That was a solid entry going into Friday, especially since there were great odds NQ was going to come off that pre-market high. The bigger problem, as always, is dealing with the one and only "true gap" on Sunday nights. Over the past few years, the real pain trade is always going into the weekends. Lost count of how many scary Friday afternoons turn into a buy into the close and a gap and go Sunday (that was before the past 3 months of bearish action), but it still happens, difference is the gaps fizzle out early in the week.
If the market is closed between 3:30 pm (CT) on Friday until 5:00 pm (CT) on Sunday evening, then obviously no trading has taken place. Hence, the reason I believe that it is the only true gap in the futures markets. Once trading became 24 hours with Globex (Sunday evening thru Friday), futures prices are obviously trade-able through the range of the gap, even though the cash market is closed. For this reason I believe that some of the "force" or momentum from gap moves has been reduced.
A gap is often referring to when a cash market gaps on opening because the futures market for that instrument has risen or sunk during after market trading. But futures markets can also gap after the weekend or during the short closes on weekdays. If some important news has been released during the weekend for example.
You seem to be missing the point that a futures contract is a derivitave of an underlying commodity, or in the case of the spoos an index, that still has very definitive regular trading hours where 99% plus of the volume takes place. Big picture looks at the market take place on the underlying based off cash hours. After hours is pajama traders for the most part unless there is some market moving event. Even in that case cash will open to reflect the repricing event.
I don’t care about gaps. Only what caused them. Gaps are just a short term reactions of underlying events, how you choose to trade that is your derogatory.