Why trading during regular hours is so frustrating

I have brought this up a few times of the last year, but today was just another example. In the chart you can see that of the 2% gain so far today, about 1.5% of that came during aftermarket and premarket hours. I did an analysis way back in June or so last year that showed something like 75% of all major market moves happen during off hours. Most regular hours are small moves up (0.25-1%) like today or mostly chop.

Note sure how helpful this is, but IMO it just goes to show that retail traders are really just riding the coat tales of the big institutions.

Comment:

This is how it ended today. There as a little more upside after my post, but it was erased by the closing bell. Note that it jumped back up 0.25% after 4pm.

Comment:

I looked back to the start of the sell off to see what the price action was between after-hours and regular-hours. It is interesting in how it has played out. From what I can tell, after hours seems to set the direction of the market and regular-hours trading rides the end of those direction.

I find it very interesting that major rally and sell of the last week was mostly during regular hours. It is almost like the after-market investors where waiting for the day time retail traders to get the big "buy the dip" and the "sell off" over with.

It is also interesting to note that at the recent "bottom" the volume was very high in after-hours trading. Correspondingly, it was ultra low at the ATH.

As I originally stated, if you look strictly at the high and low prices during the after-hours trading, then there is very little price movement during regular hours that was not already tested after-hours.

I am not sure what conclusion I can make about how to use this to your advantage. I hope it helps any way.