Thu AM Briefing Preparing For Our Emini Trading Room 08/15/2024

Good morning, everybody! Good morning!

I am studying Ephesians right now in addition to Exodus, and I loved this verse last night. I'm in Ephesians 4: "Live a life worthy of the calling that you have received. Live a life worthy." Boy, I love that! It just makes me want to elevate my game from being a trader to running a trading room. Live a life worthy—oh, for me, that's just so rich.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did because I truly love it. So, let's get into the chart. Today should be a fairly quick one. So, AM briefing number 240, brought to you by microtrader.com. We're truly together, we trade better. And boy, if you'd have been in our room yesterday, you would have totally seen how together we trade better. I'll highlight that a little bit on the chart today.

Tip of the day: Never trade alone. You don't have to. Find a system, find your people, and be active in that group. It is much more enjoyable and affirming to trade in a group where you're all trading the same strategy like we do. We're all on the same chart, looking for the same trades. And then, when you get in a trade, such as yesterday—beautiful example—somebody was long, and we helped them manage their trade. Somebody got short, and we helped them manage their trade.

Help is literally just reaching out in the group, saying, "Hey guys, I'm long at this level," or "I'm short at this level." Because when you're in a trade, sometimes things get foggy. Where should I put my stop if I'm trying to play perfect chess? Where should I take a profit if I'm just trying to maximize this particular move? How many contracts do you have? That'll change the recipe a little bit. So, find your system. You want to trade the opening range breakout? Find the people who are the best at that, join them, and fully immerse yourself. Be active in their community.

So, that's my advice. And to my own members: make sure you're being active in the group, even if it's just reacting to a post or something. But feel free to jump in there and be active. It is a safe environment for all traders.

So, today is sandwich day. We're sandwiched between CPI and option expiration, plus we get retail sales and unemployment claims. Those numbers should move the needle today. I'm excited to see that happen an hour before the market opens.

So, yesterday in the AM briefing, I drew your attention to this line. There's also something else there that you have to be in my group to get access to. But this is where I expected price to tap out. And then, let's go to the chart—and boy, did we tap out to perfection right here for our group! That is also, I can now show it, the top of our strong range.

So, yesterday morning, we were not in this short. It's funny because at the beginning of the Zoom, we were talking about what we trade best as a group. We were long here and long here. And one of my traders—Mike, congratulations once again—was in a phenomenal trade. He was in an ES contract all the way to here. When it hit here, I advised him or gave the suggestion: "Okay, one E-mini is 10 micros. Get out of the E-mini and go long like three micros." It was a way to deleverage his trade but stay in the trade. We talked about our upside targets here, which was for us the top of the range and trend, and he exited his final contracts right there. How beautiful!

Then, another one of my traders—man, he's just rocking it here lately, doing such a great job—Scotty, went short here at 8:55, and we helped him manage his trade as well. And for him, it was the discipline of staying in the trade. You know, it's amazing how staying in the trade is harder than waiting for the trade. Doing nothing is the hardest thing about trading. The hardest thing about trading is not trading.

He had a phenomenal trade location at 8:55. I was like, "Guy, there is no better entry than that 8:55 short. You waited for it, you got it, then you got vomit candles." Vomit candles. Now, he was only in one contract, so he didn't have as many options. If there were three contracts—because if I turn on our essentials indicator, right here would have been the perfect exit with one contract—if he was short, let's say, three contracts, let's take one off here. That would have been optimal, but he didn't. So, we built some protection layers, and he stayed in it and got out with a 10-pointer. That's great! Nothing wrong with a 10-pointer. I was like, "Worst case scenario, you make 10 points. Now sit and wait. Sit and wait. Make price come back and get you. Why would you want to find another entry if you're already short at 8:55? You're in the top of our range against a high time frame line. Two vomit candles, more than eight points, they're colored, so I know they're bigger than eight points. You stay in it. Make price come get you. You can't get another trade location like 8:55 on this chart, so milk it." And he milked it. It came and got him, but so what? It was his longest trade by time in our group, but I'm telling you, feeling that discomfort makes you grow as a trader, without a doubt.

So, we were long here, long here, short here, and nothing here and nothing there. Beautiful trading day. I was so pleased and so excited. So, congratulations, traders, you did great!

So, now let's see what the overnight did. Overnight, of course, easily takes out the RTH high—so weird to me—camps out, camps out, camps out, and now has made clear relative equal highs here at the overnight high. And I think that is really important. In fact, if I were you, I would put on here "Overnight High," and then I would make whatever note: "Several touches." Okay, what a beautiful pool of liquidity that's going to be in the overnight session. I did take a few trades in this up move, and now I'm just sitting back and waiting.

So, what have we done in the overnight session? We have just camped out up here in the upper distribution, haven't we? We sure have. So, where are we on trend? Well, this is this high time frame trend line we've had on our chart for a long time. And here, we got over it, tested it, and bounced, tested it, and bounced.

Okay, so now, before we actually get into the overnight so much, I also want to point out NQ for my NQ traders. So, these were the two levels I recommended NQ traders go long off of before the market opened. I was like, "If we get down there, these are places I would look for longs." And boy, those worked out really well too for my NQ traders. What a gorgeous day yesterday was! It was exciting. I love it!

Alright, so let's take these levels here. I'm going to drop the—here, sorry, I'm moving some things around—single prints. So, we have a set of single prints back here at 5493. These single prints are also listed on my website. We have the 5510, which is a number we have been talking about forever, and when we finally got under it, we got the big vomit. And then we have another set of single prints up here at the 24. So, pay attention to those. If you want a complete list of them, you can go to microtrader.com and click "Price Map."

Alright, so obviously, we are camping out in this strong range. In fact, once again, we tend to go from strong range to strong range. We went from here to here overnight. It's tried to explore higher, tried, tried, tried, tried, failed, and still hasn't taken the Asia low. And, of course, the overnight low was also just underneath that.

I'm going to bring on my session levels here. Let's pull this in some. Alright, so what are some of the levels you want to make sure are on your chart? Well, let me pull up my pre-flight indicator. I want to make sure that you, for sure, have this level on your chart: the RTH halfback. To me, that's probably the bull-bear line for the day, so I want you to mark your halfback here. Let's put "RTH Halfback." I also want you to mark this level here. So, this is really a zone here. I would call this the bull-bear zone. Okay, and put "Afternoon Pullback" here. I would consider this the bull-bear zone. And in fact, give me a second here—I'm going to move my bull up in here because I want to denote that in today's trading.

Now, it's interesting—I'll just show you this. So, in the group, I was using this chess piece to tell Scott, who was short here, "We're playing chess. The target was here, where I wanted him to put his eyeballs as a potential target." Of course, we have a stop in case the price comes back against you, preserving his 10-point short. So, we use things like that. So, this is where I would consider the bull-bear line in here. Move it here, and this 30-minute trend line. So, let's go look at trend lines here. I do think that they are important for knowing where we are. If we take these two levels, I'm going to put them in this folder. Let's exit out. Let's remove the graphics. Let's go to an hourly chart. Let's get rid of that. Let's pull this in. Let's turn off strong levels. Where are we at?

So, we talked about this 30-minute. We said we've gone parabolic on a 30-minute. At one time, it was that kind of parabolic, and now it's this kind of parabolic. And we made it to this high time frame trend line here. Right there. We are in a very interesting spot, right? So, NQ has already broken its trend line and has bounced off of it. Okay, so what are we most likely to do? Well, I don't want to predict. We're going to trade the levels as they present themselves, being cognizant of trade location and when we are counter and when we are with the trend. But we are at a big, big trade location here.

Let's come over to NQ for a second. Let me delete these two lines; I no longer need them. Let's bring this up. Let's go to an hourly chart. Let's pull this thing in on the NQ. There we go. See how we went over it? We went over it, back-tested it, and bounced. So, NQ has totally, in my opinion, broken the downtrend by every definition, in my humble opinion. So, where is its next major test? Well, obviously, it's going to be this high. Look at this monster day here, and there's a set of single prints in here if you're paying attention to those things. But we have now back-tested the trend line, and now we still have this continuation. You could come in here and draw this sort of trend line, and you could come in here and draw this sort of trend line. You want to know those items if NQ is your instrument of choice. I tend to trade NQ when it's either really stronger or really weaker, and we are trending in that direction. That is how I tend to trade NQ. ES is my main instrument of choice. It just performs beautifully with our levels.

Let's come back in here. I want to zoom in real quick before we do the bull-bear. I want to turn on my strong levels. We have left that strong zone. That is important. That is important. Okay, that'll be fun. That'll be fun. So, we have news one hour before the market opens. You want to pay attention to that.

Now, let's kind of go and look at the bear thing that goes off. So, let's turn off—actually, we can probably keep these on. Well, actually, let's go back. I'm going to turn them all off, guys. I'm going to turn the overnight trend line. Well, if I had to draw a trend line right now, I think I would have to come in and draw this one. So, yeah, we're about to take out the low. So, in my opinion, I would give this to the Bears. Session stacking? Got to go to the Bulls. VWAP? Well, let's pull up the VWAP. Who's owning the VWAP right now? We're under, so you got to give that to the Bears. Overnight halfback? I definitely know that is with the Bears. And yesterday's range? Well, we are in the upper distribution still. Until we get under halfback, I've got to give that to the Bulls. And then the indices? Well, let's go take a peek at the indices here. Three of us are in the upper distribution. The redheaded stepchild of righty is down at yesterday's low, about to take it out. Boy, is the Titanic turning here, guys. Is the Titanic turning? But at this very moment, at this snapshot, I've got to give the indices to the Bulls. Three of us are above halfback in the upper distribution. The bull-bear line? Well, we're going to go back to the bull-bear line that we talked about this morning, which was the halfback. And let's pull that back—the halfback and the afternoon pullback. There, I have halfback on there twice. I knew I already marked it. But so, halfback and the afternoon pullback. At this point, you still got to give this to the Bulls. And if we are talking about where the price would be attracted to go as far as the new week opening gap and new day opening gaps, I've got to give that to the Bulls. It's four to four. It's tied. In other words, wait until you get something crystal clear as far as direction is concerned to trade today. Let the news event happen, let's see where the dust settles, and where does it go.

And look at this: the Bulls are still in control overall. And if you look at the trend line—this is that parabolic 30-minute trend line—the Bulls are still in control. Okay? And because of the high time frame trend lines, I would still have to give this to the Bulls. So, I'm going to be the tiebreaker; I'm still going to give this to the Bulls. I'm hoping the Bears wrestle control here at this daily trend line because none of us would be shocked. None of us would be shocked.

Let me get rid of some of this stuff here. Let me get rid of my strong levels. Let me get rid of that. And I want to get rid of this, and this, and this. None of us would be surprised if this thing rotates back in just like it did here and goes and makes new lows. But one of the things that is in the advantage of the Bulls—it's an election year, right? It's an election year. So, we are at a very interesting spot on the chart. Plus, it's sandwich day. Tomorrow's option expiration day—level 10 trading—probably shouldn't even open your DOM till Monday.

Stay green, my friends. And to learn more about our group, go to microtrader.com.