ES led by YM or reverse?

heard a lot of comments on this...what do you think?...does the ES lead the YM or reverse...or should you be looking at cash SPX versus cash DJI?...who is the leader, lagger?...if you look at a 3,5,10 minute chart etc.?...thanks in advance!!

I have seen discussions that suggestions ER2 or NQ leading the ES. Now this discussion is whether YM leading the ES.

I am now pretty convinced ES is the leader among indices because it has the largest companies. However, because it is thick, it moves "after" the other indices move. That's why the impression of other indices leading the ES.

I often notice ER2 moves before the ES. But if ES does not continue in the direction, ER2 is just a going to eventually come back to where it is, and worse, if ES starts to go red, ER2 will lose all its gains and more.

Looking at inter index relationship has not been helpful for day trading (at least I have noticed. educate me if you may). They all move in sync in their directions. It is the matter of "scale".

What has been seful is the relationship between the cash and futures index. So, ES vs. $ESINX. (knowns as "premium"). Do a web search on it.

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Originally posted by BruceM

Increasenow, Did you notice what happened today about 2:30 e.s.t?

The dow was making a new high on the day ( My YM chart begins at 9:30 to synch up with the S&P open) while the S&P was not....then we sold off a bit...at this same time the Dow CASH market was going to unchanged on the day while the S&P CASH was down almost 6 points....( this is telling me there is still weakness in the market...should be 8-10 dow points for every S&P...so dow in theory should have been down 50 -60 points)


Then a little after 3:30 both markets where making new highs...so this would be a clue if you were thinking of fading


Perhaps some members of the forum would like to give their feedback as to what else was happening at these times with the TICK or adv=dec or anything else they can think of....so the context is real important..

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I was trading through the day so I can add my 2 cents, fwiw...

As lunch ended and the afternoon session got some volume filling in, this is what I observed. The financials were struggling and that was holding a firm lid on any upside in the cash dow and the ES. This was negatively influencing the ER2 which was keeping the $TICK under zero. While this was going on, the NQ was showing relative strength thanks to the semi index which took the leadership role on the upside (the semi's never looked back and ran to the close.) As soon as the selling in the financials eased and a solid bid came into that index, the ES and cash dow brokeout to the upside along with the ER2 which had been hovering around the unchanged level. Once everything finally got moving in sync, the NQ and ER2 really took off to the upside and closed very strongly.