Long-time lurker, throwing his two cents into the ring. Not a journal of trades so much as a journal of thoughts about the ES/SPY/SPX financial-industrial complex. These are my thoughts as they happen. I'll consider myself fortunate if I'm right as often as I'm wrong. These ideas help me formulate future trading plans. They are not trades, in and of themselves. Indeed, when I posit a direction, it's not intended as a directional call per se so much as a theory to test and a framework with which to analyze subsequent market activity. For example, take this post, my first. I ginned up this image perhaps 15 minutes ago. I'm already much less certain about that call for an UP day tomorrow, partly as a result of this analysis. It's a bit flimsy. But that's also characteristic of a coin toss market. I know this is a pretty robust, outspoken crowd. I hope anyone who's interested in anything I post will take the time to let me know what they think, for better or worse. I love a good dialectic. With that, here's idea #1
Today's pattern .. most everyone was looking for the other guy to take them over the edge. Thus expanding vol fan most of the afternoon.
Idea #2... Bottom line: 2388 to 2398 is the mother of all chop zones. Engage within that area only from the periphery to balance, and only for scalps.
ES evolved to pure risk management in price. Meaning everyone in it has fine tuned risk management. There is no overt implied direction day to day, only strong intermittent orderflow time to time. The whole structure over many months creates its own future implied patterns.