Trading the RTH Open

The RTH Open (9:30 EST) is an interesting point of entry. To make money we need 4 things 1. Time 2. Price 3. Volume 4. Direction. One benefit of trading the open is that the trader has a forced entry as the time, price and volume portion of entry is taken care of. Secondly you can chose to trade once only and keep yourself stress free for the rest of the day. So all we have to look for is a profitable direction. Now the question is whether to buy or sell the 9:30 Open. Various options are 1) Trade in the direction of previous day RTH close (4:15 EST)(Gap fill theory). 2) Trade towards the previous days RTH Open (Volume is the biggest magnet). Trade reverse of the 9:29 EST candle i.e. if it is a Red Candle Buy and if Green Sell or reverse i.e. SELL for Red and Buy for Green. I look forward to your inputs

something I've been working on is actually buying or selling the opening range ( first minute) high or low...so far I've been trying to filter based on the volume cluster areas of the overnight....so if we open below one we want to be short and if we open above we want to be long...the key for me is that we have to move 2.5 points above/below the breakout point and quickly otherwise we need to stop and reverse at the opposite extreme....

Friday was an interesting day as we opened below the volume cluster after the consolidation from the report....it took out the high of the first minute and could not go 2.5 points up, so selling the low was the trade.......still a work in progress so be careful if following along

so far today, Monday June 8th...I have a high volume cluster at 931 in the pre-market so that will be the filter number.....I am partial to the longside in general. Selling the breakdown is not preferred by me but would look to fade that move if it happens in the first few minutes.

This is a work in progress so I may or may not be trading these...in general I am not a breakout trader and don't stop and reverse very well...

A few things I will always keep in mind based on probabilities alone:

1)The markets ability to trade back to the weekly and daily pivot...
2)The markets ability to trade towards the previous days Low or high if we open outside that range
3)The markets attempt to take out the previous days low or high if we open in the range
4) the markets ability to run the overnight low and/or high
5)The markets ability to break last weeks high or low if we open in that range on the first day of the week..

so How many will happen today? Sure wish I knew but still a good roadmap to work/trade for..
This 931 number at 8:50 e.s.t. has a daily s1 number there and the weekly IB of last week and we have lots of magnets to the upside...weekly pivot, daily pivot, previous days low sits above, the previous days close.....overnight high etc...VA low...so I'd be partial to the upsdie if we opened here..

Some may look at that and say that we have broken all support and sometime they will be right but I'll stick with the probabilities.....

we also didn't get any plus 2.5 or plus 4 number on Friday so I look to have one of those hit today too..

As you know I like the numbers from the open print so I'd want to make sure there is enough room between key numbers and the "window" off the open price....

Thanks Guru, if we can break the opening code then that's it. Set for life

"Guru"...lol.....if you like the open you may try to use pit noise......just an idea...that would probably drive me crazy...my house and mind has enough noise running through it...good luck today..if a report was coming out then a break down may be more likely but with out any real reason we may just go back to that 38 - 41 area...

quote:

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Originally posted by ak1

Thanks Guru, if we can break the opening code then that's it. Set for life

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Went short at open.

BINGO
08:30:28 SELL_LIMIT 934.00
08:44:55 BUY_LIMIT 930.00

Hey AK1...nice trade...why the automatic short? Well done indeed !!

Here is todays one minute from early on...we opened at 934 which was the midpoint of the overnight......I was thinking they would go for the 938 with a break of the OR high but when they took out the OR low and couldn't get it 2.5 points above the OR high then we need to be thinking where the minus 4 and the overnight low numbers come in to play....For me the OR and the probabilities of ranges being hit adds so much to the Pitbull three...."the window"...we know how aggressive to be for fades etc especially if certain probabilities haven't been fufuilled yet.....anyway here is the one minute with the OR lines snapped and the overnight low.....

Not bragging here but these simple probabilities provide an excellent framework....there is something to be said for typing things in so others can see them (posting on forums)...we had four out of five of these hit just today on Monday.....hell, I even printed this out and have it pasted on one of my monitors now...LOL

quote:

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Originally posted by BruceM



A few things I will always keep in mind based on probabilities alone:

1)The markets ability to trade back to the weekly and daily pivot...
2)The markets ability to trade towards the previous days Low or high if we open outside that range
3)The markets attempt to take out the previous days low or high if we open in the range
4) the markets ability to run the overnight low and/or high
5)The markets ability to break last weeks high or low if we open in that range on the first day of the week..

so How many will happen today? Sure wish I knew but still a good roadmap to work/trade for..

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Ok Ak1, I said this once...."no market can go from bullish to bearish without trading below the low of the high bar"

a fairly logical statement....but on that one minute chart I posted , notice how the 6th bar trades and closes below the low of the highest bar for that time period.......you can use this concept for entries in your chosen time frame....( the longer the better IMHO). You can incorporate the concept of lower lows for bear trends and Higher highs for bull trends....and notice when they change !

You may want to use a close below as the qualifier to hold the trade or to enter.......if/when you make a lower low on the next bar you place a stop above the previous bars high.....so it will take an OVB up to stop you out right away...hope that makes some sense

Bruce

Thanks Bruce, some very useful stuff. As with regard to using pit noise well the noise comes after the 9:30 est open and our attempt is to enter exactly at RHT market open and hold our position for a 4 point profit/loss. One trade per day and thats it. No messing with the market there after and no TAMPERING with the S.L OR PROFIT TARGET, even if we miss it by a tick. Forced entry , forced exit.

ok ak..why did you go short ? It seemed to me that since we opened in the midrange of the Overnight it could have gone either way

thank you stockster.