Stuck In A Rut? Get Futures

The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (TheLFB-Forex) -- The late session ramp higher on very low volume to close out last week has been completely retraced, leaving equity, bullion, oil and Forex markets looking lost. It will be interesting to see the level of support for major asset classes as this week unfolds. The highly correlated global markets have equity indices and EUR on one side with the Dollar Index on the other, and swing from one to the other as news headlines cross the wires.

For traders not connected to the 24-hour global market the waiting for regional cash markets to open can be somewhat frustrating. It is becoming abundantly clear that as much price action hits in the futures market than in the regional cash market, and those traditional investors who are standing on the outside looking in while futures trade adjusts to daily swings in fair value may be constantly missing the bulk of movement in any given day.

The new normal, post-Too Big to Fail bailout environment has created a trading arena with a low attention span, and an algorithm driven pattern of trade that views one day as the equivalent of what was one month of trade just a decade ago. The consequence has been the evolution of a new breed of global market trader that has an understanding and comfort zone in trading a range of asset classes and is willing to change tack at short notice in reaction to changing global market dynamics.

The most common thread of the new-generation trader is their focus on international markets, and how market correlations can be traded ahead of the 9-to-5 cash market open via futures contracts. They are able to use 24-hour market access leverage and cross-border trading patterns in different asset classes to complete their work before regular traders even start to read the news headlines.

When the talking heads state that "Futures are in the green today..." the savvy trader has already found a way to access the momentum. In the current economic environment there is a need to create more time away from the charts, and futures contract access allows that to happen for those who have realized that the halcyon days of trending buy-and-hold patterns have been replaced with buy-and-sell near-term trading.