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

This topic is almost dead so I am going to CPR it. Here are my recent opening bell trades I took. Shall try to post it every day at the opening bell.

12/22/2009
08:30:10 BUY_MARKET 1111.50
09:11:08 SELL_LIMIT 1115.50

12/21/2009
08:30:03 BUY_MARKET 1104.00
08:33:32 SELL_LIMIT 1107.50

12/18/2009
08:45:01 SELL_LIMIT 1098.00
09:36:04 BUY_LIMIT 1094.00

12/17/2009
08:45:50 SELL_STOP 1097.75
09:03:34 BUY_LIMIT 1093.75

My profit target and SL is 4 pts from the close of the 8:30 candle(9:30est)I do buy market orders.

That would be cool to follow this again over time. I think we "spoke" about data issues and this method/system. I'm not sure how to resolve that. That's a nice string of wins....have you been trading all the signals for the past few months? I'm wondering about the string of wins/ losses drawdowns...you know all that good stuff system folks use...LOL..Thanks AK1

Bruce

Guru you are right, folks do a lot of stuff. That is why I shall post all trades live as have no intention of misleading. Rest it up to those who follow. As far as the signal/data feed/ statergy goes, shall post it in detail but first lets prove that the system works live.

long today at open

SL taken out.
08:30:15 BUY_MARKET 1116.00
09:01:14 SELL_STOP 1112.00

Today position at open is long

08:30:02 BUY_MARKET 1118.25
09:03:45 SELL_LIMIT 1122.25

today we go long

Originally posted by ak1

today we go long

Pretty long wait today for an exit, ha, ak1.

seems like anyone who is following along with this should do a thorough analysis of the losers too.....perhaps there is a common denominator to the losers i.e. maybe the five minute bar that precedes the open gives a clue....or perhaps as my friend David reminds me of the markets ability to try and reverse an overnight trend.....not really sure as I'm not a system trader......thanks for keeping this real AK1

thank you stockster.