11:30 Inflections

23 nov. 2020

Years ago when I was learning to trade and studying under my mentor he told me that day trading was best done in just the 90 minutes from 10:00am EST to 11:30am EST. This makes a lot of sense.

The 9:30am to 10:00am opening time is very volatile for stocks. Traders are rushing to open or close positions before many have made their decisions to put orders into the book so price can swing wildly. This could present opportunities if one were on the right side of them but finding consistency within this time gap is more challenging.

Around 11:30am is getting close to lunch hour but more importantly when the European markets close. The logic is that trading is about to decrease as traders take a break. More importantly though with the close of Europe there will be less volume coming from across the pond.

In my Discord I have often been asked "when should I take profit???" which is a question I always avoid. Every trader is responsible for their own trades. When this question comes up though I will share the wisdom of my years which is "look for an exit around 11:30am". "Not always" but "often enough" this is where price will tend to do an inflection. It is a simple timing mark to watch and it does in fact work as a good guideline.

LLY was a good example of this. The 11:30am timing element was amplified by the fact that it was also a Friday meaning not only was Europe closed for the day but also closed for the week. LLY is an international company so there was undoubtedly international trading going on with the stock.

Now that you've seen it remember to take note of this timing element in your own trading!