This may seem like a very naive question but it is one that I still struggle with.

I am trading the ES. I am constantly struggling with whether or not to try and find the turn, top or bottom, or to join the trend on a pullback.

What criteria do you use to determine if you should be looking to go short or long?

Thanks.

Seriously dude, just read the main ES SP500 thread:

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 Lame Ducks Both Fed Chairman Bernanke’s remarks yesterday and President Obama’s speech last night about his jobs plan; combined, failed to reassure the market that a solution to the country’s economic woes was at hand, and the …

And read my journal:

Big Mike's day trading method and advice Well this is a thread I've been meaning to create for a long time. It's not a journal of my trades. It's just a collection of thoughts. If you don't like them, then don't read them :) But the intention in posting to this thread …

Between the two, you'll see non-stop real-time trade calling as well as reasons behind it from some consistently profitable traders.

Put a little effort into it. Your question is basically "how do I trade" and it's ridiculous.

Mike

mks212 

This may seem like a very naive question but it is one that I still struggle with. I am trading the ES. I am constantly struggling with whether or not to try and find the turn, top or bottom, or to join the trend on a pullback. What criteria do you use to determine if you should be looking to go short or long? Thanks.

These kind of questions make me question your Advanced trading experience on your profile.

Wyckoff, The Law of Supply and Demand, and Auction Markets - Traders Laboratory - 15385

tturner86 

These kind of questions make me question your Advanced trading experience on your profile.

Lol, I just saw this. Yeah I think advanced may be a stretch.

With that said, we all start somewhere.

Big Mike 

Put a little effort into it. Your question is basically "how do I trade" and it's ridiculous. Mike

Thank you for the link Mike, but I disagree. If my question was "how do I trade" that is what I would have written. I have been in a few different trading rooms and none of them agree on picking direction. Some say wait for a gap between the prior day close and the current day open and fade the gap. Others say go in the direction of the gap. Someone else says assume the price will go back towards the VPOC of the prior day. The guy next to him says the same, but uses VWAP of the overnight session.

In other trading rooms, the guy that runs it constantly tries to call the turn. He will lose 20 ES points trying to call a top and the market just grinds higher. He is right sometimes also, but his approach is always the same note. Another trading room wants to wait for pullbacks to enter and exit. Sometimes your pullback is really the beginning of the move in the other direction and you get hit with a quick stop. And when it works out and you are waiting for a pullback level to be breached for your exit, quite a bit of the profit is given back.

With my actual question, I was hoping to create a discussion around these and other approaches traders use to determine which direction to take.

With regards to tturner86's observation, I will assume you are asking me to clarify rather than something slightly less positive. My trading experience is in options trading butterflies and iron condors, trades in which the actual direction is not as important as the magnitude of a move and when it occurs.