Tuesday Nov 18: Daily Trade Plan and Price Action Zones for S&P Futures
How To Trade ES Today
Tuesday November 18, 2025
☀️ AM BRIEFING
The market opens, and the chart explodes into a chaotic dance of wicks and bars. Conflicting signals flash across your indicators while social media buzzes with predictions. The pressure to find a trade, to always be in the action, is immense. In this search for complex strategies and perfect entries, traders often overlook their most powerful, built-in analytical tool.
In the midst of all this external noise, a quieter, internal signal is often trying to be heard. As one veteran trader analyzed the chaotic open of a recent session, he shared several powerful truths for navigating it—not as abstract theory, but as a live, practical response to dangerous market conditions. Here are six of those truths that can protect your capital and redefine your approach to the markets.
1. Your "Internal Warning Clock" is Your Most Powerful Chart
Every trader has experienced it: a nagging feeling that the price action feels chaotic, difficult, or untrustworthy. This is your "internal warning clock," and it’s not random emotion. It is your subconscious mind recognizing dangerous market conditions that your conscious analysis might miss. It’s the internal alert that goes off when you see price action that, as one trader put it, "looks like an OPEX Friday price action big swings going nowhere with no follow through."
This feeling is a critical risk management tool. It’s the alarm that sounds when you see three 15-point candles rip across the chart, only for price to churn back into a range, going absolutely "nowhere." Ignoring this is like ignoring a fire alarm. Listening to it is a skill that separates disciplined traders from gamblers.
"your internal warning clock is the chart warning you listen to it"
In a field dominated by data and algorithms, trusting your gut can feel counter-intuitive. Yet, the most effective traders learn to combine their analytical skills with this highly developed intuition. They understand that when their internal clock says "be careful," it's time to pay attention.
2. Deleveraging Isn't Defeat—It's Strategy
So, what is the professional response when that internal warning clock starts blaring? The strategic answer is to "deleverage." This isn't a sign of fear or weakness; it's the mark of a professional who knows how to preserve capital when the odds are stacked against them. As the trader noted while observing the treacherous conditions, "man if there's a place to be freaking careful traders, we're at it. It is a place to be really careful and a good place to delever."
Deleveraging is the practical solution to the problem identified by your intuition. It can take several forms:
• Switching from a live cash account to practicing on evaluation accounts for the day.
• Reducing your position size, for example, by trading MES (Micro E-mini) contracts instead of full ES contracts.
• Making the conscious decision to paper trade for the session instead of risking real capital in a poor environment.
This proactive adjustment acknowledges that not every day is a good day to trade. It is a strategic decision to sit out a difficult game, because as the old saying goes, "the casino is open tomorrow."
3. Waiting is an Active Part of Execution
Amateur traders often trade out of boredom, feeling that if they aren't in a position, they aren't doing their job. Professionals understand that patience is a crucial and active component of their trading plan. It’s one of the hardest skills for a coach to teach and a trader to learn, but the period of waiting—sometimes for hours—for a high-quality setup is a vital part of executing a strategy correctly.
You map your levels and define your setup criteria; the next step in the process is to wait for the market to come to you. This disciplined patience prevents you from taking mediocre trades that drain your capital and mental energy. "waiting is part of execution"
This reframes the entire act of doing nothing. It ceases to be a missed opportunity and becomes a deliberate, strategic action. Waiting is the final filter that ensures you only risk your capital when the conditions of your plan have been perfectly met.
4. You Only Control Your Plan, Not the Outcome
This is a profoundly difficult but essential truth to accept: the outcome of any single trade is a random event. While you can identify and trade high-probability setups, you have absolutely zero control over whether an individual trade will be a winner or a loser. The only thing a trader has absolute control over is their obedience to their plan. This realization fundamentally shifts the goal of trading. The objective is no longer to be "right" on every trade; it is to be disciplined in your execution. This can be measured with a "daily discipline score" where you ask yourself, "what percentage of my setups matched my criteria?" Your job is to follow your rules, manage your risk, and let the probabilities play out over a large series of trades.
5. The Market is Indifferent to Your Needs
The market is a completely impersonal force. It has no awareness of your goals, your deadlines, or your personal financial situation. This blunt truth, once fully accepted, is incredibly liberating for a trader. "The market doesn't care about your opinion, your rent payment, your mortgage payment, how certain you feel that price is going to go up or down."
Understanding this encourages emotional detachment. It eliminates the impulse to force a trade because you need to pay a bill or to hold onto a loser because you feel it should turn around. The market will do what it is going to do, and your personal needs have no bearing on its direction. Acknowledging this allows you to make decisions based on objective market information, not emotional pressure.
6. Trade with "Humble Dependence," Not Overconfidence
"Humble dependence" is a mindset that sits in direct opposition to the common pitfalls of trader ego. It's the antithesis of the overconfidence that creeps in after a string of wins, making you think you've "cracked the market's code." It’s also the cure for two other destructive habits: forcing a trade because you feel the market should move your way, and "adding to a losing position" because you can't accept that the trade went against you.
This mindset means you place your trust in your rigorously tested plan and process, not in your fleeting feelings of certainty or frustration. It is the discipline to take only the setups that meet your specific criteria and to accept a stop-loss without an emotional reaction. It is the humility to admit that you don't know what will happen next, but you have faith in your strategy to guide your actions.
Conclusion: Are You Listening?
Exceptional trading is less about the magical ability to predict the future and more about the disciplined ability to master one's own psychology. It is about building a solid plan and then developing the internal fortitude to follow it, especially on days when the market feels chaotic and your emotions are running high.
The most valuable signals aren't always found on a chart or in an indicator. They often come from within—from that internal warning clock that is constantly analyzing the market's rhythm and flow. The key is learning to filter out the noise and listen to the signal. The market is sending signals, and so is your intuition. Which one have you been ignoring?
📚 RESOURCES FOR FUTURES TRADERS
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