 Okay, so welcome to today's session whereby I'll be introducing you to the E-mini S&P 500 contract and the E-micro 500 contract and I'll be walking you through some unique characteristics of this contract in the trading instruments that allow for some interesting trading opportunities. What I'm going to do first of all though is just for those who are here joining us for the first time is just briefly introduce myself. After I graduated from King's College London, I joined a city PLC consulting firm. I left with some colleagues and went on to successfully co-found and exit a consulting startup focused on C-suite executive search for tech startups. Having a front row seat to the dot-com bubble, witnessing people make and lose a fortune in the markets quite literally overnight with some university friends in investment banking and hedge funds, I decided to explore the markets. So with some capital to play with and some time on my hands, I started day trading or more appropriately day gambling the S&P 500. After some early beginners luck, I racked up some pretty solid gains. However, as is often the case, my beginners luck ran out as the market phase changed. I began to average down giving back all my gains and ultimately experiencing a significant six-figure hits on my personal capital. To say this was a gut-wrenching and sobering experience is an understatement. I really had to stand back and figure out if it was feasible for me to make a living from the market. So I decided to get serious about trading and sought out a mentor with an excellent trading track record. Working with my mentor for a period of 18 months to two years, I helped not just my technical game developing a strategy that crucially suited my personality. I researched, developed and extensively back and forward tested these strategies, all of which were underpinned by a rigorous risk management approach. Most importantly though, during this period of mentorship, I significantly developed my mental game and probably the most important watershed shift I made was from being a highly goal-orientated individual focused purely on financial gains to becoming a process-orientated individual. So what does that mean? Well, it means I had to stop focusing on what I could make from the markets and start focusing solely on managing my mindset to allow me to consistently execute my trading strategy oftentimes in the face of negative feedback from the markets in the form of losing trades. But once you become process-orientated and you have a professional trading mindset and you understand that the true nature of trading is simply a numbers game in which you're playing the probabilities, you lose the emotional investment and that hellish emotional roller coaster of living and dying by the outcome of individual trades. I no longer concern with the outcome of individual trades or even a small string of trades. My focus is on the next 100 trades because I know if I focus on excellence in execution, my edge will demonstrate itself over an extended series of outcomes. My multi-strategy approach has delivered profitable annual returns since 2008. Since 2013, I've also been managing investor capital through a managed account service delivering annual positive returns. I'm currently responsible for managing a multi-million dollar portfolio. Since 2010, I've also mentored hundreds of private traders of all experience levels from complete novices to former CAB floor traders in developing the technical and mental skills to reap consistent returns from the markets. In addition to my fund management and mentoring, I'm also a resident market expert exclusively providing market and trade analysis to TITML. Most recently, I've also become the head of trading and trader education for an emerging trading education brand called FXcareerswap.com, offering development and funding to retail trading talent. At FXcareerswap, we don't just develop retail traders market and trading strategy knowledge, we work on mindset development through our structured program that culminates in managing the firm's capital at zero personal financial risk on a profit share basis. Okay, so that gives you a flavor of where I'm coming from, so let's jump into today's material. So, like I said, welcome to this introductory presentation on trading the E-mini S&P 500. We are going to walk through the trading venue, I'm going to introduce you to the unique features of this exchange-traded derivative, specifically market internals. I'm then going to explain my strategy for combining market internals with support and resistance to consistently trade the E-mini S&P, and stay tuned to the end where I will also reveal a promotional offer for TITML account holders. So, the E-mini or ES or MINI is a futures contract that tracks the S&P 500 stock market index. It's traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME, via their Globex electronic trading platform. Trading is 23 and a half hours a day, five days a week using the contract symbol ES. E-mini contracts are available on a wide range of US stock market indices, commodities and forex currencies. However, when traders refer to the E-mini or the E-minis or the spools, they are generally referring to the most important one, the futures contract that tracks the S&P 500 stock market index. E-mini futures were originally launched in September 1997 to attract non-professional investors into trading index futures. Previously, the only game in town had been the large S&P contract, but it had become too expensive for the little guy to trade. So, the CME created the E-mini contract, which was one-fifth of the size of the large S&P futures contract and required only one-fifth of the margin to trade. The E-mini became a huge success, not only with non-professional traders, but with professionals too. We now have the micro E-mini futures contract. It's the same as the regular S&P 500 E-mini contract in every respect, except it's one-tenth of the size. That is, each one-point move in the S&P 500 index is worth $5 per micro E-mini contract compared to $50 for the E-mini or ES, and the margin to trade the micro contract is one-tenth the size. So, in terms of the actual trading venue, what are the benefits? Well, it's equally easy to go long and short. You either buy or sell the current E-mini contract and there's no uptick rule. There's 24-hour trading, which makes the E-mini attractive to traders around the world. Overnight moves in related equity markets like the DAX or the FTSE can be played with one trading vehicle. Electronic trading platform allows your orders are all are entered instantaneously and when executed, you're notified instantaneously. Changing and cancelling orders is trivial. No phone calls are the broker required anymore and you know exactly where you stand every second you're in a trade. It's a level playing field. The Globex electronic trading platform means that large and small traders have equal access to the market and trades are executed in the order they're received. Unlike the pit trading futures or equities of old, where there are no more games, backdoor games involved. There's a tight bid in our spread, so much volume is traded through the E-mini that the difference between the bid and the ask is only ever one tick or 0.25 index points, which is the minimum price movement. There's a large depth of market. Again, the E-mini market is so liquid, there's plenty of volume either side of the last traded price for large orders to be filled with minimum slippage. It's volatile, but it's not unmanageable. The E-mini is an active every day, which gives the trader plenty of opportunity to trade. Remember, a sleepy market is pretty difficult to trade, but the E-mini volatility is also manageable, except maybe around certain headline news events like the non-farm payrolls or the FOMC announcements. And importantly, it's generally not driven by individual company news events. The low brokerage rates also make it very attractive. Brokerage commissions for trading E-minis continue to fall. This excludes exchange clearing and regulatory fees, and when you factor those in, your round trip in and out brokerage commission is very attractive. Low margin requirements are really critical here. So to open a day trading position with Tickmill, you only require 1,000 US dollars in your micro account. Remember, these are absolute minimums and you should be trading with additional capital behind your positions. The lower tax rate is also very attractive. Better than forex or stocks, income from the trading the E-mini futures is taxed at a blended rate of approximately 22%. Gains from stock trading or cash forex are more like 33%. These comments apply specifically for US tax residents. So now we understand the venue and the instrument we're trading. I want to demonstrate some of the unique aspects. The fact that the E-mini is the derivative of the S&P 500 allows us to access some unique information commonly referred to as market internals. Market internals are often compared to the instrument dashboard on a car, giving indication of performance and alerting the driver to any issues occurring under the hood. So let's take a look more deeply at what market internals are and how we can incorporate them into a consistent trading strategy. First, volume. It's a particularly unique feature of trading the exchange-traded derivative as opposed to a CFD or contract for difference or forex. Volume data for forex is incomplete. There is no central forex exchange and the banks who dominate forex trading obviously don't share volume data in real time. However, we get a true reflection of actual volume which is shared directly by the CME, available to all market participants in real time. I use volume as a tool to confirm breakouts and opportunities to fade the market. Spikes in volume will often be accompanied by intraday profit taking. The next instrument I'm looking at is the NYSE tick index. This gives us the relationship of stocks up ticking versus down ticking. The tick is an extremely useful tool for intraday traders. For example, if there are 3,000 stocks trading on the NYSE, the New York Stock Exchange, and 1,500 trade higher from their previous price and 500 trade lower from their last price, the tick will read plus 1,000. But you might be asking, well, what about the other 1,000 stocks? Well, they could be unchanged from their last price. When using the tick, we're looking for extremes to enter or exit a trade. Tick readings of plus 1,000 to plus 1,500 or minus 1,000 to minus 1,500 are considered very strong and we typically trade between 600 most of the time on the NYSE. Tip for the tick here is tick readings within the 400 level generally indicate chop and we want to ignore or stay out of entering or exiting trades in that area. On a range day, we can look to fade tick extremes when I apply a moving average that can easily see the trend or the distribution that we're seeing in tick. Note that extreme tick readings for the day, when we get a high tick and a new high in price at the exact time, that more often than not will indicate the high of the day. When a high tick prints without a simultaneous high in price, we can continue to make new highs until a new high in tick is reached and obviously the reverse is true for low ticks. Next, we have the advanced decline line or the AD line for sure. It's the most important of the internals. This indicator tells us the net sum of advancing stocks minus declining stocks. There are roughly 3,000 stocks on the NYSE and there are 3,000 roughly on the NASDAQ as well. An AD line reading of 1,500 plus is very bullish and a reading over 2,000 is extremely bullish. On the flip side, minus 1,500 and below are very bearish and readings below minus 2,000 are extremely bearish. These extreme readings are indicative of trending days where once the market continues to trend all the way into the close, we look to the AD line in conjunction with breath ratio to confirm these trending days. For example, a day with 2,500 advancing stocks and only 500 declining stocks would yield a net of plus 2,000, which is an extremely bullish reading. It would take a large catalyst to shift the market direction with a reading this bullish. If at the open you continue to see the AD line move in plus 500, plus 700, plus 900, this is a sign of broad market strength. If, however, the market is moving higher but the AD line is moving lower, a divergence has occurred and this can be a sign that the market could turn. Last but by no means least, the breath volume ratio. Composed of volume flowing into up stocks versus volume flowing into down stocks. The breath ratio is expressed as up volume minus down volume. This reading is important in relation to where it's been, especially where we are now compared to where we open the day. For example, if at 10am we have 10 million shares moving up and 5 million shares moving down, the resulting breath ratio is about 2 to 1 positive. Twice as much volume is flowing into up stocks as down stocks. If at 10.30 the market is sold off but we have a breath ratio of 3 to 1 positive, this is a signal that the markets are actually becoming stronger and it's time to buy the pullback or look for a long setup. So now we understand the internals and the unique insight they provide. I want to briefly walk you through my strategy. By understanding the market context in which we are trading, I'm looking to execute two types of trades. Mean reversion in ranging environments and momentum trades in trending environments, both of which are going to be underpinned by understanding the market internals. Every day I plot support and resistance action areas that are derived from multi-time frame analysis using market auction theory and volume profile analysis. This allows me to avoid engaging the market in areas of heavy rotation or what we refer to as chop. The support and resistance action areas have three purposes. They can act as entry levels in mean reversion setups, which is the majority of the time, but in directional or trend environments, the action areas act as confirmation for a momentum entry. And lastly, they can be used as targets for trades. I also note additional key data from the prior day's price action. These levels are often important to define the bias for the day, the previous volume point of control, the highest volume price. So that's the price at which most of the volume traded from the previous day. This is indicative of buyers and sellers' perception that this price is square value for the day. I confirm the current market context. This confirms the dominant side of the market versus near-term, daily, weekly and monthly. And I also look at the globex, that's the overnight session, to give us an indication of the market theme for the day ahead. I also highlight quantitative probability plays based on where the cash or the regular trading house session opens in relation to the prior day's range, either above, below or within range. And then we have some key levels and the probability of price testing these levels over an extended data set. This can prove useful for trade entry, exit and management. Lastly, I note volatility or range analysis, as this helps to inform the current market context. Is the market in balance in relation to the current volatility? Equally, we can confirm the market out of balance and this can inform the bias for the day. It also helps to inform trade execution and management. So that's what I want to do, is take a look at a few examples of the pre-market analysis that I provide and then how the subsequent price action plays out. This pre-market analysis is provided every day at 2.15 UK time. You get the chart with the key levels mapped on. I also do a five-minute video, which gives you the setups that I'm looking for or the high probability plays that I see developing for the session ahead. So let's take a look at, this is one just from the last two weeks. We had the globe X lows. In terms of the market context, I was coming into the day bearish from the globe X session where we'd seen the sell-off and I had a neutral bias in terms of the setup for the days. That means I was able to or gives me the opportunity to face either support or resistance. And in this instance, as the day played out, we traded up into the resistance zone, the initial resistance zone, and we had bearish market internals. We had the tick falling off to the downside, negative distribution. We had the advanced decline line below the zero line, so negative advanced decline line, and we also had a negative breath ratio. So by the time we got into this resistance zone, I was confident there to fade that resistance zone, and we actually saw an 18.5 point reversal from that resistance zone into the initial support zone. Next pre-market analysis here. We went into the day, globe X tone bearish, but with the near-term bias, neutral to bearish, but we were still bullish, medium-term and long-term. So when I produced the pre-market analysis for this day, what I was looking at was the potential for a breakout of either the initial resistance area here or the initial support to target the next areas of support resistance. So let's see how price played out. Well, at the open we got some significant buying volume coming into the market. We also saw that the tick distribution was positive, and the advanced decline line came rapidly from below zero up into higher levels. We also saw a positive breath reading right from the get-go. So this meant to me, I was looking to play a breakout of the initial resistance level, traded up into it, held it at the first test as more often than not we will. We pulled back, retested the globe X highs and took off to the upside, and immediately that would have given a 10-point upside objective. Another example here, coming into the day, we were bullish across the board. So we have alignment in terms of the market context, and we were trading up above the prior days highs. Let's see how things played out. This is a common setup you'll see in terms of the E-mini S&P. One of the measurements that we want to pay attention to during the day is the opening hours range, because more often than not, once we break that range to the upside if we're bullish, any retest into the high of the opening hour will often find algorithmic trading or programmatic trading buying there, and we can join that trend. And again, that's set up for a move of another 10-point move to the upside. Lastly, we had, this was Friday's analysis, we came into the day, bullish, medium to long-term, neutral on the daily, so we could fade either initial resistance or initial support, depending upon the internals. So we wait then for the market to open and see how we're printing from the internal perspective. And you can see here, we took out initial resistance on very strong market internals. We traded up into the next resistance zone, so that's a 10-point move there. We didn't get any suggestion of exhaustion as we traded into that area. As we got up there, we were still bullish in terms of momentum, tick readings were positive, and we had positive internals. And so you could have actually held that trade for at least 20 points of profit to the upside. So there are just a few examples. I'm not a big fan of going over historical chart data as it's somewhat of hindsight capital approach to things, but the only reason I'm doing this is because I provided this pre-market analysis before the actual cash session each day for each of these examples, and it was accompanied with the video so that you knew what I was looking for in terms of trading opportunities and how I was looking to play the day ahead. What we'll actually do now, given the time here, we're coming up to half one, we'll actually take a look at the live market here. And what I'm looking for in terms of today's session is we'll give you an insight into where I see the opportunities today. So we're basically consolidating in the upper range. We printed a new high yesterday, new all-time high, and we've continued to hold above support. So what I'm looking for now is a break through the GlobeX highs. When I refer to GlobeX, I mean the overnight trading session. So through 41.85, we'll open the test of 41.92 to 41.93. From here, a common pattern that we see is that we get a pullback to retest the GlobeX highs as support. So if we've got bullish market internals, so strong market internals, good reading, positive distribution in terms of tick. We've got the advanced decline line above zero trending to the upside. We've got positive breath above zero trending to the upside. Any test back into the GlobeX highs here would be an opportunity to set long positions. And then what I'd be targeting would initially a retest of the initial resistance area. But I would anticipate we'd break there and trade up into a pivotal 42.02. Now when we get into this area, if we get exhaustion signs, so if we get a new high of day with a high in tick and a volume spike, that would be an opportunity to set short positions targeting a retest of the 41.93. The alternative scenario is we break GlobeX lows and trade down into initial support. I'd be watching there for a low in price of the day accompanied with a low tick and a volume spike to set long positions targeting a retest of the GlobeX lows from below. If we take out the initial support with negative market internals and a negative tick distribution then you can look to be short, initially targeting a move down to test 41.57. And again if we don't get any exhaustion signals here, you can let the position run and target a move down to the next pivotal support area at 41.42. And again from there you want to watch for exhaustion signals as an opportunity to one take profit on shorts and potentially set long positions. So that gives you a quick sense of what it is I'm looking at as we head into today's cash session. And what I will also show you is the actual tick mail e-mini futures and options chat that we have. This is a private group. This is where I post the analysis each day, live video and the trade sheet for the day ahead for your reference. I will also share some other insights in terms of investment banking insights here and some market views that I share as well with respect to market dynamics and the key drivers from a narrative perspective within the markets at the moment. And like I say, you get the trade video posted in here and you get the trade sheets. So you have that already for the session ahead. Those are posted by the latest 2.15 UK time each day. And that concludes my introduction to the e-mini S&P contract here and like I say, what we are offering as a promotional offer to technical account holders is the opportunity to join the e-mini strategy group whereby you will have access to all this information and you'll be fully prepared for the session ahead. What I would stress is here at this point is that this is not a signal service. I'm not giving you signals here for you to just automatically execute and see how it goes. We're actually trying to educate you in a consistent approach to training this extremely attractive product. Like I say, at the beginning that depth of market is incredibly important and it provides opportunities pretty much on a daily basis. I personally tend to stick to looking for one or two setups per day and if I don't get them, then it's a scratch there. I don't get involved. But more often than not, you will get one or two opportunities each day to enter a trade and see how it plays out. So with that said, you can access the group if you contact the client services team and you have a live account with Tickmill. They'll put you into that group and you'll receive all the analysis on a daily basis. So I will now open this up for questions. I'll just check and assume the chat here. Matthew asks, can I get a PDF document? Yeah, Matthew. Sorry, do you mean a PDF of the slides, Matthew? Okay, I'm presuming he means a PDF of the slides. Yeah, Matthew, I'll send you a PDF of the slides. That's your email address there. Ben, do you need to have an account funded to get into the chat? Yeah, the current requirement is having a funded account. Any other questions? Yes, you would like slides as well. Gideon, if you leave your email address in the chat there and I can send you a copy of the slides. If anyone wants a copy of the slides, you can just leave your email in the chat and we'll happily send you the slides. Any other questions? Okay, if there are any questions, I'm going to wrap this up here and I hope to see you all in the one second copy of that email. I've got that. Okay, so I'm going to wrap this up here and I hope to see you in the private Future Strategy Group. Thanks very much, everyone. I hope this helps.