When NOT To Short ES MES Futures
When NOT To Short ES MES Futures
Friday November 14, 2025
On a day marked by extreme volatility, a professional futures trader shared five unexpected lessons that run counter to popular trading instincts. He warned against rewriting trading plans based on rare outlier days and emphasized the risk of chasing trends that appear unstoppable. The trader highlighted break-even trades as a form of disciplined success and stressed the importance of pre-market preparation in capturing high-quality setups. Following intense market movement, his priority was risk reduction—cutting size and limiting trades to protect capital during unstable conditions.
Opening Remarks
Every trader knows the feeling: watching the market make a massive, one-directional move and being gripped by a potent mix of greed for missing the ride and fear of being on the wrong side. It’s a day of chaos—a "bell to bell vomit"—where it seems like everyone else is getting rich. But the most valuable lessons from these extreme "outlier" days are often the exact opposite of what our instincts tell us. Here are five surprising takeaways from a professional trader's real-time analysis of one such day, designed to reframe how you think about volatility, risk, and strategy.
1. Your Strategy Isn’t Broken — The Day Was Just a Freak Event
An "outlier day" is a rare, massive move that falls far outside the normal statistical range of market behavior—what one trader referred to as a "two standard deviation move." The first and most critical warning from a professional's playbook is to resist the powerful urge to adjust a well-thought-out trading plan based on a single, extreme event.
This is a crucial psychological insight that guards against recency bias. Traders often feel they must overhaul their entire strategy to catch the next outlier, but this is a trap. A strategy designed for rare, high-volatility conditions will likely fail during the other 20+ typical trading days in a month. The professional understands that the goal is consistency over the long term, not a futile attempt to perfectly capture every freak event.
As Micros Trader put it:
“Be careful thinking you need to adjust your trade plan based off outlier days... Typically it's one day a month you get a bell to bell vomit and it's a big old move and everybody thinks they should be millionaires. So be careful with that.”
2. The Most Dangerous Time to Chase is When a Trend Looks Invincible
The day in question featured a relentless downward trend, with what Micros Trader described as "ladder downs"—repeated drops, pauses, and further drops. On a typical day, you might see three to five. This day had over seven. His plan monitors key "strong levels" for support; a typical sell-off might break five. This day broke through seven.
Here is the core counter-intuitive rule: after a certain point of extreme extension (in this case, the seventh ladder down), a professional stops looking for new short positions—even though the trend is still aggressively moving downward. This decision isn’t based on guessing; it’s a disciplined choice rooted in statistical behavior. Chasing the trend lower might have worked on this specific day, but as the trader explained, "It wouldn't work the other 20-something trading days of the month."
On most days, a market that stretched is extremely likely to experience a violent “V-shaped recovery,” trapping late-comers. The professional plays the odds that are profitable over a large sample of days, even if it means missing the tail end of a single outlier move.
As Micros Trader noted:
“I would rather keep taking longs here and getting break even than trying to short after the seventh ladder. You do you.”
3. The Break-Even Trade is a Victory, Not a Failure
Despite the overwhelming downward trend, Micros Trader attempted long trades at pre-planned support levels. This wasn't a reckless move; it was an execution of a defined process. His counter-trend plan includes a critical rule: wait for a “second ladder” of confirmation before entering long. On this particular day, that confirmation never came.
He probed for a long on a first small move up, but when the second ladder failed to materialize, the plan deemed the trade invalid. The result? He repeatedly exited for break-even, humorously calling himself “Mr. Breakeven Trader.”
This reframes the concept of break-even trades: they’re not failures, but evidence of a disciplined process in action. His rules protected his capital, reinforcing the mantra: “Account safe, account safe.” A day of break-even trades is a massive victory compared to a day of chasing and large losses.
4. Your Best Trades Are Decided Before the Market Opens
Throughout the session, Micros Trader repeatedly referenced his “battle plan,” a structured strategy built the night before. The best short setups—including the "Speculator Special" and "Battle Plan 1"—were pre-planned, not improvised. This level of preparation distinguishes professional traders from impulsive ones.
In a moment of brutal honesty, he admits he missed his own best short trade of the day. Why? His order was a point and a half too greedy. He stuck to the plan—but not close enough. The trade idea was perfect, the execution fell short. And that’s the distinction: your edge lies in the planning, even if real-time emotion and greed sometimes get in the way. The lesson: stick to process over instinct.
5. After Extreme Volatility, Your First Move is to Get Smaller
Perhaps the most surprising lesson comes the day after the chaos. Most traders want to jump back in with size, riding the momentum. But the professional takes the opposite approach. His response? Reduce exposure.
Micros Trader physically altered his trading platform settings to limit himself: one trade only, with an 8-point maximum loss for the day. His goal was not to catch more big moves, but to protect capital after an emotionally and statistically abnormal day. This is disciplined risk management in action.
He explained:
“Today is a perfect day to tighten up your risk management. I've already changed my trade-of-eight settings. I get one trade today. If I lose eight points, I'm out today. I got eight points to play with.”
Conclusion
The common thread through all these lessons is that successful trading often requires actively resisting your instincts. It means sticking to a pre-defined plan when chaos erupts, prioritizing defense (break-even trades and smaller size) over impulsive offense, and understanding the statistical nature of markets rather than overreacting to rare events. The next time you witness a wild market, will your instinct be to chase the chaos—or protect your capital and wait for your setup?
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