What is typically studied before the US jumps in for the Emini S&P? Is there any market news? Or a place that someone could point me in the right direction of what work to do before the open?

What is typically studied before the US jumps in for the Emini S&P? Is there any market news? Or a place that someone could point me in the right direction of what work to do before the open?

Check out some of the journals and specifically this one:

DTs Pre Market Prep Hi All I decided to move my pre-market prep over here. I tend to push this out on a forum, the Topstep indices room and a Skype group I'm a member of. I'd prefer this thread to be a place for anyone to post pre-market prep for any market. Not …

DT has a great premarket write up and is very detailed on the ranges.

Personally, I take a screenshot of the overnight movement, which includes the Asian and Europe markets, note the O/N range and if the market is long or short from the previous days close.

I check the economic calendar to see what news and reports will be hitting for the day and what time.

I also look at the other asset classes (/ZN, /ZB, /GC, /CL and currencies) to see what movement they've had in the O/N session.

I then make a determination if I feel the market stance is risk on or risk off in terms of equities and which way I feel the $$ will be moving in or out of equities, which directly relate to the futures.

I journal all of the above in to my trading journal @ https://www.tradervue.com:443/ and try to formulate a trading plan based on how I think the market will move for the day, at least hypothetically "Hypo's" to use a @FuturesTrader71 term.

And speaking of, FT71 he does a daily trader bite @ 0900, EST that is very helpful. I watch it daily, live, as he broadcasts it.

https://twitter.com/FuturesTrader71

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/user/FuturesTrader71[/yt]

Overnight action, world/other markets with different opening time, Bloomberg calendar. Very common reference is where the market is trading in relation to the open, prior close, prior highs, prior lows, etc. Also any programmed systems or systematic biases but that can be difficult to integrate. Some traders prefer to go into the markets without any bias. The differentiating factor as to whether it is more or less beneficial to have a bias is how well your day trading style aligns with such a bias. If you hold for the whole day then the bias is more useful but if you're just looking for a few points intra-day then such a systematic bias will often not be beneficial. In other words, if the dominant frequency of your trading style is not aligned with the informational frequency of your bias then it might not be relevant.

Traders like to trade off the open because the volatility is typically highest off the open. Traders need the market to move to profit from it. I figure most traders who trade the open are tape reading and trying to form a concept of what the day structure will turn out to be. If you can guess the day structure then day trading is rather simple. It relies on the simple knowledge that a trend day will tend to close near the high or low. Of course, it's not that simple because a lot of days are range days and markets tend to be highly mean reversionary on short time scales.

Tape readers, like myself, read the "tape" or time/sales or use specialized software like my AlphaReveal software, or Jigsaw, or Bookmap. For highly attuned traders, it is often possible to gain valuable information from this information. However, it is not trivial-- it never was -- but these days there are a lot of algos that are programmed to sell on new highs and buy new lows which makes for more frequent shifts in the tape. A lot of algos can be programmed in different ways but nonetheless end up acting in unison: so these algo traders aren't necessarily winning either. All the orders might come in at the same time. So think about it, in a downtrend.. you get a little bounce. All these orders come in and so your fill isn't good. But, if you are against the trend then your ability to exit is limited.

Some common patterns are: stealth selling days (open high and sell off all day) -- I call these stealth selling days because non day traders just tend to look at the close to close action and never understand that the markets sold off all day, opening drives, opening drive fake outs (very common these days), reversals, etc.

As an aside, the overnight range is probably more useful for determining the volatility versus actual direction. However that can be useful too. For single market traders, one of the goals is to trying to avoid missing something important. So, checking news is more about not getting hit when an important report comes out then trying to determine what the market will do. You want to understand what all the various market participants are thinking/doing.

If you are a multi-market trader, you might be looking for setups or trying to determine which markets will have the highest volatility or best conditions for trading.

Thank you for your post. Could you define what you mean by opening drives and drive fake outs?

Thank you for your help in this I will start looking at the links you posted.
What value do you see in looking at other asset classes? How do these determine which way you think the "hypo" direction will be?

You've received a lot of good info so far. I would echo what has already been said as well as advise you to expand on what tpredictor has stated and educate yourself on Auction Market Theory. Having a good grasp of this will enable you to gain valuable information while doing your "homework" before your trading day begins as well as while the day transpires. A good source for information is Dalton's book Mind Over Markets as well as FT71 who was mentioned earlier in the post. He has a wealth of knowledge on youtube that delves into Auction Market Theory and homework topics. Also, his daily traderbites as stated earlier are great at offering you a glimpse at what a pro trader looks at prior to their trading day. Good Trading to you!