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During last 6 months or so I started to observe extremely low volatility in MNQ intraday trading and very structured moves.
Last year there was some up and down and everything was happening quite fast. This year majority of the time it is like watching the paint dry. I really dont mind it as it makes much easier for strategy creation, but it feels like there is very strong market manipulation. Market makers are manipulating markets by definition and this did not prevent in the past of some really energetic moves happening really on the fly. This year it is like everything is deliberately slowing down thus discouraging scalpers and short term traders to wade in. Is this my own personal impression or somebody feels the same way ? Or it may be an effect of ever increasing AI and bot trading ?
I don't really like talk of "market manipulation", it seems to always be an excuse for poor trading. Yeah volatility has gone down, it can be pretty boring. No, I wouldn't say it's the result of AI or algorithms. We were in a period of unusually high volatility and are now reverting to the mean. Check out the weekly 14ATR of NQ going back 5 or 10 years.
As someone who exclusively trades NQ, this decrease in volatility is something I have been worried about for months, and unfortunately I cannot provide a solution. I've been looking into Crude, but would need to pay for another month of Investor/RT and dig deep into the stats to work out a strategy. Nothing else looks promising, maybe I'd have to move to the DAX/Nikkei or currency markets. Not sure. Nothing really beats NQ.
Personally, I still feel that 3-5MNQ is more than enough to get what I want out of the market, so I wouldn't say NQ is too slow just yet.
Au contraire, mon general. I could not be more happy with this watching-the-paint-dry behaviour of the market and I do maintain that market are manipulated by definition. By market makers, proverbial Wyckoffs operators , big or smart money you name it.
Though if this is what is to be expected from the market I am all for it. As somebody who started from the period of high volatility, I assumed that thats how things are usually looking, and was scratching my head expecting those crazy up and down bounces characteristic for last year to return. So no complains on my part. Thats for sure.
Pull up a 20-year weekly chart with a 20 week percentage change and see that NQ is typically somewhere between 0 and +20%. End of December was -18% and end of July was +33%. Now it's 13%. So less volatile, but far more typical.
The market is always changing. Adapt or die. If you noticed it then trade it.
Should you do more positions?
Longer holds?
Options?
Keep scalping ?
What's the big deal..
Ur talking about mnq may e just do lots in the nq.
I have noticed more vacuums in the micro time frames which usually means more games or less liquidity but it is what it is
Sometimes rainstorms have lightening and sometimes they don't
Sometimes flies land on your food and sometimes they don't
Just trade and don't worry about it. Finding new mkts seems silly if it any good at trading now or mnq. There is plenty of liquidity in both. The boys will gladly fill your orders 5 lots 10 lots 20 lots 100 lots at a time. Not a problem.
It is not as easy to trade short term as it was a few months ago. That I agree... Yes it is ai and algos gaming you. They are your counter party and they know what the open interest is to the second prettyuch so they will try and crush you quickly. Rarely lately do any short term trades go my way instantly which is what they used to do in the nq.
I traded 20 lots tonight and found that my edge is still working.
Good observation though and yes anything you believe is probably happening.
As mentioned I am not complaining one little bit and I am also of the opinion that it is trader job to adapt to market conditions and not vice versa.
I am not time frame afficionado. All my strategies are geared and based on RENKO of different sizes. Sometimes it may just take a bit longer to form a bar , thats about it. All in all I could not be more happy with slowing down as it makes my strategies work even better. So for me, the slower the better and I really dont care about bots, semi-bots and their impersonations, open/close interests, committment of traders etc.
With regards to markets, as was mentioned MNQ/NQ rules. Though in current slow moving pace adding MYM would also work as it moves even slower.
But its good to hear that my observations have some objectivity in it.
Just wanted to hop back into this thread to add that today is the kind of day on NQ which has been driving me insane. No direction, just slow grind, grind, and more grind. I am still turning a small profit most days, but it truly is like watching paint dry. I'm looking more into trading the first hour and maybe /CL to try to get more out of each day... The other side of the coin is when NQ moves TOO fast and you can't get a decent entry.
I disagree. I trade bonds, mind you...so even today ES is like a coke-fiend in terms of speed, compared to t-notes and bills...
Last year was abnormally high volatility. Current volatility is in-line with historical. If your strategy worked last year, but not this year, rework your strategy or add a new one that is for this market...
Experience in trading comes down to how quickly & effectively you can adapt to market changes. That's the skill yo master.
Thanks for sharing experiences though my post was specifically related to MNQ and to less extent to MES and even lesser MYM. I have no experiences with bonds and thus will refrain from any comments related to that.
I am just surprised that some conclusions about success or failure of my strategies were derived from my personal observations that at no point asked for advices of what to do and how.
As a matter of fact things that were barely working in last year high-volatility environment started to really perform in current settings. So my only question when this bonanza will stop.
I have no clue what is happening with bonds, but with MNQ market changes every day, though there are some day of week commonalities widely known to everybody.
