Index Futures

Intraday Index Futures are showing a bit more strength building, especially in NASDAQ and Russell 2000 futures, to a lesser degree in SPX futures.

Really not much has changed from yesterday's EOD opinion, I think there could still be an attempt to hit the pivot high targets that the NDX and R2K missed, but there's not much beyond that, thus I'm leaving the 3 short trading positions (QQQ May puts, VXX May Calls and SRTY long) in place, however I'd like to add to those in a bigger way, I just have felt since yesterday that we'd get some downside action, but not the specific move we are looking for yet with those targets still open.

I'd have to say that overall, today was a lot of what I'd call noise, there's nothing really to do as far as trades unless you are a very short term day trader and even then it's not a great environment, but the moves are being made to shake things up, to get some movement in the market, we don't need to react to that kind of stuff, just where and when the edges/probabilities appear.

 This is the 1 min NASDAQ futures chart mentioned above, but it's not really all that impressive as nothing has reached a 5 min chart...

/NQ / NASDAQ 100 Futures 5 min overall negative.

If there's something going on today, as I said I think it's moves that create movement among traders and that's why I said I thought the triangles were not random, but deliberate.

I'd be looking for a Crazy Ivan shakeout, a triangle is a perfect price pattern to use a Crazy Ivan because the movement from long to short or stop outs is so minute, it's basically whether price is above or below the apex of the triangle which is a very narrow range.

Technical Traders see this triangle and expect a break lower to start the next leg, a Crazy Ivan shakes out both longs and shorts by moving above and below the price or technical pattern that traders are concentrating on, the triangle in this instance.

The Crazy Ivan would be the yellow arrows, a move to suck in shorts and then stop them out as price moves above the apex and brings in longs, then price fails and the longs are taken out as well creating extra downside momentum as their selling provides more supply than demand can suck up.

We will see shortly, but right now is a time for patience and let the market tell us when and where to take additional action, this is not a time to try to force a trade. The overall bias is still bearish, but those targets do remain unfulfilled.