Trade Plan: Tuesday, August 1st, 2023
A 20 point range?! Have we entered the doldrums of summer?
Timeframe Overview
Monthly OTF: up, ends: 4500
Weekly OTF: up, ends: 4560
Daily OTF: 9 day balance; ends to the upside: 4633; ends to the downside: 4557
Friday Session Recap
Let’s look at what we stated in Friday’s trade plan:
Going into Monday’s session, I will observe 4609. This is the key level which we’ve rejected off a number of times at this point, and haven’t been able to build sustainably above. Building above 4609 I would look to build at and above 4623, the VPOC from Thursday’s session (despite the selloff), and then above 4633 to form a new high for July. Below targets the mental level of 4600, and then that 4590 level, which buyers have seemed to be eager to defend on multiple occasions at this point. Below 4590 targets 4580, Friday’s pivot.
These levels played out pretty decently! ES opened for business at 4611.25. In the strange A period, buyers showed initially great strength, wanting to follow the trend of the overnight session. However, they got overextended and after surpassing the ON high (4618.25) by a few ticks, there was a rapid liquidation to 4602. We got stopped out here on late longs, but then did get a profitable trade in around the bottoms of A period, as discussed in yesterday’s Trades & Session Review section. in B period, buyers again took us well above that 4609 level, but once again, buyers began to step in and finally by D/E period we fell below 4609 as well as VWAP, and . Two longs near our lower psychological level of 4600 could have been possible mean reversion plays during H and M period, but longs are hard to commit to when we’ve spent 3/4s of the session under both the VWAP and IB midpoint. However, a long near the LOD at 4598 in M period would have ultimately paid nicely as we reversed and ripped through nearly the entire trading range in the last 5 minutes of trading! After this rip, ES closed all the way back up at 4616.25.
Market Structure
Like Friday, Monday’s session failed to take out the highs of Thursday’s, so we again remain in balance, however note again (like Friday) that there is some bullish bias by the fact that we have a higher low (4588 from Friday vs. low of 4597.75 on Monday), which could be important to take into account. The majority of the session after A period was in an extremely tight range of only about 14 points! Note that there are poor highs above 4618 left from A period and poor lows below 4600. In Tuesday’s session, which one will we visit first? Hard to claim we’ll have yet another inside day on a day that was already only about 20 points total of trading range!
Trade Plan
Due to the mostly uneventful session, levels remain unchanged. Going into Monday’s session, I will again observe 4609. This is the key level which we’ve rejected off a number of times at this point, and haven’t been able to build sustainably above. Building above 4609 I would look to build at and above 4623, the VPOC from Thursday’s session (despite the selloff), and then above 4633 to form a new high for the year. Below targets the mental level of 4600, and then 4590, which buyers have seemed to be eager to defend on multiple occasions at this point. Below 4590 targets 4580, last Friday’s pivot.
Key Levels
Pivot: 4609
Bull Levels: 4623, 4633
Bear Levels: 4600, 4596, 4590, 4580
Notes: PMI and JOLTS prints at 10:00AM. Tuesday is the first day of trading in August, the start of a full 23 days of uninterrupted trading! Will we see some volatility up at these highs of the year, or was Monday a harbinger of the price action we’re to expect the whole month? 😴
Trades & Session Review
-$100 max loss limit hit; can’t trade anymore. Once again, my ideas were mostly right, but execution and management was poor. I need to be more patient scaling out my trades (led to an incorrect short on MES), and more patient on price action, especially on MNQ where I missed out on a nearly 80 point drop. (Looking back, I can’t even understand why I closed the trade here = BAD SIGN!). Going into trades I need a clear profit target, I think I will add those back in to my (previously only had auto stop loss on). Here the MNQ trades today:
I broke my rule here in catching dips - always wait for a second flush. (Also volume did not agree with this reversal.) A poor FOMO trade — in this case, fear of missing the reversal which was also a 60–70 ripper!
Annoying session, goal is of course to execute and manage trades better tomorrow!
Cheers and as always, good luck out there!
-Chris
A reminder that I am still ultimately a beginner to intraday trading and trading futures. This is not an alert service and none of this is financial advice.
Originally published at https://amtjoy.substack.com.
