One of the best features of the Whale Trail Indicator is getting early signals on economic news releases' sentiment. On August 23rd, 2022, a large Whale made an extraordinarily large buy of the 30 Day Federal Funds future contract with October expiration (ZQ 10-22) at a price of 97.030. Relative to all other Whale trades in the past and current trading day, this was definitely an abnormally massive buy, and with the PMI economic news due to release within the next hour, this Whale trade became a great early signal to other traders as to the sentiment in the upcoming news release.

Sure enough, at 9:45am ET (6:45am PT), the PMI economic news was dropped showing that activity was slowing. With activity slowing, the Fed's recent rate hikes this year appear to be working to slow demand. For ZQ, the price moves inversely to the expected Effective Fed Funds Rate (EFFR) for a contract month. In this case, the October ZQ 10-22 contract price increased to 97.065 reflecting a higher probability of a 50bp hike instead of a 75bp hike at the upcoming September FOMC meeting. Since the tick size for ZQ is 0.005 and each tick is worth $20.835, this could have been a quick trade for 4-6 ticks of profit per contract, or about $83-$125 per contract).

Even though economic news releases should be fairly distributed to all market participants at the same time, some Whales get their information early (of course), and that is what makes the Whale Trail Indicator so powerful and essential for successfully trading the markets. Test drive the 'Whale Trail Indicator - Unlocked' version with a Free Trial and see how having the right tool can analyze the order flow, simplify the market, and change your trading performance!

Happy Whale Watching!

The ES futures contract started the day with multiple counterintuitive trade setups that traders need to be able to recognize.

One example took place at 6:37am PT, or about 7 minutes after regular market trading began at 6:30am PT (9:30am ET). After a quick 8-point whipsaw upward for the September ES contract, the Whale Trail Indicator detected a large, aggressive buy. Prior to this large, aggressive buy, the ES contract was already trading above the normal fair value range for ES relative to the S&P 500 cash index value. Then, this Whale stepped in and further pushed the ES contract price outside of this fair value range creating a quick opportunity to short ES and capture a few points of profit until the ES contract fell back into a normal fair value range.

Remember, each point for ES is worth $50 per contract, so this setup could have been a quick and painless $200 profit trade per contract. However, only small Whales were trading for the next couple minutes as the price dropped over 10 points, so staying in this trade a bit longer would have produced great results for this short trade.

This setup begs the question: "Why would a large Whale buy at a price well above fair value, and how can I spot this if I'm not tracking fair value?" The answer is that these types of setups are traps for small traders and executed with algorithmic trading. Just like in the example above, large whipsaws almost always precede these setups. After the large and fast whipsaw up in price, the large trader pushed the price even higher and then started immediately liquidating and reversing into a short position. Given the high liquidity in ES, this trade is relatively easy to pull for an algorithmic trader. Additionally, after a large, aggressive trade smashes through the resting orders in the order book, a 'vacuum' effect is left in the wake of the trade. Since fair value was much lower than the ES price after that Whale trade, less bidders came in to support that high price, which made the price fall that much faster.

These counterintuitive trades are usually what cause new traders to fail, so having the right tools to help detect these setups are essential. Test drive the 'Whale Trail Indicator - Unlocked' version with a Free Trial and see how having the right tool can analyze the order flow, simplify the market, and change your trading performance!

Happy Whale Watching!

It seemed like Natural Gas (NG) futures were going to continue decreasing once 7:15am PT (10:15am ET) arrived. The NG futures contract decreased from about $8.520 to $8.405, which was a 115 tick drop.

However, a large Whale stepped in around 7:24am PT with a large, aggressive buy that set off an amazing reversal trade opportunity. This began the 80 tick increase over the next 9 minutes with constant signals that the Whales were still buying as seen by the small, aggressive buys throughout that period. 

With each NG contract tick value being worth $10, this could have been a real winner for our Whale Trail Traders with a potential gain of $800 per NG contract. This is another great example of the power of the Whale Trail Indicator's order flow analysis and "Big Money" tracking. 

Test drive the 'Whale Trail Indicator - Unlocked' version today with a Free Trial and see how having the right tool can simplify the market and change your trading performance!

Happy Whale Watching!

Although September 1st brought bad news for the S&P 500 e-mini, the Whales brought good news to traders since they showed the downward spiral during each and every single moment.

Throughout the trading day, the Whales incessantly drove the price down. The price was about $2174 around 6:30am EDT at which point the Whales began the long descent down to $2155. The exciting beginning to such a dramatic price movement is shown above in the screenshot. One after another, the Whales were making large sells and large, aggressive sells. It was a trader's dream come true as the Whale Trail Indicator intuitively showed exactly what the "Big Money" was doing. 

Days like these are plentiful and exciting for traders with the right tools. Test drive the 'Whale Trail Indicator - Unlocked' version with a Free Trial and see how having the right tool can simplify the market and change your trading performance!

Happy Whale Watching!

The price chart shown above was a perfect example of how the "Big Money" traders, the Whales, control the market. Notice that at the far left of the chart, the Whales were aggressively selling, so the price dropped. Then, they started buying again, which drove the price right back up to where it started.

Move to the middle of the chart where you see the price rapidly dropping. Notice you do not see much Whale activity until the price dropped a full 60 ticks ($0.60) over the time interval of noon to about 12:20pm. Then, you see a Whale make a large buy right before another Whale makes a large aggressive buy, confirming their intentions. Many traders ask how to spot a reversal. The answer is the Whale Trail Indicator.  As shown above, this large aggressive buy was the reversal. After this reversal, the price immediately increased 20 ticks ($0.20) in under 5 minutes and another 40 ticks through early afternoon trading.

Whether you day trade stocks or options, the Whale Trail Indicator is the answer that so many traders have been searching for: a tool that shows exactly what the large traders (i.e. the Whales) are doing so that they never make the mistake of going against the direction of the "Big Money."

Test drive the 'Whale Trail Indicator - Unlocked' version with a Free Trial and see how your favorite futures and stocks react to the Whales!

Happy Whale Watching!

This particular Friday (August 26th, 2016) when Janet Yellen gave her Jackson Hole speech was an amazing time to be trading. Crude oil, the S&P 500 e-mini, and the 10 Year T-Note revealed aggressive Whales' trades and their direction perfectly. 

I'll illustrate with the crude oil futures contract expiring September 2016. Remember, one tick has a $10 value per contract.

The above screenshot from the Unlocked Version of the Whale Trail Indicator shows how the Whales reacted to Janet Yellen's Jackson Hole speech: aggressively bullish from 10:00am to 10:24am EDT and then aggressively bearish from 10:24am EDT onwards.

That screenshot is showing all of the Whale Trail bars. Whenever I trade, I enjoy seeing how the large and small Whales are trading. However, my position is predicated on what the large Whales are doing (as seen in the next screenshot).

This screenshot shows the same chart but with the 'Hide Small Fish' option enabled. This allows me to see only the large Whales' trades, so it hides all of the small Whales' trades. It was so obvious that the Whales were buying due to the constant aggressive buy trades they were executing from 10:00am to 10:24am.

After the 120 tick ($1.20) price climb initiated with the first aggressive buy, it was exciting to spot the reversal and watch the Whales go from aggressively buying straight to aggressively selling right at 10:24am. The Whales proceeded to aggressively drive the price down just over 80 ticks ($0.80) in the next 30 minutes.

The fact that opportunities to go long and make $1,200 per crude oil contract in under 25 minutes and then turn around and go short to make another $800 per crude oil contract in another 30 minutes is amazing and very real. These opportunities to hitch a ride with the big money are plentiful, exciting, and occur every single day. 

Test drive the 'Whale Trail Indicator - Unlocked' version with a Free Trial and see how the Whales reacted to Yellen's Jackson Hole speech with your other favorite futures contracts or stock symbols.

Happy Whale Watching!