Yesterday, the E-Mini S&P 500 futures (ESH18:CME) sold off down to 2684.00 on Globex, and made a high at 2688.75 a few seconds before the open. A total of 76,000 futures traded on Globex. On the 8:30 open the ES traded 1 tick above the Globex high at 2689.00, and then sold off below the vwap down to 2686.00, and then down to 2683.75. After another small bounce, the ES made a new low at 2683.25, and then bounced back up to 2685.75. After the low, and a pop up to the vwap, it was like someone turned the lights out. The ES fell into a 4 to 6 tick trading range. We said volume would be a lot lower than Wednesday, and it was. At 12:00 CT total volume was only 320k.
The next ‘small’ move was back down to 2683.00, a new low by 1 tick. Total volume at 1:40 was 360,000. After the new low the ES traded back up to 2487.50 on the 3:00 cash close and finished the day at 2685.75, up +0.25 handles on the day.
There really isn’t much to say. The ES basically traded in a 10 tick range from 9:00 am to 2:50 CT, and then popped a little, and dropped a little. Some people would argue the point that volume was so low the algos weren’t playing. The only thing newsworthy was the price of Bitcoin shedding more than 11% in value after the South Korean government hinted at the possibility of a shutdown of the local exchanges.
In the end the S&P 500 futures (ESH18:CME) settled at 2685.75, up +0.25 handles, or +0.01%; the Dow Jones futures (YMH18:CBT) settled at 24,797, up 9 points, or +0.03%; the Nasdaq 100 futures (NQH18:CME) settled at 6446.25, down -7.75 points, or -0.12%; and the Russell 2000 (RTYH18:CME) settled at 1549.60, up +4.10 points or +0.26% on the day.
As always, please use protective buy and sell stops when trading futures and options.