration.
• Expiration is the third Friday of each quarter month (March, June, September, December)
• The contract letter associated with each month is: March=H June=M September=U December=Z
• Rollover is on a Thursday.
• Rollover is usually on the second Thursday of the month but will be on the first Thursday if the first day of the month falls on a Friday
• Volume shifts to the new contract at market open (09:30 EST) on Rollover day
• New day trading or swing trading positions opened on rollover day should use the new contract month irrespective of when you plan to close it.
• New swing positions might be better opened using the new contract if opened within a few days of rollover day.
• Market myths abound at rollover and expiration. Check the source and confirm the probabilities before believing anything

So if you use Tradestation, the new symbol is @er2m08.d or if you are like me, I use the continuous contract symbol of @er2.d.

Now, on to the update.

The Russell 2000 gaped down 7 points at the open on news that the US dollar traded below 100 Yen for the first time in a long time. It sloshed around for a while before settling down for several nice long trades. Here are the charts for the first and second half of the trading day.

First Half Chart

Click on chart to enlarge. 

Second Half Chart

Click on chart to enlarge.

As a matter of fact, the market trended nicely from about 10:30 am CST, when it broke a trend line above the 56 EMA for the first time until around 12:30 pm CST, when it went into a wide trading range with large bars and a lot of tails. There were 4 valid set-up during the up trend. All were trader’s trick set-ups after trend line breaks above the 56 EMA. All made objectives in a matter of minutes. Here is the chart for the first four (and only four) trades.

Trades 1, 2, 3, and 4

Click on chart to enlarge.

So for today, there were 4 valid set-ups and 4 winning trades for a net profit of $800, ignoring slippage and commission.

Since today’s post is a little short, I decided to go over a question that I received a few days ago. The question was from Matt. He asked what trading platform I use.

A: That really is a timely question as I just changed over from Tradestation. I still use Tradestation charts and trade there 10 trades a month to cover most of my charting expense, but something happened to me when I was entering a trade at Tradestation about a month or so ago.  I clicked on my trading dome to enter a trade. Nothing happened. So I clicked again and was still not able to see any order.  So I clicked in again and then all hell broke loose. Apparently, even-though I could not see the orders on my dome, they must have been there because all of the sudden, I was long several contracts, and did not know where all of my stops and limit orders were. There were no orders showing on my trading dome but the P/L column was definitely moving and moving a lot. I finally called the trading desk and told them to close all positions and orders. They did and in the end I was up $30. A really scary 3 minutes. All that being said, I started searching for a trading dome that had an instant kill button. I switched to Infinity Brokerage and really love their dome. There is a button on my screen all of the time that allows me to cancel all of the open orders that I have as well as a flatten button that takes you out of a trade. So far, I love it.  If you want more information about this trading dome just e-mail me and I will give you the guys number to call. There is also a demo of the platform so you can play with it a bit the get comfortable with the platform.

So that’s all for today. I am going out of town tomorrow and will not be trading. I will be back late on Sunday and will get the updates out on Sunday evening and Monday morning. I hope everyone has  a great spring weekend.

Happy fishing tomorrow.

Best regards,

Ron

This is not a solicitation to buy or sell. 
There is a risk in any investment.