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First Hour of Trading - How To Trade Like A Pro - TradingSim
First Hour of Trading - How To Trade Like A Pro - TradingSim
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First Hour of Trading – How to Trade Like a Seasoned Pro
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pro.
ssuming you have either started day trading or are looking to get into the game, I am going to shock you in this article.
What I will cover would have saved me 20 months of headaches if someone had told me day one how to trade like a
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[1].
Recent studies have shown the majority of trading activity occurs in the first and last hour of trading Let me make this
easy for you, only focus on the first hour and watch how simple it all becomes.
The one time of day which consistently delivers on sharp moves with volume (https://tradingsim.com/blog/volume-analysis-
technical-indicator/) is the morning. Assuming you are doing this for a living you will need some serious cash. Day trading
(https://tradingsim.com/blog/category/day-trading/) isn’t something you should undertake with your lunch money.
If you were trading with a $100,000 per trade how much volume do you think your stock needs? If you are reading this article
the first response from you should have been what’s the price of the stock.
Assuming you were already thinking that, you need tens of thousands of shares trading hands every 5 minutes. Reason
being, you need enough volume to enter the trade, but also enough that you can potentially turn around in a matter of minutes
and close out the same trade you just put on.
Now that the market has opened. the first noticeable increment of time is the first five minutes. I have no study to back this
one up, but from my own experience and talking with other day traders the 5-minute chart is by far the most popular time
frame.
Within the first 5-minutes (https://tradingsim.com/blog/5-minute-bar/) you will see a number of spikes in both price and volume
as stocks gap (https://tradingsim.com/blog/day-trading-morning-gaps/) up or down from the previous day’s close. This will
often be driven by some sort of earnings announcement or pre-market news. This first five minutes is arguably the most
volatile time of day.
There is no defined range and odds are the previous day’s range has been eclipsed by the gap. With no clear boundaries for
where to go, to short or buy after the first 5 minutes, in my opinion, is nothing more than a gambler’s paradise. If you are
serious about your trading career stay away from placing any trades during the first 5 minutes.
https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/ 2/21
3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
Below is a chart of NII Holdings (NIHD) which is one of the more volatile stocks on the Nasdaq. NIHD gapped up on the open
to a high of 9.05, only to close at 8.73 5 minutes later. How do you think NIHD trended over the next hour?
(https://tradingsim.com/)
(https://tradingsim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/first-5-minute-bar.png)
First 5-minute bar
Let me not keep you waiting too long. All of you advanced day traders will say that the stock continued lower because the
stock had such an ugly candlestick on the first 5 minutes. Well, guess what, in this instance, you would be correct.
(https://tradingsim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/5-minute-reversal-bar.png)
5-minute reversal bar
Remember I am a day trader, so I already know what you are thinking. You are probably saying to yourself, well I can place a
buy order above the first 5-minute candlestick and a sell short order below the low of the candlestick. You may even take it
one step further and place your stop order neatly behind the high/low of the first candlestick to box in your risk.
This is nothing more than saying to yourself that you are going to gamble your money within a defined framework. While
using simple strategies increase your likelihood of consistent execution, this approach is too unpredictable.
9:30 – 9:50
The 9:30 – 9:50 am time segment will look odd to you because it is. Some traders will wait out the first half an hour and for a
clearly defined range to setup (https://tradingsim.com/blog/day-trading-setups/). I have noticed if a stock is going to head fake
you, it will often do it at the 10 am hour.
Another reason I like 9:50 as the completion of my high low range is it allows you to enter the market before the 15-minute
traders second candlestick prints and before the 30-minute traders have their first candlestick print.
After the completion of the 9:30 – 9:50 range you will want to identify the high and low values for the morning. The
importance of identifying the high and low range of the morning provides you clear price points that if a stock exceeds these
boundaries you can use this as an opportunity to go in the direction of the primary trend which would be trading the breakout.
Or you can go against the primary trend when these boundaries are reached with an expectation of a sharp reversal.
Below is another example of the stock NIHD after it sets the high and low range for the first 20-minutes.
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(https://tradingsim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/high-low-range1.png)
High Low Range
At this point, you have one of two options. Your first option is to buy the break of the 9:50 candlestick and go in the direction
of the primary trend. I believe when you see stocks b-line like this for the first 20 or 30 minutes, the odds of the stocks
continuing in that fashion are slim to none. I personally like a stock bounce around a bit and build cause before going after
the high or low range.
Your second option is to short the stock with the expectation NIHD will reverse around the 10 am time block. I am not a fan
because you are just hoping the stock will reverse, but there is no real justification.
So, looking at NIHD what would you do at this point? The correct answer is you should stay in cash.
(https://tradingsim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Range-Holds.png)
Range Holds
As you can see in the above chart, NIHD floated sideways for the remainder of the first hour of trading. Do you see how
sizing up the trade properly would have allowed you to miss all this nonsense?
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3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
9:50 to 10:10
The 9:50 to 10:10 time slot is where you will want to enter your trade based on a break or test of the highs and lows from the
(https://tradingsim.com/)
first 20 minutes. Now that we have already had our head fake example earlier in the article, let’s focus on one that follows the
happy path.
(https://tradingsim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/break-down.png)
Break Down
Notice how the stock was able to shoot down and build steam as the stock moved lower. In theory, waiting for a breakout
after an inside bar or a tight range will often lead to consistent profits. The key thing to remember is 9:50 to 10:10 is the only
window for opening new trades.
If you place a trade at let’s say 10:15 and you are trading the first hour, it only provides you 15 minutes to close your position.
Unless you are trading ticks, which I think is a sure way to make your broker rich, you simply don’t have enough time for the
market to move in your desired direction.
10:10 – 10:30
The last twenty minutes is where you let the stock move in your favor. This doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but if you step
back for a second this represents a potential of 40 minutes from the time you first entered the trade at 9:50.
Now there is no law against you holding a stock beyond 10:30, for me personally I allow my positions to go until 11:00 am
before I look to unwind. The key point is you get out of the mindset of letting your profits run. I honestly get visibly frustrated
when I hear people giving this advice to new traders.
In today’s world, there are way too many automated systems and retail investors all clamoring over pennies, stocks no longer
move in a linear fashion where you can sit back and place your trades on cruise control. The amount of head fakes and
erratic behavior is just over the top.
https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/ 5/21
3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
For me, a clear profit target is the best way to ensure I take money out of the market consistently. If you want to read more on
this topic you can check out any of the following articles: Day Trading Targets and Trading Plan – Key to a Successful Trading
Business (https://tradingsim.com/blog/trading-plan/). Each of these articles will clearly break down the importance of getting
in a rhythm of taking profits.
The last 20 minutes of the first hour of trading is not the time to hang out and see how things go. This is the time where you
need to be on the lookout for closing your position and you must have some idea of where you want to close the position.
I personally like to have a set percentage target that I’m shooting for while others may adjust this value based on the volatility
of the stock. It really doesn’t matter over the long run because you will adapt your trading strategy to your performance. The
key thing is making sure you are coming from a place of wanting to pull profits from the market.
11 AM is a Bad Time
Most of you reading this article will say to yourselves, this makes sense. I should trade during the first hour when I have the
greatest opportunity to make a profit since there is the greatest number of participants trading.
Since I trade, I know there are some of you reading this thinking, “I can make money all day”. This is a true statement. You
can make money all day. The only problem is the majority of people do not.
You will see that around 11:00 am the volume just dries up in the market. This is because the institutional investors and
hedge funds realize that there is far more work and risk to be had during the middle of the day than potential profits. The
resulting price action when the true stock operators are away from their desk is basically a lot of sideways action.
Stocks will breakout only to quickly rollover. Stocks will begin to move in one direction with nominal volume for no apparent
reason. Lastly, while there may be price movements, they are so small that after commissions and time spent fighting the
market it’s just not worth the headache.
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3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
Oh, how I wish I had come across an article like this back in the summer of 2007. I may still have a few strands of hair on my
head.
Think about it, in any line of work, you want to follow the most successful people. Don’t try to fight the market so you can tell
your family members and friends you were trading all day.
You are in the business of making money, not working long hours. If you think my experience isn’t enough reason to caution
you, Thomson Reuters did a study and have concluded that 58% of all volume on the NYSE occurs during the first and last
hour of trading.
So, we at Tradingsim wanted to see if that study would still hold up years later. We pulled trade/volume data for the NYSE for
one week to analyze the numbers.
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The first thirty minutes is on average twice the size of the 10 am to 10:30 am time slot. We did not perform a volatility test on
these times, but you can assume where there is that much smoke, there is a fire.
https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/ 8/21
3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
The trading volume by time slot visual was inspired by our solar system and it’s clear the first 30 minutes and last 30 minutes
are Queen of the Jungle! The one thing that was quite alarming is that the last half an hour is just monstrous.
(https://tradingsim.com/)
I’m likely going to write an article on this phenomenon because at the end of day volume keeps increasing over recent years.
To reinforce my point of not trading after 11, we compared volume from 9:30 to 11 and 11 to 3.
The simple calculation is 240 minutes/90 minutes, which tells us the midday time slot is 2.6 times greater than the morning
trading session.
However, when we reviewed the volume numbers for the week, the midday session was only 31% greater in terms of volume.
This my folks is evidence that if you are trading during the middle of the day, you will likely give yourself a major headache.
Reason being, you will need to find a needle in a haystack in terms of locating the trades that are going to move in such a dull
market environment.
If you get anything from this graphic, think of all the fun you can have from 11 am to 3 pm.
Walk your dog, hit the gym, get some beauty rest.
If you cannot resist the urge for whatever reason, at least hold off until 3:00. If you are day trading this presents another
dilemma as you should be exiting your trades at 4 pm. This means you have less than one hour to enter and exit your trade.
I do like the idea of having a set time to close the position, but you must yourself if you are really going to stay true to this rule.
If there is any chance you could start holding trades overnight as a day trader, then focus on the first 1:30 hours of trading.
There is more than enough action.
While volatility is required to make money, profitable traders have a limit of what they are willing to trade. It’s not to say you
can’t make money trading penny stocks (https://tradingsim.com/blog/list-of-penny-stocks/), it just requires enormous discipline
and money management to avoid blowup trades.
Me personally, I try to avoid stocks that are printing a lot of 2% and 3% candlesticks. Reason being, the stock will likely trip my
stop loss order before I am able to realize my profit target. Also, there is a greater chance I will end up in a blowup trade if
things go against me swiftly.
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(https://tradingsim.com/)
High Volatility 1
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High Volatility 2
You can trade volatile stocks, but you need to reduce the amount you invest per trade to limit your risk. If a stock is three
times as volatile of your average trades, only use a third of your normal size.
The reason I am touching upon these ridiculously volatile stocks is that they are available for you to trade. You need the
discipline to avoid chasing the big win because at some point it will result in the blow-up trade.
Well if you are buying a morning breakout (https://tradingsim.com/blog/day-trading-morning-gaps/), the pre-market high can
be your first target for the price move.
Conversely, if a key pre-market support level is breached, you can anticipate the pending move lower. Most platforms provide
the ability to include pre-market data on the chart if you look at your chart property settings.
This strategy has been talked about on the TradingSim blog quite a bit, but essentially you are looking for low float stocks that
have the potential to make big moves.
(https://tradingsim.com/)
Stop Looking for a Quick Fix. Learn to Trade the Right Way (https://tradingsim.com)
You can also trade big-name stocks, but you just need to be prepared to accept smaller gains.
The other method you can use for trading the morning pre-market data is to wait for the first pullback. This obvious advantage
to this approach is that you can lower your risk by purchasing the stock at a lower price.
Secondly, you have a clear exit target with the most recent high.
Now what you will miss by excluding the pre-market data are the trend lines and moving averages that provide support for the
pullback.
Pre-market breakdown
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You can in the above chart the clear run-up in the pre-market. Then you can see how the stock broke down below the morning
lows only to plummet lower.
(https://tradingsim.com/)
Now let’s take a look at that same chart without pre-market data.
Now you could say you would just short sell the break of the low on the 1-minute chart, but it’s now where near as convincing
without the pre-market data.
You are unable to see the clear range and hence would be operating on a hunch rather than clear patterns in the chart.
One thing that morning does not afford you is the ability to ignore stops. Think about the chart of the breakdown above. GBR
dropped from $12 dollars down to a low of $6.15 by 9:43 am.
This represents a total percentage drop of ~49% in 13 minutes! Take that in for a second.
Now of course if you had placed your stop right below the low of the pre-market range, you would have exited with a 10%
loss. Now that’s still huge but is nothing in comparison to 50%.
A Wall Street Journal article touched on the fact the morning has the greatest spread between what buyers and sellers are
willing to make a transaction.
The author Dan Strumpf states, “Rising stock-market volatility is proving especially costly for retail investors who typically buy
and sell stocks soon after the market opens—often the most perilous time of the trading day.” [3]
If you are trading the morning movers you will need to use 1-minute, 2-minute or 3-minute charts.
https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/ 13/21
3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
The action is so fast 5-minute or 15-minute charts will have you missing the action. Therefore, as the stock is moving in your
desired direction, take some money off the table.
(https://tradingsim.com/)
#3 – Do Not Worry About Guessing Tops and Bottoms
You will inevitably come to a point in your trading career where you will want to nail tops and bottoms. The reality is you will be
chasing a ghost.
The morning more than any other time of day is really difficult to call these turning points in the market.
Reason being, again the action is so fast. So, the best thing you can do is focus on making sure your profit versus what you
are risking is always greater and you give the market time to settle.
This way over a large enough sample set, you will beat the market.
But I strongly caution you against reviewing old trades and only focusing on the biggest winners. This will create a sense of
greed inside of you. A better approach is to track the profits and losses on each trade, so you can begin to develop a sense of
the averages you can hope to make based on the volatility of the security you are trading.
If you are trading low float stocks, you need to be prepared for the possibility of 6% to 10% losses. A classic approach you
can use is to place your stops below the breakout candle and even this at times can present mid to high single-digit
percentage losses.
I’m not saying this to scare you away from low float, but you should be realistic in terms of how much money you use on each
low float stock trade.
The other option is to use sub-one-minute charts (30 and 15-second intervals) in order to place tighter stops. If you really want
[4]
to go granular you can use tick charts in order to further manage the price swings .
As mentioned earlier, a 5-minute or even 1-minute bar could have you risking a sizeable amount of money.
In Summary
Hopefully, you have found this article useful and it has provided some additional insight into first-hour trading and some basic
approaches you can take in your day trading strategies (https://tradingsim.com/blog/category/day-trading-strategies/) to
capitalize on the increased volume in the morning session.
For all you history buffs, check out this article (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-brief-history-of-trading-hours-on-wall-
street-2015-05-29) which touches upon the history of the market hours. Can you believe back in the 1800s, there was no set
closing time!
Now take a minute and visit our site, Tradingsim (https://tradingsim.com) and check out how you can use our day trading
simulator to trade the first hour. You can toggle between regular session hours and pre-market to see all of the hidden levels
to learn which patterns work best for your trading style.
External References
1. Wigglesworth, Robin. (2018). The 30 Minutes That Have An Outsized Role in US Stock Trading (https://www.ft.com/content/9e1f05b4-43e7-
https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/ 14/21
3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
2. Bellafore, Mike. Midday Trading: How to Prevent Overtrading and Maximize This Trading Period (https://www.smbtraining.com/blog/midday-
(http://savefrom
url=https%3A%
4. Burns, Barry. (2017). Tick Charts Give You A Winning Edge In Day Trading (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTA2xXVqwQ8) chrome&utm_m
[Video].
TopDogTrading (https://www.topdogtrading.com/)
AL HILL
(HTTPS://TRADINGSIM.COM/BLOG/AUTHOR/ADMINTRADINGSI
M-COM/)
ADMINISTRATOR
Al Hill is one of the co-founders of Tradingsim. He has over 18 years of day trading experience in both
the U.S. and Nikkei markets. On a daily basis Al applies his deep skills in systems integration and design
strategy to develop features to help retail traders become profitable. When Al is not working on
Tradingsim, he can be found spending time with family and friends.
FOLLOW ME (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtQSrl7U9c0T88k1GdhV04A)
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Jorge
()
July 1, 2013 at 4:14 pm (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-145)
Hello, very interesting article written, but I like to know which hours GMT
Reply ↓
Reply ↓
Alo ekene
()
June 17, 2015 at 3:19 am (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-147)
Reply ↓
jacob
()
June 27, 2015 at 9:03 am (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-148)
But most of the time, stock reaches its daily high / low in the first 30 minutes and if you trade breakout , you see
the stock crashing and makes losses high.
For eg, if stock raises 1% and if you trade that breakout, stop loss is about 1% plus and may be the stock rises
0.5 % and crashes down.
How do you trade? I am confused.
Reply ↓
Cale
()
June 30, 2015 at 1:37 am (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-149)
Jacob. Try to start looking at dollars and cents rather than percentages. Focus on stocks under 75 and go long.
Look at finviz to learn how to fikter stocks and start utilizing trend indicators like MACD and pay attention to
volume as well. You’ll eventually have several I educators you’re looking at to help make the best decision.
Nothing wrong with shallow stop orders or knowing when to get out of a position (a lot sooner than down 1%)!
Reply ↓
Cale
()
June 30, 2015 at 1:40 am (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-150)
Great article by the way. This guy know what he’s talking about :-). Very informative.
Reply ↓
Rob
()
July 10, 2015 at 7:09 pm (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-151)
https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/ 16/21
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I’m a newbie and very confused about something. I understood this article in principle, but what I read didn’t jibe
with the charts I was seeing. For example, the third charted title “High Low Range” shows the range after 5 5
minute candles. That would be 25 minutes, yet the article says the high/low should be assessed after the first 20
(https://tradingsim.com/)
minutes, which would be after 4 candle, wouldn’t it? What am I missing here?
Thanks.
Reply ↓
Hi Bob – great catch! i think the point is that you will have a range established in the first
20 minutes. However, if the stock b lines higher into the 10am timeframe, you should
probably hold off, because a 10am reversal is likely.
Reply ↓
() Marcio
July 14, 2015 at 8:16 am (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-152)
great subject, argued and confirmed what I had expected.It took three months to realize this, but this did not prevent
some losses. the important thing is now up for lost time.
congratulations
hugs
Reply ↓
Reply ↓
() Garrett Melton
November 23, 2018 at 4:27 pm (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-1753)
What about when you were trading options? Could you write an article about that ?
Reply ↓
() Rick
January 5, 2019 at 12:06 pm (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-4581)
Great article. It also took me a few months to come to this conclusion. I read this article a few weeks into reasearching
day trading but disregarded article.
I should have listened.
Reply ↓
() Sooraj
January 22, 2019 at 11:42 pm (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-10770)
https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/ 17/21
3/2/2021 First Hour of Trading - How to Trade Like a Pro | TradingSim
Thanks a lot for such superb article…you Know Alton Sir, I am trading since 3-4 years and I always had small but
consistent profit in the morning but huge losses in the afternoon. I wanted someone to justify that trading in the morning
(https://tradingsim.com/)
is safer. Whomever I asked, they said trading is full time business, you need to be there from 9 to 4 (OMG) and forget
breakfast, lunch if you want to make real money.
I thought its better to forget trading if it makes you forget your breakfast and lunch(LOL). but thanks that you justified
what I had in my mind to trade only in the morning..!! LESS is BETTER in trading world.
I am from india and same principles apple here evern for indices…!!
Reply ↓
() Rockmania
May 18, 2019 at 5:21 pm (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-86176)
I read so many articles from you. The trading principles and the article presentation is very nice.
Reply ↓
() Richard
December 5, 2019 at 6:51 pm (https://tradingsim.com/blog/first-hour-trading/#comment-158246)
Al, its 2019 your article was written 2013 …….do you still endorse this same strategy? I trade Forex and see a lot of
market similarities. If any changes, what are they? Thanks, Richard
Reply ↓
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