From $55 in January to $115 in early April.

But, what’s happening underneath doesn’t line up…

It may make you feel like you missed it.

I get it.
It’s hard to think clearly right now.

You turn on the TV and someone is telling you the war is almost over.
Two weeks. Maybe three.

Then you scroll your phone and see the opposite.
More strikes. More threats. Deadlines. Ultimatums. Missiles landing in places most people never heard of… let alone could find on a map.

You see clips of “regime change.”

You see people speaking with certainty about things that clearly aren’t certain.

And then you see the memes.
Oil at $150. $200. Jokes about something that doesn’t really feel like a joke.

Note: Here’s my favorite 😂

And somewhere in the middle of all that, oil is moving fast.
But, not everything is moving with it.

The United States, Israel, and Iran are in an active conflict.

The Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important energy chokepoints in the world, is effectively restricted. Roughly 20% of global oil supply moves through it, and at times, traffic has dropped close to zero. You can see this live at:
https://www.marinevesseltraffic.com/HORMUZ-STRAIT/ship-traffic-tracker

If this were already a real shortage, you’d expect to see it everywhere.
Right now, you don’t.

➡️ Missile strikes are ongoing.
➡️ Infrastructure is being hit.
➡️ Deadlines are being issued and ignored.

At the same time, there are constant signals that things could calm down. Talks. Mediation. Statements that the war is “nearing completion.”

So you end up with two completely different stories at once:

• This could be over soon

• This could get much worse

And the market is trying to price both at the same time.

That’s why oil is moving like this. Not because the outcome is clear, it isn’t. When the world gets this noisy, it’s easy to feel like you need to react.

Buy something.
Sell something.
Do something.

But before doing anything, it helps to step back and look at what’s actually happening underneath the headlines.

Think of oil like something very simple.

You don’t use crude oil directly. You turn it into things like diesel and gasoline. Those are what actually power the real world. So if something is truly wrong with supply, you should see it show up in both places.

Not just crude.

Right now, crude is moving like there is a shortage.

But diesel is not.

That difference is called the crack spread.

And it’s one of the simplest ways to understand whether the move in oil is real or just early.

If oil goes up and diesel goes up with it, that tells you the system is tight.
If oil goes up and diesel doesn’t, that tells you something is out of sync.

That’s exactly what’s happening now.

Crude is exploding higher.
The diesel crack is falling hard.

That’s not how a tight system behaves.

That’s a mismatch.

That combination doesn’t usually last.

This chart - known as the 321 Crack Spread shows something slightly different from the diesel crack.

Instead of isolating one product, it looks at the broader product complex.

Gasoline and diesel together relative to crude gives you. a broader sense of the oil breakdown. It gives you a sense of how refined products, as a group, are behaving.

And what it’s showing is consistent.
Products are lagging crude.

But diesel still matters more.

Gasoline is more seasonal and more tied to consumer behavior. It moves with driving demand, weather, and short-term trends.

Diesel is different.

It is tied to freight, industry, and global trade.

It is less discretionary and is much more impacted by what is going on today in the middle east supply distruption.

So when you want to know if the system is truly tight, diesel is the cleaner signal.

That’s why the weakness in diesel stands out.

It’s not just that products are lagging. It’s that the part of the market most sensitive to real economic demand and logistics pressure is not confirming the move in crude.

Because when you look back at history, whenever the spread gets this weak, oil is usually near a turning point.

In 2020, it led to a collapse.
In 2022, it marked the top.
In more normal periods, it led to sideways movement.

But there’s a catch.

Those were demand problems.
This is a supply problem.

And supply problems tend to play out differently.

They don’t hit all at once. First, crude reacts to the risk. Then, over time, the system starts to feel it. Inventories drop. Shipping slows. Refineries struggle to keep up.

Eventually, products like diesel begin to move.

We are not there yet.

Right now, what you’re looking at in these charts is a gap. Crude is pricing what might happen. Diesel is reflecting what has happened so far. That gap doesn’t stay open forever.

It resolves one of two ways.

1. Either crude came too far, too fast and it pulls back.

2. Or the system catches up and diesel moves higher.

The headlines won’t tell you which one is happening. The tweets won’t tell you. The talking heads won’t tell you.

But, the chart will.

If diesel keeps falling, the move in oil probably needs to cool off. If diesel stabilizes and starts moving higher, that’s when things change.

That’s when the shortage becomes real.

And if that happens, the move you’ve already seen in oil is probably not the move.

It’s just the beginning.

So what do you do?

You watch the system.

Crude has moved.
Now you watch diesel.

When real tightness meets a supply shock, prices don’t drift. They move in fleets making $100/oil look like childs play...

The effect that has on the global economy?

Well… it’s not good.

-PriceTrader

I write these in real time, as things are unfolding.
If you want to follow along, subscribe.

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Price movements in markets are a function of behavior.
And behavior rarely changes…

Alert:
This isn’t about predicting another COVID-style crash.
It’s about recognizing behavior.

With the markets down ~7% from the January 28th highs, AI inflated prices, rebalancing, the Iran/US war… the SPX recently crossed the 200 Day EMA.

The 200 Day EMA is a leading indicator for technical analysts.
It’s boring, but it has merit.

You’ll see why below…

But it’s not just price crossing the 200 Daily EMA that matters… it’s the behavior around that cross… that’s what matters.

When we get a specific behavior, now we have something worth examining.

So with everything going on in today’s markets, I went to the charts to find examples of this behavior.

Note: These examples lead up to today’s price behavior… seen below

---

Read more

Late February into early April was one of those stretches.

Yesterday, March 31, ES rallied from 6353 on March 30 and closed at 6567. Overnight into April 1, it traded as high as 6643.

That’s roughly a 4.5% move off the lows in less than a day.

So now the questions show up.

Is the trend over?
Did the news change things?
Is this a real reversal or just a reaction?

Those questions assume the move defines the environment.

It doesn’t.

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Where This Actually Started

Go back to February 25.

Price pushed and didn’t make a new high.

That wasn’t a signal.
It didn’t break anything.
But the behavior changed.

Up to that point, pushes were getting accepted. After that, they weren’t.

The market could still move up, but it wasn’t holding the same way.

Three days later, the war started.

That didn’t cause the change.
It sped it up.

As I write about in:

As I wrote in this post:

A second lower high, where RSI stays below 60. This confirms the rally is failing to gain strength.

The failure to create a new high, with RSI confirming this weakness… thats the sign traders can look to…

March 4, the 8/89 crossed on the daily.

That’s not a read. That’s just what happened.

Short-term lost control.

It doesn’t depend on opinion. It’s simply a change in control. The shorter-term trend that had been driving price higher was no longer doing so.

But that alone isn’t enough. Markets don’t reverse just because a moving average crosses. They reverse when behavior confirms that the prior conditions are no longer present.

That confirmation came on March 10…. a failed breakdown of 6662 put in a low as price rallied back to the 89 EMA

Price rallied back into that area. It had an opportunity to reclaim.

In prior conditions, that type of move would have been absorbed and continued.

That’s what had been happening since the April 2025 Tariff lows…

This time it didn’t.

Price failed to reestablish itself above that zone and instead accepted below it. That’s the difference. Not the test, but the response to the test.

Once that happened, the sequence began to shift.

Lower highs started forming. Not immediately obvious, but consistent.

Lower lows followed.

Again, not necessarily aggressive, but persistent.

Reclaims that would have worked before began to fail.
Moves that should have continued stalled.

At that point, you’re no longer dealing with the same environment.

Not because of any single event, but because the market is no longer responding the same way to the same conditions.

From March 10 through the middle of the month, the defining feature wasn’t direction. It was inconsistency.

Moves extended, but they didn’t resolve cleanly.

You would get continuation attempts that lacked follow-through. You would get pullbacks that didn’t hold in a stable way. Both sides would get brief control, but neither side could maintain it.

That’s a specific type of environment.

Not trending. Not balanced.

And instability tends to show up the same way:

• Moves feel larger than they should

• Reactions happen faster than expected

• Follow-through becomes unreliable

This is where most participants struggle.

A breakout that would have worked two weeks prior now fails. A breakdown that should have extended stalls. The same patterns exist, but the outcomes are different.

By March 25, enough of these occurrences had stacked up that the shift was clear.

Not a call on direction. Not a prediction of what comes next. Just a recognition that the market was no longer behaving the way it had been.

During the last 10 days the environment didn’t stabilize.
It became more extreme.

By March 29–30, the market had moved far enough and fast enough that conditions became stretched.

Thats the update from March 30…

A market can be down without being stretched. And a market can be stretched without being down.

In this case, it was both.

Positioning leaned heavily in one direction.

The backdrop: war, energy prices, uncertainty….reinforced that positioning. Participants weren’t just reacting to price, they were aligning around a narrative.

That’s what creates imbalance.

And imbalance is what sets up sharp counter-moves.

Not because the underlying issue is resolved, but because too many participants are leaning the same way at the same time.

At that point, the market just needs a reason to move the other way.

Yesterday morning we got that

Secretary Hegseth’s briefing didn’t announce the end of the conflict. It didn’t resolve the underlying issues. But it changed the tone.

The message was clear:

• The U.S. had control

• Iranian capabilities were being degraded

• Missile and drone activity was declining

• Negotiations were active and progressing

That’s (apparently) enough to alter expectations.

When the message shifted toward control and potential resolution, even if incomplete, it forced a reassessment.

That’s what (seemingly) triggers repositioning.

Not new information in absolute terms, but new information relative to what was already priced in.

Yesterday’s Move

The rally that followed from 6353 March 30 low to over 6600 this AM occurred in a very short period… That move only makes sense in that context.

It wasn’t driven by new buyers stepping in with conviction about long-term value. It was driven by existing participants needing to adjust.

Shorts that had been positioned for continuation were suddenly exposed to a different set of risks. As they covered, price moved quickly.

As bottom buyers bought, this accelerated….

In an environment where liquidity is thinner and participation is reactive, those moves accelerate.

That’s why you see speed.

But speed, on its own, doesn’t indicate a change in trend.

It indicates urgency.

And urgency is usually tied to positioning, not structure.

After that move, the question becomes whether anything materially changed.

From a structural standpoint, it hasn’t.

The sequence of lower highs remains intact.
Price has not yet broken above the levels that would invalidate that sequence.
The sequence of lower lows also remains intact.
One rally, even a large one, doesn’t erase that pattern.

More importantly, the market has not demonstrated sustained acceptance at higher levels.

It has moved there. That’s not the same thing.

Momentum provides a clean way to view this.

On the daily timeframe, RSI had been operating below 40, consistent with a weaker environment. After a nearly 4.5% rally, RSI has only just moved back above that threshold.

That tells you something about the underlying strength of the move. In stronger environments, RSI doesn’t need a move of that magnitude to recover. It holds higher levels more consistently. Here, it required an outsized move just to return to neutral territory.

That suggests the underlying pressure hasn’t been fully resolved.

At this stage, the market is dealing with competing forces.

On one side, you have the potential for improving conditions:

• A narrative of control rather than escalation

• The possibility of a negotiated outcome

• Reduced immediate uncertainty

On the other side, you have existing structure:

• A broken sequence of price behavior

• Weak momentum characteristics

• Lack of consistent acceptance at higher levels

These don’t resolve immediately.

That’s why volatility remains elevated.

What Matters Going Forward

From here, the focus shifts away from the initial move and toward what follows it. The rally itself doesn’t confirm anything. It sets the stage.

What matters is whether the market can build on it.

There are a few things that need to be observed:

First, whether price can hold higher levels. A move up is one thing. The ability to maintain those levels without immediate reversal is another.

Second, how pullbacks behave. In a stronger environment, pullbacks tend to be contained. They are bought relatively quickly, and they don’t retrace large portions of the prior move. If pullbacks become deeper or more prolonged, that suggests the rally lacks underlying support.

Third, whether momentum improves in a sustained way. If RSI and similar measures can remain elevated without requiring extreme moves, that indicates a shift in behavior.

If they cannot, then the environment has not materially changed.

Major Levels I’m watching:

📊 Likely Supports for April 1 into Easter Holiday
High-Priority: 6555–6567, 6473–6480, 6353
Medium-Priority: 6500–6510, 6420–6435

📈 Likely Resistances for April 1 into Easter Holiday
High-Priority: 6640–6662, 6708–6723, 6800–6820
Medium-Priority: 6675, 6750

It’s hard to deny a 3% move. The move off the lows was real. The catalyst behind it was real, as far as following a headline goes….

But neither of those, on their own, redefine the environment. They don’t change trends.

Until that occurs, the most likely interpretation is that this is a rally within a broader correction.

If that changes, it will become evident through the same process that identified the shift in the first place.

We’ll be able to see it on the chart… Not through headlines… Not through isolated moves.

But through consistent changes in how price behaves over time.

Cheers,
PriceTrader

Has the environment actually changed, or are we just reacting to short-term pressure?

That distinction matters, because temporary stress fades while structural shifts persist.

Over the past week, nothing has faded. The same forces are still in place, and they have not weakened.

If anything, they have become more obvious.

The headlines have not provided clarity.

On March 23, Trump said that talks with Iran were going well, suggesting progress and a possible path toward easing tensions. Iran denied it almost immediately, rejecting the idea that any real discussions were taking place. That alone would not be unusual, but the pattern continued.

Over the following days, the same sequence played out.

Progress was suggested, then rejected.
Optimism was introduced, then removed.

When messaging breaks down like this, it does not signal resolution. It signals disconnect.

At the same time, the situation on the ground has expanded.

The Houthis entered the conflict, opening another front and increasing the complexity of what was already a fragile situation. Missiles continue to be launched from multiple areas, and the conflict is no longer contained to a single region.

The U.S. response has also shifted.

Troops have been moved into position, and the discussion of ground involvement is no longer theoretical.

These are not signals of a system calming down.

They are signals of a system preparing for sustained tension.

Through all of this, one thing has remained unchanged.

Oil has stayed elevated, and the Strait of Hormuz continues to act as a point of constraint rather than relief. There has been no meaningful pullback, no indication that supply pressure is easing.

Here’s and updated chart of Brent Crude, /BZ futures:

That persistence matters more than any individual headline. Markets can absorb news, but they struggle to absorb sustained pressure. When a key input remains elevated for long enough, it begins to shape behavior across everything else.

Iran’s incentives help explain why that pressure continues.

The Strait is not just a passageway, it is leverage. Control over supply translates directly into influence over global conditions. Higher oil prices do not stay contained within energy markets. They ripple outward into costs, inflation expectations, and financial conditions.

That ripple effect is already visible. Economies are tightening, and the pressure is spreading. In that environment, there is little incentive to quickly resolve the source of that leverage.

Time, in this case, works in their favor.

This brings us back to price, which is where the impact becomes clear.

Five days ago, rallies were already starting to show signs of weakness. They would push higher, but they would not extend. Follow-through was limited, and momentum would fade quickly.

That behavior has not changed. The only difference now is that it has become more consistent. Strength still appears, but it does not last. The market is moving, but it is not progressing.

On March 25th I wrote:

“If price fails to establish acceptance above 6676–6690, the recent advance is likely to be interpreted as corrective, with a return toward 6611 as the natural progression. That is the low risk shorting opportunity here.”

The 6676–6690 level was the clearest test of that shift. It was not just a resistance level, it was a decision point. Buyers needed to reclaim it, hold it, and build acceptance above it to show that control was still intact.

They failed to do that every time.

The market had already shown that it could not sustain higher prices. The downside move simply reflected that reality. It was not a new development, but a continuation of what had already been signaled.

Price is now 6450.

This is how repricing happens. Not through a single event, but through repeated failure to move in the opposite direction.

Rallies continue to behave as corrective movements, while downside moves are more direct and more decisive.

That difference in behavior has become more pronounced. Not less.

Nothing in the past week has contradicted the original thesis.

Oil remains elevated, the dollar remains firm, and financial conditions remain tight. These inputs have not changed, and price continues to reflect them through its behavior.

When the inputs persist, the outcomes tend to follow.

The question now is no longer whether the environment has changed. It has. The question is what would need to happen for that to reverse. Until something meaningfully alters the current inputs, the behavior is unlikely to shift.

And until that shift occurs, the burden of proof remains where it belongs.

On buyers to show they can take control… and hold it.

Oil Still Controls

📊 Likely Supports for March 31

High-Priority: 6400, 6331, 6265
Medium-Priority: 6484, 6141, 6027

📈 Likely Resistances for March 31

High-Priority: 6616, 6658, 6703
Medium-Priority: 6552, 6676–6690, 6742

What matters now is not just where price is, but how it got there.

The move lower didn’t start with the breakdown. It started with repeated failure to hold higher levels. Each attempt higher stalled sooner, and each rejection came faster.

The 6616–6658 area is the last real breakdown shelf.

This is where price failed to hold structure before the move accelerated. It wasn’t lost in one move, it was lost through inability to stay above it. Once that gave, the market stopped rotating and started trending lower. Any move back into that area is a test of whether that failure still holds.

Above that, 6676–6690 remains the control level.

That was the level buyers needed to reclaim to invalidate the shift. They never did. Every push into that zone failed to hold, and each attempt weakened. As long as that level remains unclaimed, the broader structure hasn’t changed.

The shift became more visible at 6552. This is where rallies stopped behaving normally. Instead of rotating and building, they failed quickly. The market stopped giving space for continuation. That change in behavior mattered more than the level itself.

The move from 6484 into 6400 confirmed everything. Once price broke that area, there was no attempt to stabilize. The move was clean and directional. That’s what happens after multiple failed reclaims. The market doesn’t need to test again, it moves.

All of this points to the same conclusion. The market didn’t just reject higher prices. It showed, repeatedly, that it could not hold them.

For now, I’m simply waiting…

Enjoying the short, enjoying the trend.

Nothing will change here, until the chart says so.

For now, there’s no divergence across the large time frames and there are no major levels being reclaimed.

This is a time to wait…

Losers will be the ones that force things…

-PriceTrader

Oil has surged.
Volatility has picked up.
Narratives are everywhere.
Equities are bleeding.

But when you step back, corn has barely moved.

That’s what makes this interesting.

Corn isn’t in a clean trend right now. It went through a major bull cycle post-Covid, followed by a sharp bear unwind into 2023–2024. Since then, it’s settled into a broad sideways range roughly between the low 400s and high 400s.

The aggressive selling phase has already played out, but there hasn’t been a strong new catalyst to drive a sustained move higher. So price has been compressing.

Corn is currently in a basing phase.

It’s waiting for a macro or supply-driven trigger to determine the next directional cycle.

Let’s talk about supply and demand.

The reason it’s been stuck like this comes down to supply.

The USDA has been very clear. We are still dealing with a massive amount of corn. The U.S. just came off record production. Ending stocks are still sitting around multi-year highs, the largest in roughly seven years.

That kind of supply overhang keeps a lid on price.

Even with strong exports and steady demand, there’s simply too much corn available right now for the market to move aggressively higher.

On the demand side, nothing has really changed….yet.

Ethanol, which is one of the biggest drivers of corn demand, is basically flat. The USDA is still projecting around 5.5–5.6 billion bushels going into ethanol, which is essentially unchanged year over year.

So despite higher oil, the actual demand engine that would push corn higher hasn’t kicked in yet.

That’s the key reason (I believe) why price has barely moved.

Ethanol: Where this entire trade outcome lays

The relationship is simple, but the timing is not.

When oil rises, gasoline becomes more expensive, which makes ethanol more competitive as a blend.

But ethanol producers don’t instantly increase demand just because oil spikes for a few days.

They need sustained margins.

They need confidence that higher prices will hold. Once that happens, they start pulling more corn into production, and that’s when demand actually shifts.

When that shift occurs, it’s not gradual. The market has to reprice quickly because it’s now dealing with a different demand curve.

This is the feedback loop.

Oil stays high → ethanol margins improve → ethanol demand increases → corn demand increases → price reprices.

That’s where the current macro setup comes in…

The US/Iran War pushed oil higher. But corn hasn’t followed in any meaningful way. It’s only up about 4% since late February.

Heer’s a chart of /ZC Futures:

So while Corn has moved basically 20 cents from 446 to 466, Brent is up dramatically more over that same period.

It’s even more remarkable when you look at them on a comparison chart:

That disconnect is the opportunity.

The market sees what’s happening, but it doesn’t believe it yet. It’s waiting to see if oil stays elevated or if this fades like every other geopolitical spike. That’s why corn hasn’t moved. The market isn’t convinced it has to.

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The Market Needs Convincing.
Here’s Where

Markets move when participation changes.

Right now, managed money isn’t fully involved. The COT report shows funds are present, but not aggressively positioned.

There’s no crowding, no urgency.

If oil stays elevated and ethanol margins start to show up in the data, that’s when funds step in. And when they do, they don’t ease in, they move size. That’s when you get expansion.

Note: I wrote about this in “When the Environment Changes”

So what’s changed technically?

Looking at the daily chart, corn is starting to shift from pure range to early structure. You’re seeing higher lows form, price holding above recent levels, and a push back toward the middle of the range. It hasn’t broken out yet, but it’s no longer drifting lower. If this is real, the next step is continuation. This is where we continue pushing higher and holding, much like oil has done.

RSI is starting to reflect that shift. It’s no longer stuck in the lower range like it was during the downtrend and is beginning to build higher. As I’ve talked about in When Do Trends Change?, trends don’t flip all at once.

You get warning signs first, then confirmation.
Right now, we’re getting warning signs.

So what am I actually looking for as confirmation?

I want to see three things.

First, oil needs to stay elevated. We already spiked to $120 and came back into the $80’s early on. Now, we’re maintaining and building momentum….back above $110 as this war lingers on.

This maintained elevation is what drives the entire ethanol story.

Second, I want to see it show up in positioning. Managed money needs to start stepping in. We should see increasing longs and reducing shorts. That’s when I believe it’s clear this is no longer just a narrative, it’s something funds are actually acting on.

Third, price needs to confirm it. That means continuation higher and holding those gains.

Until then, notably, this is still early.

Which brings me to my position.

I’m long /ZCK26 from 466.

I’m fine being early here because the risk is clearly defined. If this is wrong, corn goes back to pre-war levels around 440. That’s roughly 20–25 cents of downside.

But if oil stays elevated and ethanol demand starts to shift, corn doesn’t stay up 4%.
It reprices.

And that move is not 20–25 cents.

That’s the trade.

I’m buying the setup before it’s confirmed, because of the risk:reward being as clear as can be. I have a clear level where I’m wrong.

If I’m right, participation comes in later.

And later could be in a few short weeks…

As always, do your own research. I could be wrong. This could blow up. Your account is your account and you have to own your own decisions 😊. Futures are leveraged products and contain significantly more risk than buying the stock. Using ticker CORN or buying options on the /ZC futures contracts is a way one could reduce risk.

Cheers,

PriceTrader

While traders tend to look for clear signals…. something definitive like a break, a headline, or a catalyst… the reality is that regime shifts rarely present themselves in such a clean or isolated way.

More often, they emerge through a gradual erosion of what once worked.

• Trades that previously extended begin to stall.

• Momentum that once followed through begins to fade.

• What had been consistently rewarded starts, quietly at first, to be penalized.

That process appears to be well underway.

The best example of this is not found in macro first, but in execution.

Over the past several weeks, the number of Failed Breakdown setups that initially worked, but failed to transition into continuation, has increased meaningfully.

Here’s what I mean:

On March 1st, the FBD at 6881 reacted appropriately, but could not extend into new highs. The following day, the same occurred at 6843. These were not failed trades in the traditional sense. Yes, they produced movement.

That distinction matters.
These were not failed trades.
They were failed transitions.

In stronger environments, these types of setups do not simply resolve imbalance. They build on it. They reclaim, hold, and push into new highs. What we saw instead was something different. Movement without progression. Reaction without continuation.

By March 3rd, the pattern repeated at 6807.

The market rallied sharply into 6950, but once again failed to build on that strength.

Another lower high.
Another inability to expand.

Three FBDs in sequence, all producing movement, none producing trend. That is not a setup issue.

That is an environment issue.

The 8/89 cross on the 4-hour marked the structural shift, but the evidence was already there. What followed confirmed it. Lower lows formed. Rallies became shorter, less decisive, and increasingly contained. The move lower into March 8th was not a surprise—it was a release. The market had attempted multiple times to re-establish higher structure and failed. The repricing that followed was simply the consequence of that failure.

The week of March 12th introduced balance, but not strength. A low formed at 6631, and price rotated between 6700 and 6807. In isolation, that range might suggest accumulation. In context, it suggested hesitation. The market was no longer trending higher, but it was not yet resolving lower. It was pausing.

That pause resolved the following week.

From March 18th through March 23rd, ES declined approximately 400 points.

The move was not continuous, but it was directional.
Bounces occurred, but they lacked duration. Only one produced meaningful extension. The rest were abosrbed. This asymmetry….where downside moves are decisive and upside moves are corrective… It’s a characteristic of a market undergoing major repricing.

The reaction to headlines reinforces this interpretation. When news of “great” talks surfaced, price responded. But the response did not hold. It was faded quickly, and more than half of the move was given back. In stronger environments, positive news extends price. In weaker ones, it provides liquidity.

The latter appears to be the case here.

See What I Mean Here:

The 89/8 EMA crossed and and each time it was tested (5 so far), it has been rejected.

Not once has the market demonstrated the ability to reclaim and hold above it. This is not a matter of coincidence. It is a reflection of persistent supply at that level.

RSI provides an additional layer of confirmation.

RSI confirms the shift. On the 4-hour timeframe, RSI is no longer operating in a bullish range. It struggles to hold above 60 and repeatedly compresses back toward 40. Even the sharp move from 6483 to 6680 failed to sustain elevated readings. Momentum appears, but it does not persist. That is not strength. That is reaction.

Structure, momentum, and behavior….

The conclusion is difficult to ignore.

To understand why, it becomes necessary to step back.

Over the past several months, the dominant driver of markets has shifted from one centered on liquidity and growth toward one increasingly constrained by energy and geopolitics.

The most significant of these is oil.

The escalation between the United States and Iran has introduced risk into one of the most critical points in the global energy system, the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of global oil supply flows. The response in crude markets has been immediate and sustained. Both WTI and Brent have repriced higher, and more importantly, have remained elevated.

Here’s WTI Crude

Here’s Brent Crude

Importantly, prices have remained elevated.

That persistence matters. Elevated oil is not simply a commodity move. It is a constraint on the system. It increases costs, pressures inflation expectations, and reduces flexibility for policy. At the same time, the U.S. dollar has strengthened. This is not incidental. As the world’s largest energy producer and exporter, the United States is less sensitive to external supply shocks.

The U.S. dollar (/DX) has strengthened.

This is a critical piece of the puzzle.

The United States (as a major exporter) is less sensitive to external supply shocks than many of its global counterparts.

Because oil is denominated in dollars, higher oil prices increase global demand for USD.

The result is a strengthening dollar in conjunction with rising oil… this combination is a recipe that tightens global financial conditions.

This tightening is not limited to currency markets.
It manifests across asset classes.

Higher oil contributes to elevated inflation expectations, which in turn complicates the Federal Reserve’s ability to ease policy.

A stronger dollar increases the cost of capital globally.

What’s Going To Happen With the War?

🤷‍♂️ Who knows?

I certainly do not.

But I do know this:

Iran is a “do or die society”…
U.S. is a “do until the vote count gets hit” society.

Iran will defend itself to the death of every last soldier. It will fight with $200 oil and force financial pressure anywhere it can.

I noted in my buddy ’s chat:

“Do we think Oil from $70 to $120 back to $90 is the reality of the conflict in Iran? Is Iran really going to wave a white flag in the face of “annihilation.”

I doubt it.

The U.S. not rely on oil coming out of the Straight of Hormuz:

But China does.
Pakistan does.
India does.
Japan does. Many European countries are impacted by this.

Several billion end users are impacted by less oil leaving the Straight.

The strain on these countries will be pushed across every single asset class.

So while $120 was perhaps an early headfake, a sustained problem with 20% of the world’s oil will result in sustained higher prices.

Together, these forces reduce the capacity for growth to expand.

The move in ES from approximately 7100 to the mid-6600s can be understood as a repricing of these conditions.

In such environments, price behavior tends to follow a recognizable pattern.

This is precisely what we observe across the current structure.

At present, price is trading at 6661, positioned directly beneath the 6676–6690 region. This area represents the underside of the prior breakdown and has consistently acted as resistance. Below, at 6611, lies the origin of the most recent upward impulse. These two levels define the immediate structure of the market

Daily

The Daily chart is no longer ambiguous.

What had previously been a series of higher highs supported by orderly pullbacks has transitioned into a structure defined by failure. Not violent failure, but persistent inability to reclaim prior areas of strength. The highs near 7096 now sit as a clear reference point. Everything since has failed to challenge them in any meaningful way.

The sequence that followed that top has been telling. Each attempt to stabilize has occurred at progressively lower levels, and more importantly, each rally has lacked both duration and participation (as noted above).

The recent move into the mid-6600s is not an isolated decline, but part of a broader progression of lower highs and lower lows. What stands out is not just price, but the character; expansion lower, hesitation higher.

RSI reinforces this shift.

On the Daily, RSI has broken out of its prior bullish range and is now consistently operating below the midpoint. Attempts to reclaim strength have been short-lived, with momentum failing before reaching prior highs. This is consistent with a transition from an expansion regime to one of compression and rebalancing.

In stronger environments, RSI holds elevated levels and uses pullbacks as resets.

Here, it struggles to sustain strength, suggesting that rallies are being sold rather than accumulated.

It suggests that the path of least resistance has shifted.

4 Hr

The most important development here is the repeated rejection at the 89 EMA.

Five separate attempts to reclaim that level have failed, each one producing a lower high and leading to a continuation lower. This is not random behavior. It is a clear indication that supply is consistently stepping in at a defined location.

The 8/89 cross marked the structural shift, but what followed confirmed it. Price did not simply move below the averages, it stayed below them.

Every rally since has been corrective in nature, overlapping and lacking momentum.

At the same time, downside moves have been more decisive.

RSI on the 4-hour has established a bearish range. It struggles to sustain above 60 and repeatedly finds support near 40 before breaking lower. It is consistent with short-covering or reactive buying, not sustained demand.

What is particularly notable is the consistency of this pattern.

45 Min

This timeframe shows the transition from impulsive movement to corrective rotation with unusual clarity. The move from 6483 to 6680 was sharp, vertical, and largely one-sided. It was the kind of move that typically signals either a shift in positioning or a temporary imbalance.

However, what followed did not confirm continuation.
Instead, price began to rotate.

That rotation has been defined by overlapping candles, failed pushes higher, and repeated rejections at incremental levels. The market is moving, but it is not progressing. Again, each attempt to extend is met with supply before meaningful expansion can occur.

RSI here continues to reflects this loss of momentum. Rather than sustaining higher readings during rallies, it oscillates around the midpoint, failing to establish a clear directional bias. This type of RSI behavior is typical of range-bound or corrective environments.

The 45-minute also highlights the importance of location.

Price is currently sitting just beneath a cluster of resistance levels, with each minor push higher encountering friction. The lack of follow-through at these levels suggests that buyers are not yet willing to commit aggressively.

What This Environment Does to Price

If the inputs have changed, then the behavior must change with it.

That is the part most people miss.

They recognize something feels different… but they continue to trade as if nothing has changed. They continue to expect continuation where the environment no longer supports it. They continue to treat reactions as signals of strength, rather than what they are…..temporary imbalances inside a system that is tightening.

When oil rises and remains elevated, and when the dollar strengthens alongside it, the system becomes less forgiving. Period.

Liquidity does not disappear, but it becomes selective.
Participation does not vanish, but it becomes conditional.
And price, rather than expanding cleanly, begins to fragment.

That fragmentation shows up in very specific ways.

Downside moves accelerate. They move quickly because repricing happens faster than accumulation. When the market needs to adjust to new information like higher energy costs and tighter financial conditions, it does so abruptly.

That is why the declines we have seen have been sharp, directional, and difficult to interrupt.

Upside, by contrast, loses clarity. Rallies begin to overlap. They move, but they do not progress. Each push higher encounters supply sooner than expected. What would previously have been continuation becomes hesitation. What would previously have been expansion becomes rotation.

This is where the behavior of FBDs becomes critical.

In an expansion regime, failed breakdowns do not simply bounce, they extend. They reclaim, build acceptance, and drive into new highs. That is what continuation looks like when the system is supportive.

In a constrained regime, they still trigger. They still produce a reaction. But they fail to transition into trend. They resolve the imbalance, and then they stall. That is exactly what we have seen repeatedly over the past several weeks.

The setup did not break.

The environment did.

This is not random noise..

And once you understand that, the expectations must change.

You stop assuming continuation.
You stop rewarding midrange trades.
You stop chasing movement simply because it exists.

Instead, you begin to anchor everything to location.

You recognize that rallies into supply are opportunities to evaluate failure, even short, or hedge, not to add strength.

You recognize that support must prove itself, not be assumed. And most importantly, you recognize that not every move deserves participation.

Because in this type of environment, the edge is not in activity.

It is in selectivity.

Here’s what I’m looking at Wednesday March 25

📊 Likely Supports for March 25
High-Priority: 6611, 6565, 6527, 6492
Medium-Priority: 6640, 6591, 6574, 6552, 6542, 6534, 6510

📈 Likely Resistances for March 25
High-Priority: 6676, 6690, 6762, 6790, 6800
Medium-Priority: 6684, 6705, 6736, 6752, 6778

The question, then, is not where price will go, but how it will behave at these levels.

If price fails to establish acceptance above 6676–6690, the recent advance is likely to be interpreted as corrective, with a return toward 6611 as the natural progression. That is the low risk shorting opportunity here.

A failure at 6611 would further reinforce the bearish structure, opening the path to lower levels.

In environments characterized by transition, the cost of misinterpretation is high.

Patterns that worked in prior regimes may no longer be reliable.
Indicators may produce signals that are less actionable.

At this point…

At this point, the question is not direction.

It is environment.

Because the market is still moving. It is still offering opportunity. But the way those moves develop has changed, and that change is now consistent enough to matter.

Rallies are no longer building.
Continuation is no longer assumed.

And when those two things shift, everything else follows.

Oil is elevated.
The dollar is firm.

That combination tightens the system, and when the system tightens, price becomes less forgiving. Moves resolve, but they do not extend. Strength appears, but it does not persist. What used to trend now rotates.

That is the environment.

Location is not enough. Reaction is not enough.

Only acceptance matters.

And until price can prove it can move higher and hold…

The burden of proof remains.

“U.S. strikes on Iranian targets escalated tensions in the Middle East and reintroduced geopolitical premium into global markets. President Trump stated operations would continue until objectives were achieved and warned that further retaliation would be met with force. Oil responded immediately, pressing higher on supply-route risk through the Strait of Hormuz.”

When energy reprices quickly on geopolitical stress, metals typically follow as capital rotates toward hard assets.

Historically, these periods don’t immediately break equities, but they do change character.

Volatility compresses directionally, risk appetite tightens, and flows become selective. Indices trade heavier while commodities absorb uncertainty.

That shift has been visible.

Then flow directly into:

Over the last several weeks, /ESH26 has continued to offer tradable failed breakdowns off defined shelve and I’ve taken a few of them. The November flush into 6650–6680 reversed sharply.

The December breakdown attempt near 6820 reclaimed and rotated back into balance. The early-February sweep under 6800 did the same.

The entries worked. The reclaims were clean.

But every expansion leg stalled back into the broader 6900–7050 range.

This has been a trader’s tape, not a trend tape.

When runners repeatedly fail to extend beyond range highs or lows, capital efficiency changes. You can execute at the levels and harvest rotation, but you’re not getting sustained impulse continuation that justifies carrying size. That’s not frustration. It’s simply reading market character correctly. When continuation fails, exposure adjusts.

Metals have been different.

Silver has been building within an orderly, liquid uptrend supported by expanding participation. A smaller silver futures contract was recently introduced to lower the notional barrier to entry, broadening access and reinforcing liquidity across the complex. I’m not trading that contract, but its presence matters. When participation increases during an existing trend, it strengthens the structure underneath it.

My initial build in /SI occurred on 2/25 at 4:01 PM, where I accumulated 10 contracts between 89.16 and 89.20. The fills were concentrated in a tight band because that level offered structure and defined risk. I don’t chase strength. I build where asymmetry exists.

The first add came Friday at 10:20 AM at 92.89. By then, price had already expanded away from the base. The market confirmed direction before I increased size. That’s the distinction between pyramiding and averaging.

Later that afternoon, at 3:23 PM, I added two more contracts at 94.23 and 94.28. Momentum remained intact. Liquidity was supportive. The broader structure had not deteriorated. When those conditions align, expanding exposure is a calculated decision, not an emotional one.

Here’s the full picture:

The position now totals 13 contracts with an average of 90.2492. Every $1 move in /SI carries meaningful notional impact, which is why leverage must be handled deliberately.

The objective is not to increase risk through size.

It’s to compound strength while progressively compressing downside exposure as price extends.

Silver is trading clean.
Spreads are stable.
Execution is smooth.

In thin markets, pyramiding introduces distortion. In liquid trending markets, it becomes a precision tool. The structure remains intact, higher lows continue to hold, and continuation has not shown the repeated stall behavior we’ve seen in ES.

This position was built with intent. Size at structure. Adds on confirmation. Risk managed without hesitation. No averaging down. No narrative-driven urgency.

The framework is repeatable because it’s built on behavior, not opinion.

Looking Ahead

On /ESH26, nothing changes until structure changes. The 6900–7050 range continues to define the auction. Acceptance above 7050 with follow-through would shift posture and likely open the door to expansion toward new highs. Failure to hold above that level keeps ES rotational. A sustained break and acceptance below 6800 would target the mid-6600s again. Until one side proves it can hold outside this range, ES remains a two-sided market designed for precision, not position building.

On /SIK26, the structure is trending, not rotating. The 89–90 base that launched this leg is now key. As long as silver holds above that base and continues printing higher lows, the path of least resistance remains higher, with momentum likely pressing into the upper-90s and potentially challenging psychological extension beyond that if participation continues to build. Unlike ES, silver has been accepting higher prices rather than rejecting them.

If ES breaks and holds, I’ll lean back in.

Until then, I allocate where continuation exists.

Right now, that structure is in /SIK26.

Initially a muted reaction and a 30pt range on ESH26.

But this morning we’re selling off.

You can see the gravity of it here….

I wrote about the levels I was interested in here.

Read more

That changed on January 16.

From 1/16 into 1/21, ES sold off nearly 200 points. The move was fast and directional, and it interrupted a stretch of behavior that had gone largely unchallenged. This wasn’t a slow deterioration or a sequence of failed tests. It was a repricing that forced participation and cleared positioning quickly.

Read more

But when the market shifts character, it’s worth documenting.

Not because I need a take, but because this is exactly where most traders slowly leak money. Not from being wrong… no… but from forcing action when the market is quietly telling you the terms have changed.

This is one of those moments.

After an aggressive bull run that really got going around the week of Thanksgiving, ES did what strong markets tend to do. It kept pushing. Pullbacks stayed shallow. Price kept accepting higher. By last week, we were trading in ATH territory.

A 400pt rally in seven sessions (11/21–11/28) is epic.

But it wasn’t emotional.
It was steady, accepted, and efficient.

(It didn’t look anything like the kind of vertical blow-off you see in something like Silver right now.)

Nope…
Since then, the character has changed.

Not because the market suddenly found a reason to sell, but because once price reached new highs, it stopped getting paid for urgency.
Rates never really backed off.
Cut expectations got less clean.
The headline tape got louder again.
And instead of breaking, price just started working.

That’s what ES is doing now.

This daily chart is about six months of memory. Late July to late January. That’s a full cycle of impulses and corrections, not a two-week mood swing.

Price points that define the structure

Let’s start with the top, because that’s where the change began.

7007 is the obvious one.
That’s the upper ceiling, and price has already proven it can trade there. The important part is what happened next. Instead of expanding away from 7007, ES started chopping around the upper band, then failed to hold the upper channel.

That’s not a crash signal.
It’s a follow-through signal that didn’t show up.

Below that, the market has been living inside a tight stack of decision levels.

6955 is the mini-dash tell.
The market worked around it, but didn’t build clean acceptance above it. It behaved like a level that gets tagged and rotated from, not one that gets reclaimed and left behind.

6925 is a bigger deal.
It’s a major blue dashed shelf, and it’s been a repeat pivot. When the market is healthy, it doesn’t keep coming back to 6925. It uses it and goes. When the market is maturing, it keeps revisiting it, and every revisit turns into work.

Now look at where we are.

6905 is the solid black line sitting right under that shelf.
That’s a regime line on your chart. When price is above it, the market can still act like an uptrend that’s just pausing. When price is below it, the market starts behaving like balance that can rotate deeper.

This morning, we’re trading around 6892, sitting under that 6905 line after printing down to 6846.75.

That is the first real “terms changed” datapoint on this chart.

Below 6905, the next shelves are clean and already mapped.

6818 is the next blue dashed level that matters.
It’s the first place you’d expect the auction to try to stabilize if this rotation continues.

Then you have the midrange mini-dash cluster, 6777 and 6751.
Those are not regime breakers. They’re the areas that tell you whether downside is being accepted or just explored.

And then you get to the deeper structure.

6692 is the next major blue dashed shelf, and it sits above the big black-line base in the mid-6600s.
If ES is rotating inside a larger, six-month uptrend, 6692 is exactly where you’d expect the market to try to find its footing.

Below that, your major black-line references are 6652.75 and 6574.
Those are the lines that change the bigger story if they ever stop holding.

Right now we are not there.

We are still in the upper half of the six-month structure. But we are no longer acting like a clean continuation.

Impulses vs corrections, what changed

Go back to the rally phase and the structure is clear.

The November low launched a sharp impulse that carried straight into early December. That move paused around 12/11, delivered a correction that respected structure, and then price pushed again into early January, eventually tagging the upper band near 7007.

That’s the anatomy of a trend. But what changed wasn’t direction…
It was the shape of the moves.

Since the 12/11 high, impulses have become sharper in both directions. Up moves no longer expand cleanly. Down moves come faster, but don’t fracture structure. Instead of drifting into shelves, price snaps into them.
Instead of continuing, medium S/R….it works.

Today is a good example.

A session that opens near 6918, trades up to 6935, dumps to 6846, and then sits back around 6892 is not trend efficiency.
That’s two-sided trade, a large gap down after a 3 day weekend, pushing to a new low, and flirting with 40 on the daily RSI.

That’s inventory being moved around.
That’s what aging looks like.

Daily RSI and why it matters now

Now look at RSI across that same window.

RSI is sitting around 43.5.
Earlier in the rally, that would’ve been unthinkable.

During the impulse legs, RSI lived comfortably above 53. Pullbacks reset shallowly and momentum stayed supportive. That’s how strong trends behave.

That regime is gone.

Since the 12/11 high, daily RSI has breached 60 only once, on the January 9-13 all-time high breakout… but more imptly, it failed, almost immediately.

That matters.

When price makes new highs but momentum can’t sustain a bullish regime, the market is telling you expansion is no longer the default.

RSI has spent more time in the middle, and now it’s pressing into the lower half of the range.
It’s not collapsing.
It’s not signaling a bear market.
But it is confirming what price has already shown.

Momentum has cooled.
Follow-through is less reliable.

Higher lows are still intact.
Structure has not broken.
But the combination of momentum divergence, failure for daily RSI to hold above 60, and impulses getting shallower and shorter paints a very specific picture.

This is no longer a trend-first environment.

It’s a range-bound, shakeout-heavy market.

That means more failed breakouts.
More sharp probes into levels.
More frustration for anyone trading momentum instead of location.

If RSI can’t recover back through the midrange while price is trying to reclaim 6905–6925, upside attempts are far more likely to be worked and sold than extended.

If RSI breaks and holds below 40, that’s when the market tells you this rotation is no longer just a reset. Price will reset lower.

Right now, RSI is sitting squarely in the fatigue zone.
Not trend supportive.

And that matches the tape.

As it sits, the 6870 FBD from yesterday did what it was supposed to do. Price flushed, reclaimed, and rotated higher. That part worked.

But it’s now run straight into 6905, the first real resistance that matters on this chart, and momentum hasn’t followed. The push higher has been labored, overlapping, and slow.

That’s not how strong follow-through looks 3 hrs post reclaim.

Below us, the demand zone is still there. It’s real.

But it’s also already been tested…. first around 6860, then again near 6868. Each test weakens it.

Demand doesn’t get stronger by being used repeatedly.

So structurally, this is where things get honest.

If this were a high-quality FBD with trend behind it, price wouldn’t be spending time struggling at the first resistance.

It would be separating.
Instead, it’s stalling.

That suggests failure.

But we don’t trade suggestions.

We don’t predict.

We wait.

If price can’t hold above 6905 and starts losing acceptance back below 6870, then this stops being an FBD and starts becoming a breakdown through a weakened demand zone. At that point, the chart stops asking “will it bounce” and starts asking “where does structure give way next.”

Until that happens, nothing is confirmed.

This is exactly how these transitions play out.

Good looking setups work just enough to draw participation, then stall where momentum should have shown up. That’s not an opinion. That’s what the chart is doing.

So the play here isn’t anticipation.

It’s patience.

The chart will tell us.

And until it does, doing less is the right trade.

6818. Keep on eye on that

Over the last month, I’ve been in poor health and away from the computer most of the time. During that period, I received a number of messages from subscribers… checking in, asking if I was okay, and asking when the next update would come. I appreciate those messages more than I can easily explain. They matter, and they also forced me to be honest about something I had already been wrestling with.

I’m shutting down ESDaily.

This isn’t a pause, a reset, or a rebrand.
And it isn’t because trading stopped working.

I’m doing this because continuing no longer aligns with three things that matter more to me than publishing daily market commentary: my health, my family, and the actual purpose of trading itself.

This piece is meant to close the loop properly.

To explain why this is ending.
To reflect on what we’ve learned.
To restate where I believe the edge truly exists.
And to offer a grounded way to think about ES as we move into 2026, without turning that into prediction or daily obligation.

Why ESDaily existed in the first place

ESDaily didn’t begin as a content project. It started as a way to think out loud, to document how I was seeing the market in real time, and to share a process that took well over a decade to develop and several years to truly trust.

I’ve always felt that most trading education focuses on the wrong things.

Too much emphasis on entries, indicators, and constant action…

Not nearly enough emphasis on context, restraint, timing, and most importantly… structure reading.

Most people are taught how to recognize patterns.
Very few are taught when not to act on them.

I wanted ESDaily to reflect how trading actually works when you’re trying to do it well.

How to read structure.
How to identify where true high risk to reward opportunities exist.
And just as importantly, how to recognize the days, and sometimes the weeks, where nothing meaningful is being offered and waiting is the entire edge.

What I didn’t expect was how much the people reading this would shape the project.

The questions.
The thoughtful replies.
The messages from people saying they were trading less and feeling clearer.
The bold, and sometimes quiet “thank you, I’m starting to get it” notes.

Those mattered.

They pushed me to be more precise, more honest, and more disciplined in what I shared. They reinforced that this wasn’t just about ES….. It was about decision making under uncertainty.

For that, I’m genuinely thankful.

If you strip away the charts, levels, and daily cadence, ESDaily was never about being in the market every day….

It was about understanding how opportunity actually forms.
How it fails.
Where failure and reclaim matter.
And how often the correct decision is to do nothing at all.

Markets do not distribute opportunity evenly.…

They never have..

They move in phases. Expansion. Balance. Transition. Compression. Each phase carries very different expectations for behavior, follow through, and risk. One of the most important lessons reinforced over the last year is that difficulty itself is information.

When clean opportunities stop resolving cleanly.
When reclaims fail more often than they hold.
When rotations become shallow, overlapping, and frustrating.

Ignoring that message in favor of frequency or engagement is how traders slowly erode both capital and clarity.

Most people understand this idea in theory.
Living it is much harder, especially when you feel pressure to always be involved.

Consistency does not come from constant participation.
It comes from alignment.

The tension with daily publishing

Publishing daily commentary introduces a subtle pressure, even when no one explicitly demands it. There’s an expectation to always have a view, to always frame the market, to always define levels, and to always be present.

Over time, that pressure nudges you toward activity for the sake of continuity rather than alignment with conditions.
Good trading doesn’t come from constant engagement…

In fact, it’s almost always the opposite.

It comes from selectivity.
From observation.
From waiting for conditions to align… and intentionally ignoring the noise.
News.
Twitter.
Other people’s opinions…

The constant stream of information that feels productive but rarely is.

And I get it.

People want information.
They want to feel informed.
They want to feel like they’re doing something.

But this over-analyzation of information into the markets… listening to Bloomberg 24/7… watching every 15-minute level… chasing every 20-point move in ES… taking absurd risk to “be active….”

That’s what kills traders.

Not lack of opportunity.
Not lack of intelligence.
No. It’s Noise.

Writing every day while being constantly available adds noise.
It doesn’t add edge.

Eventually, that noise began to spill into areas that matter more than markets.

My health needed more margin than this format allows.
My family deserved more presence.
And from a trading standpoint, I consistently made better decisions when there was less noise, not more analysis.

That wasn’t burnout.
It was information.

And my job as a trader has never been to tell people when to buy and sell.

My job is to identify high reward to risk opportunities during periods of uncertainty… to manage risk when conditions are unclear… and to step aside when the market isn’t offering anything worth engaging with.

That requires honesty.
It requires restraint.
And it requires knowing when silence is the right call.

My integrity matters more than bravado.

Where the edge truly exists

The edge does not live in prediction, indicators, or constant participation.
It lives in location, context, behavior, and exclusion.

Knowing what not to trade is more important than knowing what to trade. Many mistakes don’t come from missing patterns. They come from trading patterns in the wrong context.

That’s why Failed Breakdowns and Level Trackbacks matter.

Not as patterns, but as expressions of intent failure and acceptance.

A proper Failed Breakdown requires a decisive move outside of structure, clear seller commitment expressed through a flush rather than a grind, failure to achieve acceptance lower, and a behavioral reclaim that reveals trapped participation. Without that sequence, there is no edge.

Approach context matters just as much.
A Failed Breakdown inside balance is not the same as one that appears immediately after a structural break or momentum impulse. Without that distinction, these setups drift into pattern recognition….

And pattern recognition without context is noise.

Level Trackbacks operate on market memory.

They test whether acceptance has changed at a meaningful level. What matters is not the touch itself, but the behavior around it. The hesitation. The momentum change. The rejection or acceptance. Where RSI sits. Where overall trend sits. These setups work best when aligned with higher timeframe structure and trend.

Momentum and trend evaluation tie all of this together.
Levels do not exist in isolation.
Momentum tells you whether follow through is likely.
Trend tells you whether you are aligned with the dominant force.

This isn’t theoretical.
There are hundreds of examples in the Trade Review section that show this playing out in real time on ESDaily.

Where I’ve struggled with the MOST by Publishing each day.

One of the hardest lessons is that no trade is a position.
Waiting is not a gap in the process.

Waiting offers the single handed most frequent source of frustration, and it’s the single handled hardest part of trading

Some of the most valuable days over the last year were days where nothing happened. Days where intent never clarified. Days where price churned without purpose. Those days are filters.

They preserve capital and clarity for when opportunity actually appears.

They are also the periods where the most frustration comes from subscribers, and they are the single most difficult thing to endure as an active market participant.

Waiting is uncomfortable.
It creates doubt.
It tests discipline.

It exposes the gap between what people say they believe about trading and how they actually behave when nothing is happening.

Markets don’t reward constant involvement.

They reward patience applied at the right location.

It is the process.

Looking ahead to 2026, the most important thing to understand about ES is not a specific forecast, but its structural and behavioral context.

Recent years have been defined by faster regime shifts, volatility clustering, and increasingly compressed reaction windows.

As it sits and at the time of this final publication we have the following factors taking place:

• Rates are still high, and “higher for longer” has shifted from a talking point to a baseline. The market keeps trying to price cuts… and keeps backing away from them.

• Inflation hasn’t gone away, but growth clearly isn’t accelerating either. The Mag 7 isn’t the Mag 7 of twelve months ago.

• Trend persistence has weakened. Moves start, stall, retrace, and restart… making clean continuation harder to sustain.

• Volatility remains compressed, but only until it isn’t. Trend expansion tends to arrive late and there’s a ton of people on the sidelines

• Market leadership keeps rotating. Trends don’t get the same time to mature before participation shifts elsewhere.

• Liquidity feels inconsistent. Some trends extend farther than structure suggests, others fail early without warning.

• Lower timeframes are noisy. What looks like trend development on a 15-minute chart often collapses when viewed in higher-timeframe context.

• Higher timeframe structure remains unresolved in places. RSI is oscillating. That keeps both failed breakouts and failed breakdowns in play.

• Positioning is crowded around perceived trend direction. When that consensus breaks, reversals happen quickly.

• There’s visible participant fatigue. Speed remains high, but conviction in trends is harder to maintain.

These environments don’t reward overactivity or prediction. They reward patience, selectivity, and an ability to step aside when conditions aren’t supportive.

That hasn’t changed.
If anything, it’s become more important.

The focus shouldn’t be on predicting direction.
It should be on evaluating behavior.

Is price expanding or overlapping?
Are moves impulsive or corrective?
Are reclaims holding, or failing quickly?

And just as important, the questions that almost no one wants to sit with:

Is your trading time frame aligned with your trend time frame?
Is you position sizing correct for current conditions?
Are you getting to net risk zero as quickly as possible?
Are you actually allowing your runners to run?
Are you managing from fear?

The market always provides opportunities and always gives hints before the real move.

The real question:

Are we willing to wait for execution or will we succumb to the pressure to be active?

And underneath all of that, the question that matters most:

Are you truly following a winning strategy, or are you drifting?

There are only two things in the market we can control… our risk, and whether we execute our strategy.

Everything else is information.

I’ve shared the strategy I’ve used for the last fifteen years….

… the same one that allowed me to build a life for my family that I could only dream of growing up.

It’s not complicated, but it is demanding.

It requires discipline.
It requires restraint.
It requires an honest acknowledgment of risk.

It also requires accepting setbacks when they happen, because they will. The edge isn’t in avoiding them. It’s in how you respond, how you protect capital, and how you come back aligned instead of reactive.

That’s what this has always been about.

One of my favorite quotes captures this better than anything I could write:

“The big money is not in the buying or the selling, but in the waiting.” — Jesse Livermore

That idea runs through everything I’ve shared here.

Waiting is not inactivity.
It’s positioning.
It’s preparation.

It’s also the single hardest part of trading done well.

Before closing this out, I want to address a few practical questions I know some of you will have.

ESDaily will no longer be a daily publication. I won’t be posting on a fixed schedule, and I’m intentionally removing that obligation. That said… I’m not disappearing, and I’m not shutting the door on sharing when it makes sense.

Going forward, any posts will be occasional and intentional.
When market conditions warrant commentary, or when there’s something genuinely worth saying, I may publish. There will be no promises around frequency, and no expectation of constant updates.

Your subscription remains active for access to the full archive and any future posts that do come out. If this new cadence no longer fits what you’re looking for, I completely understand, and you’re free to cancel at any time. If you choose to stay, it’s an opt-in to quality over frequency.

No pressure either way.
I wanted to be clear and respectful about that.

The market will always be there. Opportunities will always return.

Your job isn’t to chase them.
It’s to be ready when they arrive.

• Control risk.

• Take profits when they’re due.

• Always leave a runner.

That’s where the edge lives.

Thank you for being here.
Thank you for the trust.
And thank you for allowing me to share this work with you.

Sometimes the most disciplined thing you can do is step back.

This is one of those times.

Monday January 5, 2026

January Begins With Structure, Not Urgency

The year didn’t end with clarity.
It ended with structure being tested and, in several cases, failing.

The last few weeks of 2025 were quiet on the surface, but decisive underneath. Price compressed, rotated, and pressed into known levels without ever resolving cleanly. From a distance, that can look constructive. In practice, it was an environment that punished anticipation and rewarded restraint.

That matters.

Late in the year, ES often slows the tape.

Ranges tighten. Moves overlap. And instead of clean expansion, price begins to interrogate structure. That’s exactly what happened here.

The upside failure came first.

The Dec 26 high at 6994 was tested and rejected. Not once, but enough times to make it clear that buyers could reach that level, but could not stay there. That wasn’t random. It was information. Acceptance never came, and once price rolled back below, the burden of proof shifted.

From there, the market attempted to reclaim 6965.
That effort failed as well. The reclaim never stabilized. Momentum faded quickly. What looked like a potential reset turned into confirmation that control had not shifted back to buyers.

Those two failures framed the range.

On the downside, 6913 initially held on Dec 31. Sellers pressed into it, but price responded. That level mattered, and for a moment it acted as a line of defense. But structure isn’t defined by the first response. It’s defined by what happens next.

On 12/31 later that day, 6913 broke.

That break mattered because it wasn’t immediately reclaimed. Price accepted lower, and the market followed through. That acceptance resolved the balance that had defined the prior stretch and set up the next sequence.

From there, ES closed the 12/19 gap, rallied, and stalled again. The bounce carried into 6952, where it failed.

That failure was decisive. Momentum rolled. Buyers stepped aside. And on 1/2, price cratered.

That entire sequence tells a single story.

This was not random volatility.
This was structure doing its job.

Each level mattered for a reason. Each failure mattered because price proved it mattered. And each move away from those levels carried information forward into the next test.

That’s the environment we’re stepping into now.

There are stretches where traders need to tighten up. Not because opportunity disappears, but because edge easily can. Over the last few weeks, ES repeatedly tempted participation without offering clean resolution. Moves reached obvious locations, expressed intent, and failed.

That pause wasn’t accidental.
And stepping back during it wasn’t either.

Looking back at 2025, the trades that mattered were never the ones taken because price was active. They were taken because price reached a specific location, tried to do something obvious, and failed. Sellers pressed and couldn’t hold. Buyers chased and stalled.

Structure only mattered when price proved it mattered.

That’s not how most people trade.
But it’s how this market rewards participation.

This is about structure, preparation, and conviction.

About identifying where memory exists and waiting for price to come back to it. Important context shouldn’t get buried, and meaningful levels shouldn’t require constant monitoring to matter.

January doesn’t start with a clean slate. The calendar flips, but the market carries everything forward. Every habit traders formed last year. Every edge that stopped working. Every moment where anticipation was punished and restraint was rewarded.

That’s the backdrop coming into this week.

The failures at 6994, 6965, 6913, and 6952 weren’t noise. They were chapters. And they set the conditions we’re working with now.

So the goal here isn’t to predict what ES does next. It’s to understand where participation makes sense if price comes back to us, and where it doesn’t if it doesn’t.

Everything that follows builds from that premise.

Let’s Dive into the Time Frame Analysis and Today’s Opportunities

Daily

From a Daily perspective, the last two weeks resolved more than they created.

The important work is already done.

The market attempted continuation late in December and failed.

That failure was not subtle. The Dec 26 high at 6994 was reached, tested, and rejected repeatedly. Buyers could get there, but they could not stay there. Acceptance never came.

Once price rolled back below that level, the Daily stopped asking whether the trend could extend and started asking where structure would be tested next.

That test arrived at 6913 on 12/31. The initial response mattered, but not as much as what followed. When 6913 broke later that day and was not immediately reclaimed, balance resolved. Acceptance occurred.

From there, price did what unresolved structure tends to do. It closed the 12/19 gap, attempted a rebound, and stalled again.

Momentum confirms this sequence. RSI reset aggressively during the selloff, but it did not collapse into trend-failure territory. That tells you this move was corrective within a larger structure, not a broader unwind.

The Daily has done its job.

It transitioned the market from expansion into digestion.

4 Hr

The 4hr chart shows the mechanics behind those Daily failures.

Each push lower over the last two weeks has been impulsive, while each bounce has been corrective.

That asymmetry is important.
The 4-hour chart shows how the Daily transition expressed itself in control.

Once the market failed at 6994, buyers attempted to repair damage. That repair effort centered around 6965. It did not stabilize.

Momentum faded quickly. Price rolled back over. That failure mattered because it confirmed that control had not shifted back to buyers.

The next rebound carried into 6952, the underside of prior structure. Sellers responded immediately. The bounce failed faster than the one before it, and downside momentum expanded into 1/2.

That sequence defines the current 4-hour state.

Downside moves have been impulsive. Upside moves have been corrective. RSI expands more easily on selloffs and struggles to sustain strength on bounces.

This is not a bearish market.

But it is no longer forgiving.

Buyers now have to prove they can reclaim and hold structure before continuation is back on the table.

45 Min

The 45min chart shifts the focus from failure to memory.

The failed highs and broken shelves are already accounted for by higher timeframes. The job here is to identify where structure was created during the transition.

The most important areas are the bases formed on impulsive exits during the selloff and early rebound attempts. These are the zones where price paused briefly, then displaced with intent.

Those exits created memory.

By contrast, the area just above 6951–6952 now carries memory for rejection, not support. Price did not base there. It failed there. That distinction matters if price works back into that zone.

The focus is not on the failed highs or the broken shelf. That information has already been absorbed by higher timeframes.

The job of the 45mine is to identify where memory was created during the transition.

The most important areas are the bases formed on impulsive exits during the selloff and early rebound attempts. These are the zones where price paused briefly and then displaced with intent. Those exits created structure.

Conversely, the areas just above 6951 now carry memory for rejection, not support. Price did not base there. It failed there. That distinction matters if price works back into that area.

Momentum at this timeframe remains fragile. Selloffs still produce expansion. Rallies still overlap. RSI struggles to hold strength during bounces and resets quickly on pullbacks. That tells you this is still an evaluation phase, not a launch point.

The 45-minute is not offering a signal right now.
It is defining where opportunity could form later.

Until price returns to one of those memory zones with controlled behavior, there is no edge to force.

15 Min

The 15min chart is where intent either confirms or fails.

At this timeframe, the story isn’t about defining structure. That work is already done. It’s about how price behaves as it moves between those higher-timeframe references, and whether momentum confirms or contradicts that movement.

What stands out immediately is the character of recent bounces.

Rallies have been shallow and overlapping. Moves off lows struggle to clear short-term resistance like 6930–6940 before stalling. When price does push through those areas, it does so briefly, without momentum expansion, and then rolls back over. That tells you buyers are present, but not urgent.

On the downside, selloffs have been more decisive. Breaks below intraday shelves like 6918–6920 have produced quick follow-through before slowing. That asymmetry matters. It reinforces the idea that short-term control still leans lower, even as the market evaluates larger structure.

RSI confirms this behavior.

Momentum struggles to hold above neutral during bounces and resets quickly on pullbacks. Rallies lose steam before RSI can sustain strength, while selloffs produce sharper momentum expansion. That doesn’t mean continuation is guaranteed. It means the market is still prioritizing testing lower prices before it’s willing to rotate higher in a meaningful way.

Approach quality has also been telling.

Price has not slowed into levels recently. It has either dropped quickly into them or ground sideways just above them. Neither of those behaviors is what high-quality opportunity requires. Clean setups form when price compresses, pauses, and forces participants to reveal intent. That hasn’t happened yet.

Instead, we’re seeing hesitation.

That’s important to acknowledge. The absence of clean execution behavior is information. It tells you the market is still deciding, and that forcing entries here would mean trading inside the decision, not at the edge of it.

For the 15-minute to become actionable, something needs to change.

Either price needs to slow and stabilize above short-term references like 6925–6930, allowing momentum to rebuild without immediate rejection, or it needs to push lower with follow-through and then fail to continue, creating a clear intent-failure sequence.

Until then, this is not a chart that rewards anticipation.

The 15-minute is doing its job.
It’s telling you to wait.

Here’s The Opportunities I’m looking at Monday morning with ES printing 6920

Read more

I wanted to send a direct note about the last couple of weeks and what I’m doing differently going forward.

First, I want to acknowledge something directly. The last clear update you had from me was that I was sick. I should have communicated more clearly during that stretch, and I appreciate the patience and concern many of you showed.

I was sick, then the holidays rolled in, and the market spent most of that time chopping in a roughly 100 point range while pushing into new all time highs. That combination wasn’t a great environment for me to be active or to force daily commentary.

The time away gave me space to reflect. Not just on trading, but on what I think is actually best for ESDaily and for how I operate at my best.

One thing became very clear.

There’s a time to trade.
And there’s a time to wait.
Forcing action usually works against you.

When I first started ESDaily, there wasn’t a chat for a reason. I didn’t want to create an environment where it felt like something had to happen every day. Over time, even with good intentions, daily emails and constant presence can create pressure. Sometimes self imposed. Sometimes implied.

That’s not how I trade.

There are stretches where there’s real edge and conviction can pay.
And there are stretches where saying less is the right call.

Over time, I also started to see a disconnect. Important context and levels were getting buried in chat. Some people felt like they were missing trades simply because they weren’t glued to the screen all day. And the constant flow created more noise than clarity.

That’s not fair to subscribers, and it’s not how I want this to work.

ESDaily should give you structure, preparation, and conviction. Not the feeling that you need to sit in a room all day to keep up.

So here’s what’s changing.

Going forward, ESDaily will publish full, structured Gameplans twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays. These will focus on the higher timeframe structure in ES and the major levels that actually matter. The next edition will be Monday, January 5 as we kick off the new year.

What I won’t do is force a written post every morning simply to stay visible. There isn’t always something meaningful to say, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

I’ll still be active during the week.
I’ll still post chats daily, provide context there, and share opportunities worth paying attention to.

The goal is simple.
Say less. Mean more.

One more thing I want to share.

For years, ES has been my primary focus. It’s simply the best financial asset in the world for traders like me. But there are other markets that trend exceptionally well.

While ES has always been my home base, a big part of my career has also been participating in longer term trends in markets like silver, lean hogs, and crude oil.

These are not short term trades. What matters is clear price structure, momentum, and extreme reclaims that hold, prove themselves, and begin building in the opposite direction. That combination allows participation closer to the beginning of real trend shifts.

These positions can last days, weeks, and sometimes months, as long as structure remains intact.

Over the last few months, I’ve been building something around that idea. I’m in the process of launching a new letter called PureTrend. It will be a separate offering built around higher timeframe structure and trend alignment. It’s something I’ve been refining quietly for a long time.

The goal is straightforward. Identify clean trends and participate in them over time. That opens the door to energies, metals, currencies, softs, and rates. There won’t be many trades. Just a handful of high quality opportunities each month.

As a thank you for being part of ESDaily, readers here will receive their first month of PureTrend free when it launches. I’ll share more details soon.

I appreciate everyone who stuck around during the pause. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and enjoys the New Year.

-PriceTrader

Looking at yesterday’s FOMC reaction and the overnight move with a little distance, I can see t…

Read more

Somewhere along the way I learned something the industry will not say out loud.

The way trading is marketed has almost nothing to do with the way trading is lived.

On the one hand:
There is a polished version built on predictions, clean calls and perfectly shaped narratives.

On the other:
There is the version you face when you are actually in the market, managing risk, waiting for confirmation, taking losses, missing moves and showing up again the next day.

Those two worlds rarely match.

Most people never talk about that gap. I decided ESDaily would be built on it.

In that time I have learned as much about the trading industry as I have about the market itself. I have seen how commentary is delivered, how levels are presented, how predictions are framed and how success is sold.

I have also seen what traders really want when they come to a service like mine.

They want clarity, but they also want truth.

They want to understand the market, but they also want to understand what real execution looks like.

The way trading is presented online often has very little to do with the way trading is lived.

There is a polished version of this business that focuses on being early, being accurate, being predictive.

In that version, almost every level can be shaped into a turning point and almost any reaction can be used to reinforce the appearance of precision.

It creates the impression of mastery, but it leaves out the part that matters most to people who are actually putting money at risk.

Trading is not a sequence of perfect calls.
It is a sequence of decisions.

It is the waiting, the hesitation, the invalidation.
It is the loss you take even when the idea was solid, and the move you planned for but could not execute.

It is the setup that never fully formed so you stayed flat.
The day where discipline was the only thing you traded well.

This is the part that rarely gets shown.

The trading world has a transparency problem.

And most people do not realize it until they have been in the market long enough to feel it.

You follow commentators, analysts, chartists and educators. People who post levels, people who post predictions, people who seem to know where price is going before it gets there. You follow them because you are trying to make sense of a market that moves faster than anyone can think.

But there is a gap you eventually notice.

• A gap between what is said and what is done.

• A gap between charts and trades.

• A gap between calling a level and actually taking the trade.

Most traders never talk about that gap.

I decided ESDaily would be built on it.

For ten months I have watched how this industry operates. I have seen how easy it is to label almost every price as a potential turning point and then highlight the ones that play out. I have seen how easy it is to post a level in the morning and, if price reacts later, frame it as a clean win. I have seen how rarely anyone shows actual execution. The fills, the hesitation, the failed attempts, the days that go nowhere, the part where structure never confirms so they do nothing.

Most people hide the part where they are human.
That’s an major disservice to traders who what to learn.

It’s also the part I chose to make visible.

Traders deserve to know what real trading looks like… Not the highlight reel.

Not the perfect hindsight recap.
Not the carefully shaped version of what someone thinks should have happened.

Real trading is waiting, and patiently executing a plan that reduces risk and maximizes profits.

Real trading is losing even when you followed your rules.

This is why I show my broker fills.
This is why I talk about the trades I missed.
This is why I tell you when I am flat.
This is why I explain the loss instead of brushing past it.

Because for me, transparency is not a marketing angle.
It is the method itself.

It’s the only way I taught myself to get better each day.

I do not get to say I called something unless I actually traded it. I do not get to claim clarity unless I showed the entire sequence.

Plan, entry, management, stop and exit.
Every part of it.

There are plenty of people in this space who provide levels, say “see, the market is doing exactly as it should, level to level.”

Levels alone do not teach you how to trade.
Levels alone do not teach you how to manage risk.

You learn to trade by seeing trading.
Not by listening to predictions.

Over time I realized the industry splits into two paths.

One path focuses on calling levels and describing reactions.
The other path focuses on execution and accountability.

One path creates the impression of authority.
The other creates the opportunity to actually learn.

One approach is built to impress.
The other is built to show the re-enforcement it takes to be successful.

Some people call levels.
I trade them.

Some people celebrate every reaction.
I show the ones I skipped.

Anyone can draw a line and highlight a reaction after the fact.
Anyone can write a clean story that makes them look predictive.

Not everyone can trade.
And very few are willing to show that part.

This is the problem in our market.

This is why so many traders feel confused, discouraged or misled.
They are comparing their reality to a version of trading that does not exist.

If you want levels, they are everywhere.
If you want honesty, that is what I give you.

This is my commitment, my work and this is why ESDaily exists.

And this is why I am writing to you now.

The market has a problem.
I aim to solve the piece of it that I can.

Cheers,
- PriceTrader

https://www.esdaily.com

This entire move has been slow, controlled and emotionless.
Every rally looks like it is trying to break out, but every breakout attempt immediately dies.
Every dip looks like it wants to break down, but nothing gains momentum.

The whole thing is tightening, not trending.

We started the week with a clean wedge. A pattern that usually resolves quickly. Instead it shifted into an ascending triangle.

Normally this favors buyers, but the behavior tells a different story (so far).
Each attempt into resistance rejects instantly. No power behind it.

This is where high reward to risk traders get tested.

The tape looks alive, but nothing underneath has actually triggered. No expansion. No emotion. No structural change.

This is the exact type of environment where traders start manufacturing trades because the tape looks busy.

It isn’t.
It is coiling.

Look at the Daily first.

Price is pressing back into the same resistance band that marked the October peak.

The last time we had this compression behavior, price kept tagging higher highs while RSI rolled over and printed lower highs.

Classic divergence.
The result was that vertical red bar.

Now we’re back in that same behavior.

But the character is different.

RSI can’t get above 60… just grinding under. Buyers are pushing into resistance without the kind of momentum that drove the last impulse.

That matters.

When you know what happened last time behavior compressed, you can’t pretend this is some clean breakout setup.

Now add volume to it.

Volume is fading into this push. Not a blow-off. Not panic buying….
It’s just thinner participation as we walk back into prior trouble.

That is not what you want if you are a high reward to risk long.

If the market was truly excited up here, this bar stack would not be shrinking by 1/2.
Back in October before the selloff, we had a clear Daily uptrend, strong divergence into the highs and then the release.

This time is more complex.

We are in a technical downtrend on the higher timeframe, sideways on the middle timeframes, and now coiling directly under HTF resistance.

So we do not have the same divergence backdrop, but we do have a liquidity vacuum underneath and that heavy band above. Trading is thin because the bigger players see the same thing. CTAs, hedge funds, all the usual suspects are basically aligned:

We are inflated.
Holiday consumer spending is the next big tell.
The high risk trade is being long up here.

They would rather be late on a clean break than first into a selloff.
So they pull back size.
Futures volume gets cut.
Liquidity thins out…. and we chop.

That is literally what is in front of us.

On the 45 minute, this week has been a clinic in why this tape is so hard for high reward to risk traders.

We started with a clean wedge. Simple.

That should have resolved quickly.

Instead of breaking, it tightened and morphed into an ascending triangle.

That shift tells me buyers are stepping higher, but they are doing it without real power.

Every time price leans into the top of the pattern, it stalls.

My structural levels right now:

6901
6878
6867
6852
6831
6805
6787

On the one hand:
Repeated pushes into 6852, 6867 and 6878 keep failing to extend. These are classic failed breakouts inside hinge compression, not trend.

On the other hand:
Dips into 6831, 6805 have not turned into real breakdowns either.

Sellers have not proven anything.

Price is grinding upward, but it is doing it inside a tightening pattern where neither side is willing to show control.

That is the trap.

High reward to risk setups require expansion in one direction or the other.
Real breaks.
Real emotional behavior.

Here… there is almost no emotion.

Until this coil breaks and we see real expansion, the job is not to be clever or become a manufacturer of trades...

The job is to recognize that nothing here has actually changed yet, no matter how busy the chart looks.

Cheers,
PriceTrader

Yesterday at 8:30AM, ES was sitting inside a contracting wedge.
Lower highs.
Higher lows.

Pressure building.
Classic coil behavior.

Today at 8:30AM, that same structure has morphed into an ascending triangle.

Take a look.

That’s the entire story right now.

• The lower trendline is steeper. Buyers keep showing up higher.

• The upper shelf at 6852 has been tested to the max.
  That’s your hinge.

The shelf isn’t breaking… but it’s thinning

Momentum pushes yesterday stopped breaking 40 on the RSI.
Not once all day.
That hasn’t happened in this coil.

When a wedge turns into an ascending triangle, it’s the market telling you the pressure is shifting.

Sellers are still defending the same level… but buyers are getting more aggressive underneath.

Doesn’t guarantee anything.
Doesn’t change the trade locations.
Doesn’t change the fact we’re still in a technical daily downtrend….

But it does tell you who’s pressing and who’s reacting.

This is why I’m staying patient.

The high reward:risk isn’t inside this.

Cheers,
-PriceTrader

P.S.

For new subscribers, you can access the ESDaily Gameplan and see exactly how I’m thinking through this transition from the Thanksgiving rally to where we are now.

Inside the Gameplan, the Opportunities section lays out the highest reward:risk setups on the tape.

Then we scale to eliminate risk as quickly as possible...

Would love to have you join me.

Here’s your link for 50% off.
https://www.esdaily.com/a84ce9c4
Ends Saturday.

Yesterday was a perfect example of why I chart the way I do, why levels matter, and why I treat this as a business, not a guessing contest.

The Gameplan laid out the entire sequence before the bell. If you watched the levels, the short was obvious.

And it paid exactly the way it should.

Free readers:
If you want these Gameplans before the open each day, you can upgrade here.
Snag 50% Off Til Dec 6

When I sat down to write the December 1 Gameplan, one thing stood out more than anything else: the 6852 level.

I titled the December 1 Gameplan: “The Structural Hinge Point”

6852.

It wasn’t just another line.
It was the hinge.

The place where control would either shift to buyers or confirm that sellers still had the upper hand. Everything about the setup depended on how price behaved there.

As soon as ES pushed into that band, the hesitation was obvious. Buyers tried. They stalled. They backed off. And once the rejection showed its hand, the short at 6847.25 was simply the next step.

I got short - Filled 6847.25

I wrote in the ESDaily chatroom what I was thinking and ultimately what my position was:

From there, the move unfolded the way clean structure always does.

At 2:33PM, the first target at 6836 came, and that’s where I locked in 70% of the trade.

It wasn’t about being aggressive.

It was about removing emotion and guaranteeing the trade paid, the same way I do every day.

The session ended and I left everything as is.

Overnight, the second target at 6818 filled. - T2
There I took another 20% off.

Left the runner to do its job.
Moved the stop to breakeven

There was nothing dramatic about it.

This was the same playbook I talk about constantly inside the chat: define where you’re wrong, define where you’re right, and let the market prove it.

My stop stayed exactly where it began until T2 was hit.
The structure hadn’t changed.

Only once T2 hit did the stop move to break-even.

Now the runner remains, protected, and it will only trail lower if 6802 is accepted. Until then, the trade is over.

The plan was followed.

Happy to see others in the chat room join me:

The rotation finished.
Structure delivered.

The Hinge did it’s job.

This is why I emphasize preparation.
Why I publish these Gameplans hours before anything happens.
Why I don’t chase.
And why, day after day, the market continues to reward the discipline behind the process.

One line. One short. Two targets.
Let the runner run

Join me and take advantage of the 50% off, now through Dec 6.

Cheers,

PriceTrader

Get The ESDaily Gameplan - 50% Off

- Monday December 8
- Tuesday December 9
- Wednesday December 10
- Thursday December 11
- Friday December 12
- ESDaily Strategy - Trade Rules - Key Level Codes (New Reader Must-Read)

Current Open Position(s) as of Dec 8

Monday December 8, 2025

Pressure Isn’t Progress

Last week wasn’t hard because the market moved.
Last week was hard because it didn’t with any conviction.

We spent five straight sessions underneath 6900, the tightest coil in recent memory. We’re pressing into the same supply that has been sitting there since the October divergence. Price kept pushing into it, but it never expanded. Every attempt at strength kept ending in the same place: stalled candles, stalled momentum, stalled conviction.

Broken record.

That’s the part most traders never recognize soon enough… a market that’s moving, but not progressing, and the mixed signals make it a tough reward:risk environment

We’ve basically built a staircase into resistance without any of the things that normally accompany a real breakout. No acceleration. No momentum shift. No emotional behavior. Just a grind.

And when a market grinds like this, it doesn’t offer opportunity.
It tempts you to chase the wrong ones.

Structure kept telling us the same thing over and over: nothing tradable was there. Everything was still inside the coil. Everything was still rotating around the same mid-6852s hinge. Every dip and every pop stayed inside a shape that hadn’t resolved.

This morning, the picture hasn’t changed much.

We’re ~ 30 points above that hinge.

We’re still sitting just underneath that 6900 major resistance.
Daily RSI is still pinned under 60.
The higher timeframe still hasn’t confirmed any shift in momentum.

And the biggest catalyst of the month, FOMC, is sitting right in front of us due out Wednesday.

So the job today is the same, just more important.
We don’t get paid for predicting the breakout.
We get paid for recognizing the moment the market stops pretending and finally shows its hand.

If the coil releases, we’ll see it.
If the trap sets, we’ll know it.
If nothing changes, we sit tight and protect the only edge we can control, patience and risk.

Let’s Dive into the Time Frame Analysis and Today’s Opportunities

Daily

The daily still has the market pinned underneath the same October supply zone. We’ve climbed right back into it, but none of the candles show strength. They’re small. Controlled. Heavy. Exactly what it looks like when price is leaning against a ceiling instead of breaking through it.

RSI continues to hover under 60. Close enough to tease, not strong enough to declare anything. Until this resolves the daily is stuck between two competing forces: buyers defending every shallow pullback, and sellers defending the same 6900 above.

It’s pressure without direction.

4 Hr

The 4h hasn’t changed its posture, but the way it’s holding is worth noting.

Last week, the 4h kept absorbing every dip into the 6852 and the 6864, but it never pushed with intent. That dynamic is still in place. We’re inching higher, printing a string of higher lows, but none of them have expanded into a real impulse. The structure looks like a slow push into resistance, not a breakout forming underneath it.

This is the kind of behavior you often see just before a catalyst, and this week is set to bring one with the data dump.

Look for pre-event position to stay inside this large coil.

45 Min

The 45m is almost identical to the end of last week, only slightly shifted upward.

Price is still rotating inside a tight band, still rebounding from the same intraday shelves, and still failing at the same overhead pushes. You can see how neatly the market keeps snapping between the mid-6800s base and the underside of the 6900 supply.

This is a hinge.
A tightening one.

The higher lows keep tracking upward, but the highs aren’t moving. That’s the hallmark of compression pressing directly into supply — buyers get bolder, sellers don’t budge.

From a trading perspective, this remains the same message: nothing inside this range has enough distance or speed to generate real reward. The edges matter. The interior does not.

15 Min

The 15m finally shows some definition, but it’s definition inside the bigger picture. Micro swings, cleaner rotations, slightly firmer shelves.

But brutally tight.

You can see the tug-of-war clearly: quick pushes into the upper 6880 are fading, quick drops into the 6860-6850 are catching. That tells me liquidity is building at both ends. When you start seeing that, you know the coil is nearly finished. The market is stocking both sides, waiting for the release.

But the 15m alone can’t tell us which way.
It just shows where the reaction points live.

The real shift only happens when price either breaks the larger time frame. Everything inside this box is just noise designed to tempt impatient traders.

Here’s The Opportunities I’m looking at Monday morning with ES printing 6880

The positioning into the open tells a very clear story: price has spent the entire morning pressing directly underneath the 6900 supply, failing to separate from it, and refusing to break down from the higher lows built last week. Because of that, several levels have tightened and a few have shifted priority compared to Friday.

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This year’s been big for me. Lots of growth. Lots of lessons. And a lot of that comes from the people who choose to read my work every day. People who trust the process. People who value risk first and discipline always.

I’m grateful for that. Truly.

Hope you get time this week to slow down. Reset. Be with the people you care about. Markets will be there when we get back.

Happy Thanksgiving.
And thank you for being here.

PriceTrader