Transporting some stuff: Those who rely solely on my posts -- or anybody's posts -- without continued and continual study of the source material are very likely to fail. Is it quick? No. Is it easy? No. Is it simple? Extremely. But it's not fool-proof. Regarding yesterday's activity, those who don't know what to do with the following, particularly with regard to entering a trade, have not spent a sufficient amount of time in study, especially the source material. Will this come up again? Yes. It came up Monday. It may come up again today. Those who are prepared will do well. Those who aren't, won't. Those who have studied the source material will recognize a climax and a secondary reaction at potential support. Those who haven't, even though they were told in advance to look for them, won't. I suggest, therefore, that those who remain confused Ctrl+F W's course for "climax", "secondary reaction (or just "secondary")", "hinge", "equilibrium", and "springboard". If after all that everything continues to remain a mystery, some other approach should be investigated.
This is what the pattern people like to call a "descending triangle": Even though price is moving sideways, this is NOT a search for equilibrium; it represents a refusal on the part of buyers to pay the ask.
So price fell below 56 and some traders thought 54 was a good price so they bought (keeping in mind that the NQ is also a proxy for a hundred stocks). But when price returned to the "triangle", nobody showed up to the party, and at least some of those who bought then sold. Now that price is dropping back to where they bought in the first place, what's going through their minds? Are they going to bang their heads against the wall or reassess the situation with this new information? How are we to know in advance why and to what extent someone else is prompted to buy or sell? We cannot know; it is impossible for us to foretell what actuates all of those whose orders are poured into the vast intake of the Stock Exchange machinery during the day's session. But if we study the action of prices; the responses; the speed of the ticker, indicating urgency or the contrary; the intensity of the buying or selling, as indicated by the volumes; and the intervals when the volume is heavy or light -- all these in relation to each other -- then we gain insight or the design and the purposes of those who are dominant in the market situation for the time being. All the varying phases of stock market technique may thus be studied and interpreted from the buying and selling waves as they appear on the tape. From these we form a conclusion as to the balance of the probabilities. On this we base our commitments. RDW
Incidentally, the ES is also at new highs. So if the range trumps the trend, this will be where we reverse.
This is the compression before the open you're talking about, right? edit: Another observation is that 53.5 is the midpoint of the last leg up on the 60m
15 minute chart preparation for the day. It's all time high, so the price action should be interesting, today. Schaefer PS: Previous day high is the same as Pre-market secondary low.