The Painful Truth Futures Traders Are Discovering About Normal ‘Momentum’ Trading Strategies

And what kind of price momentum you need instead — to win in today’s Futures markets

On the surface it was impossible to believe it was fake. It had to be real. There was something special about the now infamous psychic Maria Duval.

After all, the letters she sent appeared to be handwritten. They had personal details about their life. It seemed as though she was talking directly to them.

It was all a trap. 

A simple way to turn a buck through basic mail fraud. In fact, it was one of the longest-running and almost unstoppable mail frauds in history. Think Bernie Madoff, except with 60 times more victims around the world with most of them living in the US and Canada. 

Right now, millions of day traders are heading towards a similar trap. Usually with small accounts, they unknowingly venture into the futures market of their choice hoping to make a few simple trades to make a few bucks.

Their plan? Simple.

Just take the strategies they’ve used trading stocks and apply them to the futures market. After all, there’s enough volatility. There’s enough momentum. They should be able to clean up. Right?

Yes, of course. Except for one fatal detail.

What they don’t realize is that they are flying in the face of massive institutional price action with sudden and certain loss to await. This price action doesn’t look like anything they’ve seen or encountered in any other market.

It operates in bursts. It can be very difficult to spot

Make no mistake:  Institutional price action and the momentum it creates is the very fuel that profitable day traders need to keep their daily income engines running smoothly.

The difference between consistently profitable traders — and those that crash and burn? They understand how momentum works in a futures market — and more specifically, how to spot it when it appears.

Doing this allows them to bag huge profits on a daily basis — without ever having to care about…

>>  Where price is at and whether it’s up or down

>>  What time frame they’re dealing with

>>  How much margin they need to ‘ride the wave’

All of those worries are in the background — if they exist at all.

Why?

Because momentum trade opportunities happen with such regularity and liquidity that you can take advantage of them even if you…

>>  Have a small account

>>  Haven’t been trading for a long time

>>  Are a scalp, continuation, reversal trader (or any combination)

That’s the beauty of institutional momentum.  

If you’re on the right side of it… you can use it to your advantage in any time frame, in any futures market.

Chapter 1:
Wall Street’s Not-So-Little Profit Monster
Who really drives price momentum in every market around the world.

It would only cost $40. In exchange you got the world. Every time you asked, Maria Duval would give you lucky numbers, talismans, and solve your life’s problems. Of course, if you needed anything more, she would be there to help.  Tell you your future? Not a problem. Just pay up.

The promise of getting so much while paying so little was simply too much for millions of victims to pass up.

It’s the very same opportunity that lures most amateurs into futures day trading.

Yet, the moment they get in, most have no idea what they’re dealing with the second they enter a trade. They are blown away when institutional volume appears without notice or warning.

It’s the institutions that are driving price — not the traders sitting in their living room toying around with a contract or two.

With one entry, they can push the market wherever they like. When they roll into a position, they’re doing so with hundreds, sometimes thousands of contracts.  

Their colleagues? They’re in on it too.

They have full visibility as to what kind of volume is entering the market — what it will do to price, and how they should respond for profit. 

These are the opportunities for profit that every trader is looking for. This is when price goes on a run… a burst of power.

For most amateur traders this simply looks like market chop. Impossible to predict. Impossible to trade.  

Check out the below ES chart during the primary cash session when all the money gets made.

In less than three and a half hours, there are four massive momentum bursts.  Entering with just one contract per trade holds the profit potential of around $4.2K depending on your entries or exits.

Of course, timing, risk management and exits are all huge factors here. But for the time being — let’s acknowledge what many traders only see after the fact.  

There is a ton of profit to be bagged if you can get on the right side of these momentum trades.

If you’ve traded stocks, options or even currencies — you already know that momentum is critical for driving big profits. What you may not fully realize is how, or even why, the dynamics of momentum differ for a futures market.

Herein lies the dangers that doom many amateur traders hoping to cash in.

Chapter 2:
Hidden Dangers For Futures Day Traders
Account-clearing disasters that await with stock indicators and strategies.

The victims thought that they were actually developing a friendship with Duval.  That the psychic’s predictions were for their eyes only. In reality, they were dealing with a team of trained scammers that were cranking out thousands of fake letters a week.

And the money? They forked it over every time. And they did it over the course of 20 years.

If you’re heading into a futures market with a stock-based strategy and/or indicator, you’re in for a similarly rude awakening.

Momentum takes a completely different form in futures.

The difference between the two?  

If you’re trading stocks or options, you’re looking for long periods of build-up.  Sustained volume that has well established support and resistance levels. Big moves take place over the course of days, weeks and even months.

They’re easy to spot. Easy to enter. Easy to exit.

Supporting this, you have an unending array of indicators like Stochastics, MACD, and oscillators of every make and model that lead you to believe you can spot changes in market momentum.

This very logic leads to the downfall of many accounts and trading careers.

Why? The volume dynamics are simply different in futures.

For a futures day trader, the momentum trades you’re targeting take the form of short bursts of price action that occur over the course of minutes — maybe an hour at the most while the institutions steer price wherever they want.

If you try to apply long-term stock strategies in this environment you’ll create entries that have the ABSOLUTE worst of both worlds. They’ll be LATE. And they’ll be at the WRONG PRICE LEVEL.

In the end, this approach ends up robbing amateur traders of their two most precious resources — time and money.

These intra-session accelerations and decelerations, during the course of a day’s trading, are almost completely impossible for traditional stock, options or even currency tools to detect.

Check out this NQ chart. In just a 105-minute period, there are over 10 momentum zone triggers. Of course, you could argue that this is because you’re looking at a 1-minute chart… but in reality it doesn’t matter what time frame you happen to be trading.

We’re not talking about general price ranges here. In order to fully take advantage of momentum entries — and low-risk exits — you need momentum zones that are dynamically plotted on your chart.

These zones? They need to be plotted to the tick.

And once you see them? It will change your momentum trading strategies forever. They will serve as a clear landing strip for profitable trades that you can repeat over and over.

The key is to understand exactly what futures momentum zones are telling you about your entries and exits — and how you need to apply them for any time frame you might be trading.

Chapter 3:
Spotting And Profiting From Momentum Zones
How to stalk, enter and trade with momentum zones in any futures market.

For a long time, authorities assumed that Duval didn’t exist. That she was a fictional character made up by the scammers who happened to be based in Hong Kong. In 2016, they finally found her on an estate in the south of France.

Apparently, she was hiding in plain sight. You just had to know where to look.

The same is true with momentum zones. You can tap into these institutional moves simply by stalking the entry and exit opportunities they present.

You simply need a tool that’s calibrated to track the unique volume dynamics that take place in any futures market — and you can bag easy entries and exits in short periods of time.

How?

Think of your prototypical support and resistance trading. And then add x-ray vision. And a dollop of octane fuel. And voila! You have momentum zones. Put another way… if you know the exact levels at which the institutions are going to step in — you can plot easy entries well in advance.

For scalpers, this means that you can spot all of your entries and exits for every session in advance. We’re talking 10-15 high probability trades per session. If you prefer to wait on position or swing trades — you’ll have your pick of 4-5 trades per session.

The key?  

Knowing what price levels to stalk. And what fake-out levels you need to drop. And the beauty of it all? Momentum zones can do it all for you.

During any given session, the institutions are pushing price and then pulling it back. As an intra-day trader — this shows up in the form of clear, easy-to-trade reversal and continuation trades.  

For instance, check out the below ES session. Sure, you may have spotted the price extremes at the top and bottom — but would you have really known where to enter? And how long to stay in?

And how much confidence would you have had in your targets?  

If you’re like many amateur traders the answer would be a resounding… ‘not much’. And for good reason. Without a clear sense of the macro momentum zones — you have ZERO context with which to plot your entries.

In this particular two-week window, there are four momentum zones to monitor. Of course you have your two reversal zones. And then there are a series of continuation zones where you can either trade the breakout, or scalp the infighting as the institutional buyers and sellers wage war.

And the dirty, filthy little secret within each of these zones?

You can profit from every single one of them, every day. You just need to know exactly where to pull the trigger. Because within each of these macro zones you have MICRO momentum bursts that you can take advantage of.

Check out this ES tick chart. Again, it really doesn’t matter what time frame or view you use. Note that we now have both our MACRO reversal and continuation zones plotted. And within? You got it. There are MICRO momentum bursts. Triggers. Opportunities to enter.

These are the moments when the institutional traders open up the throttle and add a little more fuel into the market to drive price. THESE are the moments you want to take advantage of.

But carefully. We’re not looking to blindly enter with each of these MICRO Momentum Triggers. We’re simply looking for the ones that have confirmation with the MACRO levels. Oh, and there are more than a few of them.

They’re impossible to miss. When the micro and the macro levels overlap, it gives you the confirmation you need to stalk and then make an entry. Of the micro bursts that you see in any given market, there are only a handful that you’ll actually want to trade.

For this session? Using a longer time frame? There are three confirmed trades.  Two reversal opportunities at the extremes and one continuation entry. Sure there are trades within the chop — but those are low probability.  

Perhaps it’s time to leave the guessing, stress and losses to the rest of the amateur trading public that’s willing to chase those entries.

The rules for entry and exit are easy.  

As price approaches a MICRO trigger within a MACRO momentum zone, get ready to make your move. Keep an eye on volume for confirmation that the institutions are entering, and ride along. If you’re trading with more than one contract, prepare to scale into your position as price advances and the action is confirmed.

Use your regular stop loss protocol to manage the risk, and plot your target at the next micro trigger if the price action pattern seems unclear to you.

Here’s a NQ session with two very simple entries and targets. In this instance, you can use the micro bursts that don’t overlap with a micro zone as your guide. These are perfect levels to either exit — or peel off a contract or two to lock in profits. If you see a larger continuation pattern unfolding — push your stops up to those levels to dynamically manage your risk.

As you can see, there will be no shortage of micro momentum triggers to work with. The key is to remove any and all guesswork with confirmation.

Fortunately, there’s a simple, ridiculously easy-to-use solution that will help you master momentum trades for any market — in any time frame.

Chapter 4:
Removing Guesswork From Momentum Trades
Have high-probability trades plotted directly to your chart — automatically.

Authorities investigated for decades and in the end, the scam was easy to spot.  The information used to create the supposedly personalized letters was all available online. Access to the victims was purchased through databases that were developed to prey on the weak.

When CNN finally caught up with Ms. Duval, they found that the ‘all-knowing’ psychic wasn’t quite so powerful after all.

The same is true with institutional volume and the momentum zones they create.

You can pull the curtain of mystery back and profit the moment they take place.  

In fact, you can remove the guesswork altogether and have these trades automatically plotted to your chart.  

That alone isn’t quite enough. In order to take advantage of the profit potential these trades hold — you also need a full suite of momentum trading strategies and tools that you can deploy. This is critical because the market conditions will vary from one session to the next.  

You can’t roll into one momentum trade with the same exact reversal or continuation setup. You need to be able to adjust your strategy — based on where the institutions are driving the market that day.

It’s this very formula:  Automatic Plotting + Custom Strategies + Tailored Tools that will eliminate the:

>>  Costly Second-Guessing that kills quality entries

>>  Early Exits that limit profits or even add to losses

>>  Frustrating Losses that come with momentum fake-outs

The best part?  

You can take advantage of this system trading only one contract per trade — in any time frame — in any market you choose.

Welcome to Momentum Zone Pro. The complete set of tools, strategies and step-by-step guides you need to transform your trading.  

You can get in and get out. Over and over again. With confidence and confirmation.

Check out this two-hour session in the NQ. There is almost $600 in profit potential on the table… there for the taking.

Or if you prefer longer position trades, here is the same ES chart we looked at earlier with $1,400 profit over two days!

It’s time to trade with the big guys and win. Add momentum trades to your chart. Apply the step-by-step momentum trading strategies you need to take advantage of different market conditions.

Watch your profits take off while the rest of the market falls for the hoax of confusing, losing market chop.