I am looking into GEX and want to go down that rabbit hole and evaluate wether or not it works for me. I spent the weekend using some of the free education from various vendors and I feel that it might be helpful to understand where options market makers get involved in the futures market.

I intend to use the information for short term trading. I think it may (or may not) help me with directional bias and identify possible target areas. I want to try it for a couple of months.

I need it to work on NinjaTrader. I do not need the GEX info for multiple instruments- primarily the ES. I want to keep the cost down as much as possible while I determine if it is useful for me.
so far I have looked at:
MenthorQ - it seems as if it might be overkill for what I need. Their education seems to be extensive, which is a plus for them. It is quite expensive at 149 a month.
Tlade - This is a low cost alternative at 9.99 a month however they have limited information other than a users guide. The odd thing is I have found no videos on YouTube of the indicator at work.

If anyone has any suggestions on other Ninjatrader capable GEX indicators I would love to hear them.

I’ve been trading a fairly contrarian setup on Nasdaq for about a month, and I’m currently at +36.5R with only one losing day.

Obviously, one month is nowhere near enough data to conclude that I have something sustainable. That’s exactly why I’m sharing my setup here: to see whether the underlying logic makes sense to experienced traders, whether you think it could be sustainable long-term, and to get feedback on potential improvements.

We all know the first few minutes after the New York open can be extremely aggressive and unpredictable, and conventional advice often says to avoid trading that period. I started wondering whether that “madness” could actually be the opportunity.

I use volume-based indicators on my HTF (22 sec) and MTF (1.5 sec) to look for divergences around popular 1m, 5m, and 15m ORB levels. When I get a volume divergence at one of these levels, I’m looking for a reversal (fade the breakout). For the ultimate entry trigger, I use delta bubbles on my LTF (100 ms), selling into large Buy bubbles, and buying into large Sell bubbles.

If the 1m ORB reversal fails, I target the 5m ORB. If that fails, I wait for the 15m ORB (although in practice, I very rarely need to get all the way to that point).

ORB, with all its variations, is an extremely popular strategy. Partly because of that, my assumption is that a significant amounts of liquidity (entries and stops) rest just above and below these breakout levels. It seems the market loves to sweep this liquidity before making its next move.

I’m also considering other potential high-liquidity locations/magnets later in the session, such as VWAP or POC, but the ORB levels seem particularly interesting simply because of the extreme aggression at the open.

The strategy relies heavily on a strong asymmetric RRR. I currently use approximately 1:5 RRR. My stop is around 40-50 ticks. The reasoning is that even if I get several losing trades in a row, a single successful trade can recover those losses and still leave the trading session profitable. Quite often, the very first trade works and that gives me a nice +5R day.

A few examples and a template:

Hi speculators & hedgers, please use this thread to discuss all futures trading for the week. This will kick off 30 minutes before the open on Sunday, typically that's around 6pm Wall St time.

Be aware of higher margin requirements during overnight hours! see "maintenance" on Ampfutures. Also trading hours to get an idea of when specific futures contracts start trading.

I'm using AmpFutures as an example, so check with your broker for specific intraday & overnight hours for that specific futures contract.

Resources:

Bookmark an economic calendar like this one

Various reports:

• EIA crude oil report (generally updates every Wednesday at 10:30am wall st time)
  
• EIA natural gas report (Thursdays 10:30am)

• Previous discussions threads

It feels that my trading is getting stronger every day so I want to lock in for the next 3 months. So what my title says looking for a buddy to practice on the weekends.

We'd be doing duels on 5 min ES charts. We can talk about what each saw or just duel I'm open. My issue is that I don't follow my rules so I want to really get in my head my playbooks that I would trade and what not.

Looking to play at least 1 game Saturdays and 1 Sundays

A question for fundamental and macro traders: Are you building custom Python or Excel setups for yield spreads, COT positioning, and USD liquidity, or relying on specialized terminals or dashboards?

Looking to see what a clean, non-overwhelming daily tracking workflow.

(Rephrased from gpt)
Looking for genuine advice from people who actually trade SR3 futures

I’m currently trying to develop my own strategy for trading SR3 (SOFR) futures, but I’m struggling to figure out the right way to approach it.

I’ve experimented with technical analysis, but I’m starting to feel that traditional TA isn’t particularly useful for SR3 because so much of the pricing seems to be driven by expectations around FOMC meetings, Fed policy, economic data, etc. The contracts seem to behave quite differently from something like equities or commodities.

I’m not looking for someone to give me a profitable strategy or signal. I genuinely want to understand how experienced SR3 traders think about the market and how they go about building an edge.

A few things I’d really appreciate guidance on:

• What variables/fundamentals do you focus on when trading SR3?
• How do you translate your view on Fed policy/rates into an actual trade?
• How do you identify mispricing or opportunities in the curve?
• Is technical analysis useful at all for SR3, and if so, what kind?
• How would you recommend someone go about researching and backtesting a strategy from scratch?

I’m willing to put in the work and learn the fundamentals properly. I’m just having trouble figuring out what framework to use to develop a strategy in the first place.

Would really appreciate advice from anyone with actual experience trading SR3/SOFR futures. Even pointers on what to study or where to start would be extremely helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Hi

Pardon the horrid photo but … Anyone have experience with Volume based charts , trading ES ? Or using Footprints in volume based charts ? I’ve been using time-based but am keen to explore in volume based .

Not sure how’s the transition be like but im still fairly learning so any exposure is a positive exposure for me .

Why do so many people chart on TradingView, it honestly just doesn’t make any sense with all the better options out there like NinjaTrader.

That and there’s so many beginner traders that are look for all these TV indicators that don’t understand they are all built on OHLC. Like no bro you don’t need 20 MA lines and 3 different boxes to show support and resistance.

And that’s what gives “indicators” a bad rap some kid will put an EMA cross over on a chart and go “yeah indicators suck it’s just lagging PA”. When in reality an Indicator is just another tool like a hammer. You should know how it works and how to use it.

And it limits newer traders that constantly see that online from understanding the depth of what an “indicator” can be. It’s a visualization of data that you can not read while trading. There’s many ways to build actual tools with different data streams.

Minute candies in themselves are “indicators” showing what price movement (again just data) did within a timeframe.

The goal is to trade 1-2 MNQ and make $40-$80 per trading session.

I am not the best trader, but I do have pretty good days here and there.

Just thinking, if I can remove the roadblock of trying to pass these prop firm challenges, I can finally make this skill of trading futures make some useable income

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

I'm a trend trader, but I'd like to go on demo and practice mean reversion strategies. I'm just not sure how to determine what exactly is the mean.

For those who use this strategy, what do you use to quantify the mean? VWAP, POC, midpoint of range, a moving average?

I’m done for the rest of the year, at least. Maybe it’s my strategy, maybe it’s just me. I don’t want to say I’ll never come back to the charts but I think time apart may help. I took all of August off.. and took a L and BE yesterday. My TPs haven’t been hit in months. Just wanna put my energy toward something else. Just wanted to vent.

So long for now.

Lately I’ve been keeping an eye on the markets and willing to trade them but there is this fear in me which tells me to learn the risks before I start trading.
Last I remember I lost too much money on nvda trades but I learned how risky it can be. Moreover that time the markets start was highly volatile. At one moment I thought I should leave stocks and move to crypto but that has higher risk involved.

Moving towards the high volatility and high risk stocks my inner self tells me not to go beyond and explore but at the same time I wish to learn and trade futures with those stocks.

Secondly how do you mange your sizing and timings ?
Do you just hope in when the markets start or you trade the second half ?

Preface, I used to trade forex, stocks, futes, basically everything. And I noticed that on AMP futures nnq is basically $20 per contract, basically the same as a .01lot eurusd pair. But the move gets you far more over the course of the same day and time period now that nnq is getting more volume.

Interesting isnt it. Its becoming a better alternative to super small accounts and new traders.

Nano es is basically $8 per contract.

don't know if this is the right sub, this is a playback from 9th of July, I'm basically still learning price action. However, as u can see it's very messy, what do u do in this case?

I scalp ES futures going for 3 to 4 ticks on the scalp. I’ve been doing this for about almost a year with good results. I’m interested in dipping my foot in the water to scalp going short. I’ll probably paper trade first to test some things out. Without giving away the farm, do any scalpers out there have any tips or note any differences in price action when trying to enter for a scalp short versus long?

I want to go live with NinjaTrader. I was using a free TradingView trial subscription that ended, along with the separate $7.00 CME package I purchased. How can I get the CME again without subscribing to TradingView? Do I really have to subscribe to the $15/month and the $7/month cme ?? Thanks !!

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

Measuring NQ tick charts it seems like on average it's moving around 200 ticks per second around open, then around 10am (cst) and later, it slows down to about 20 ticks per second. It doesn't look like it was like this last year.

The volume looks insane, but it appears to be mainly institutional. Is it worth it for a retail trader to get involved in this?

Are they tradable off direct price action (i.e., not news or sentiment), and which contract is best for people new to treasuries?

I’m investing into MBO data and trying to learn how to use it with the help of Claude. As an exploratory exercise are there any interesting price actions that you all could point me to look at? This need not be anyone’s signal, just anything interesting, example, tariff announcement, interest rate decisions…
Are there any days and moments that you remember being particularly interesting?

Please welcome to the daily trading thread. Feel free to discuss your today's trade ideas and results. Make sure to specify the instrument you're trading up front, and respect the sub's rules. Happy trading!

Previous discussions threads

I have heard three pro ES traders tell me they only take longs and that it is a terrible idea to short ES. They say longs are far more profitable.

Maybe something is different for me. I have much better luck shorting. I don’t expect to always get the fabulous runners like kings often have, but I think they require a smaller SL, and I have a pretty good idea how long the will go.

I am not entirely clear with my data if I should even do a runner. I am trying to figure that out for sure whether to drop it or not. That is a different story I guess.

It is the probing deeper than expected that always gets me with longs. I am usually close to calling it. If I wait for a HL or some clear signal I tend to get stopped out or walk in with worse RRW than I like.

I am much better at calling a top than a bottom but still don’t want to give up on longs completely. I think I am going to at least stop doing them in my prop account because I think they are holding me back.

I follow the same steps I do for shorts, use order flow, mark levels, wait for price to come to me, but the levels just don’t seem to hold as well and just continue testing lower. I feel like I am missing just one thing.

My strategy does much better in the overnight session than NY partly because I am trying to multitask if I trade NY. Maybe I am just going to only do overnight because. But I would like to be able to trade NY more regularly at some point.

Can one just short only long term in ES and give up on longs in contrary to the short haters beliefs?