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

Have been long at 1107 since ages now

why 1107 ? We have triples still down near 1106.50..FWIW

I have been in since morning as we had a higher close. I saw the triplesformed at 1310. Waited for 30 min and exited. Knew it would not go anywhere once the time window was up.

08:40:53 SELL_LIMIT 1105.50
09:00:39 BUY_LIMIT 1101.50

well done....perhaps you can elaborate on the fib retracement entry method when you have a chance...I know DT asked about it but I must have missed the answer......maybe a chart example from any day would be great. I think we have the filter down which is on fire these past 4 days....Thanks

We got a lower close at 8:30 est so short was the way to go. Put on the fib. for the overnight low high and entered

The filter is the easy part. I don't trade fibs but I'm sure many make them work. How do you pick which level ? We have the 38, 50 , 62 and 78%. Then we have the alternates etc...

I'd like to see some of the other systematic traders ideas too..I'd like to see some charts of the fib entries so we can follow it over time but I certainly understand if you don't want to take the time. It would be great to see if we can get some life and input into this thread.

Originally posted by ak1

We got a lower close at 8:30 est so short was the way to go. Put on the fib. for the overnight low high and entered

I use the first fib line(standard settings applied to overnight high and low) above or below the RTH open to go short or long. Keeping trading as simple as I can, too many filters too many indicators is not my style. Also I only trade once per day with a 4 pt SL/PROFIT. Yesterday was a lower close and again short was the way to go.

ak1, can you provide a summary of trading results about various "flavors" of "Trading the RTH Open" strategy that you have used over the past several months?

I traded the ak1 approach this morning 3/1/2010. I checked the overnight close versus Friday's overnight close and the direction was up. I used a FIB retrace on the overnight high and low and the first line above the RTH open was 1108,where I entered a buy. I entered a sell limit @1112 and a stop loss sell @ 1104. I made four points as my 1112 limit was hit. I hope I got it right or this may have been a coincidence. Any comments appreciated.

thank you stockster.