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I think this depends on what type of trader you are (scalper, swing, long term from daily/weekly charts, etc), what time you imagine yourself wanting to trade, as well as what time(s) bring the best chance/opportunity for your style of trading. I am short term / scalper, and look to trade from 8:30-11:30 EST most days. Originally, I also found opportunity in trading the last hour or so, 1:30-2:30 EST.
This is my $.02; and you may want to share more details on how you trade, where you are in your trading career, etc, which will help others give more personalized reasons as to why you should look to trade during certain hours.
Have a good week,
Gary
As consistently profitable traders.. "We get paid to wait, and we wait to get paid."
Thanks for your post.
Im a day trader,i use to keep a position from 30 minut to several hour,im using 30 minut chart.I dont have any experience trading CL live.
Currently I only trade CL during the last 15mins because it is the most volatile period, except for when inventory reports are released, which is a dangerous time to trade because of slippage.
Attached is a study I did last year. I queried my SQL database for the 1000 largest 1min moves in CL and got this. NOTE: I am in California so CL RTH for me is 6:00am - 11:30am
One question you have to ask yourself is when is the best time to trade. Do you want to trade when it's volatile or slow and steady? It depends on what type of trader that you are.
If you want to be in and out quickly then you'll want to …
The start of the London session can be some of the simplest and potentially profitable CL trading IMHO; although volume is quite light, liquidity is not a problem and spreads and fills are just like during NY. Quite often, there's a tendency for CL to mark a top or bottom for the freshly developing day around the 3am EST period (which is when FTSE/LSE trading starts); quite often, this involves the S/R of the still fresh daily developing VWAP; sometimes this occurs right at 2:45am EST, sometimes 3:15 or 3:45, as european equities have or are figuring out where they are going.
Correlation sometimes is present, other times CL does it's own thing, kind of based on what it did in the previous NY session. The London open and NY midnight open - as well as those same times from previous days - can be invaluable I find - this is what the BabyBlueLine indi is all about - check how frequently those levels serve to hold. I have the 1am to 6am EST period color marked on a 3-min chart, so you can scroll back through days of history and see what it tends to do over that time period; IMO London fairly often reverses/retraces what the NY session just did - that is a nice gift, when you can identify it. Again, developing VWAP is key I find and serves as fairly high reliabile S/R, at least for scalps, and often allows runners to be established; obviously watching for VWAP to be taken is important - I monitor flows via VVAggregatedTS + the GOM volume footprint charts.
Often during the London session, there is a tendency for a trend of at least 60cents and even a $1 of price movement to be established, which is already decent profits.
And, when the moves during London are on the larger range side, the dilemma posed by the start of NY or pit session trading is then dealing with things like whether London highs/lows will be tested, which often by definition are that 60c-$1 away. Along with the significantly heavier big boys volume, the NY moves of course can be quick and trapping - those 2 traits are very rare during London CL session, thus it is 'safer.'
The other big challenge I find with starting trading CL during NY is that if a good deal or more of the ADR has been covered, it is hard to judge which way and how much more ground is possible to cover in NY. Also, CL during London is more 'normal' and kinder; CL during NY is where moves can be of the rip-your-head off variety, and, too often when one occurs, it can be costly as big boys do their thing to the little guys - that essentially never happens during London. Hope that is of some help.
^ agreed.
For the original poster, 30min-several hours I think those are good guidelines. o830-1130 for trend and 1300-1430 for continuation or reversal.