Index Trading on the first 30 mintues 8:30 - 9:00

Statistically speaking,on average, how many minutes are required on market open before market (DJIA, NDQ, SPX, and all eminis) take clear direction of whther to fill or not to fill the gap ?

My personal experience (not statistically) is 10 mins, before first ten mins market is usually undecided of whether to go up or to go down but I am still new and learning . I might be wrong, your comments please.

Thx!

Why do you want to know the average time until the market fills the gap. It might fill the gap within 10 mins, it might fill in 5 hours, it might fill in 4 days or maybe if there is a strong trend it doesn't fill that year at all. The average of these times is not going to give you something meaningful. But besides that it depends on the size of the gap surely.

When I first began looking into gaps, I had seen the statistic that a high % of gaps on the dow get filled in that day, and so it seemed like a good bet (I think it is less successful on mondays or fridays). But unfortunately it is not so easy to take advantage of this precisely because some of those gaps could fill in the afternoon, and by then your stop might have been hit, or if you have a wide stop, the time that it doesn't fill is going to be a heavy loss.

I'm sure that some people can play the gaps successfully, but perhaps they are using it in conjunction with Support+Res or something else.

Its clear to me that this play is clearly one of the very very best plays in the market. The gap actually often peaks very early often at around 3 - 4 am west coast time, then it can works its way back up or down over the following hours. Sometimes this can take an hour, but often it really gathers pace at the open of the cash. This simple stuff works so much better than all the paid for bs.

Exacty what I mean . In the past I sepnt too much time learning a lot of methods ... I am now beginning to understand that .... I maybe only have to concentrate and learn 1 method that is relatively most understandable to me in order to be profitable. I am going to focus on gap study and won't trade until I master it.

To Garth, is there a logic behind of why the gap often peak at 3-4 ? How about liquidity issue outside of US regular hours 8:30 - 3:15? Is it adviseable to play emini outside of 8:30 - 3:15

What is the best time to short or long a big gap , on pre-market or after market open at 8:30?

corei said:

Exacty what I mean . In the past I sepnt too much time learning a lot of methods ... I am now beginning to understand that .... I maybe only have to concentrate and learn 1 method that is relatively most understandable to me in order to be profitable. I am going to focus on gap study and won't trade until I master it.

To Garth, is there a logic behind of why the gap often peak at 3-4 ? How about liquidity issue outside of US regular hours 8:30 - 3:15? Is it adviseable to play emini outside of 8:30 - 3:15

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If you don't mind me coming in on this. I think that the first hour of trading can be very profitable. I've tried it, delayed, after a long time, because of traders who say "No, not until an hour has passed". In fact, I passed on too many things that the gurus advise against doing and I say "If you are sure that you can afford it, with minimum stakes---it's worth a try"

My beef is that it is very fast and I'm too old to be bothered. Just be sure that you are mentalised to do it.

Good luck to you.

Split

write a program & you'll have your average.

Will this make you $$$ ? Probably not.

As I see it - there really isn't a gap at all. All that happens is that at the open, the index catches up with the futures/current sentiment. You can know well ahead of the open whether there will be a gap up or down. In fact, I would say that with almost 99% accuracy, you can tell whether it will be a gap up or down day.

Also remember that in addition to futures trades, there is stock trading executed via the ECNs whilst the market sleeps. Prices move here but the common man can't trade the stocks at these times. You don't see the indices updated as a reflection of this ECN trading OR the stock orders placed before the open from places that are awake when NY & Chicago sleep.

This ability to predict the gap may not make you any money though. Let's say that at 9:29am the futures are down 200 points from the point they were at when the markets closed. The market is going to gap down. As soon as the market opens - 9:30:01 - you short the DIA or SPY ETF. How much will you make ? Well, by the time you get filled, you will not make $$$ from the knowledge that the market gaps down.

Fact is - between the ECNs & the futures - on a gap down the market may just well be in a very normal downtrend and may bounce back up, wiggle about or continue just like any other move.

Are opening gaps really gaps or just continuations of trends based on overnight trading futures, ECN stock trading & pre-market trading ?

corei said:

Exacty what I mean . In the past I sepnt too much time learning a lot of methods ... I am now beginning to understand that .... I maybe only have to concentrate and learn 1 method that is relatively most understandable to me in order to be profitable. I am going to focus on gap study and won't trade until I master it.

To Garth, is there a logic behind of why the gap often peak at 3-4 ? How about liquidity issue outside of US regular hours 8:30 - 3:15? Is it adviseable to play emini outside of 8:30 - 3:15

What is the best time to short or long a big gap , on pre-market or after market open at 8:30?

Click to expand...

You won't master it because there is nothing to master. Do a search in google for "trading the opening gap" and you will find 100's of articles on the subject. What you ought to be doing is developing a deeper understanding of how the markets "work" so to speak, then you will be able to develop a winning methodology.

purple freak