ES Puts In A Historically Volatile, Monster Green Week - Retracing 61.8% From ES Major Inflection Point. Does It Continue?

ES Puts in a 701.75 point peak to trough rally, breaking intraday records

Last week was nothing short of historic.

Starting Sunday night, ES ripped through eight separate 200-point swings. On top of that? Twenty-seven 100-point moves. Dozens of 5-minute, 50-point whipsaws. Back and forth. Over and over. Total chaos.

For context: ES moves in ticks worth $12.50 each — that’s $50 per point. A 10-point swing equals $500. A 100-point move? That’s five grand per contract. These weren’t rare moments last week. They were normal.

It was the kind of week where a trader could make or lose a small fortune before breakfast. And if you were clicking buttons all day, chasing every candle? Odds are you got chopped to pieces.

I said it every day in last week’s letter — and I’ll say it again now:

In this kind of volatility, you get rewarded for patience. Not action.

That patience resulted in seeing multiple elevator down moves and short squeezes back up. Both are required for our level track-backs and reclaim on failed breakdowns.

April 7th started the first squeeze opportunity of the week with a LTB trade we got long at 4875 and I tweeted live:

T1 and T2 were hit quickly and the rally of the year ensued. Within 45 minutes ES went from -4% territory to +3.5% territory. I did what I always do in a risk reduction effort — Take profits according to a pre-planned strategy. 75% off at the first target, 20% off at T2. I left a very small runner as price ran to 5286 from our entry. This was the most violent squeeze I can remember being a apart of, as Tariff news hit the wires shortly after the entry. As traders scrambled to get on board chasing price away from the level track back opportunity, we already had 20 points locked in on T1 and 74 points on T2. That emotion pushed us into key supple.

Above was the 3 HR Supply from April 4th and in anticipation of a violent move back (but not knowing how far) I placed a 100 point trail stop once we were up over 400 points. I was ultimately stopped on T3 100 points off the high.

At 9:46AM I wrote on X:

The monster move ended in the 5273.5 - 5322, sold off 290 points to 4975, then squeezed back up to 5305. From there what did ES do?

We sold off again HARD on Tuesday, back to 4900 Wednesday 2AM, bounced and retested, 7AM and then put in the largest intraday rally ES has ever seen. 4902 to 5528.

Wednesday morning I wrote:

I may entertain failed breakdown of 4969 into 4940 if we get there and it’s a clean bounce. The next area we can look to is 4903 before we see some bids. But again, no knife catching, waiting for acceptance.

It took patience and planning to capture the 4969-4974 area I was looking at as a reclaim. At the first attempt, ES sliced through 4969 to 4920. In “typical” trading environments we like to see a flush 8-12 points before a reclaim trade is taken. Here we went nearly 50. I wanted to see more steady demand build up and follow thru before we would consider this on a snap. From 4920 price wicked higher up to 82 and we did not take it, as that flush was so large. ES found consolidation at 4925 and started to build higher highs and higher lows from 7-9AM. Around 9AM we had several large green candles and momentum on our side. I bought at the market getting filled at 4974.75.

All targets were hit over the next 45 minutes and my runner was trailed out at 5012.

4903 ended up being a level we called out as the area we’d likely see some bids. 7:30AM we touched 4901.75. It was the low of the day.

After we completed our Trade #1, there wasn’t anything to do other than wait. Price oscillated between 5075 and 5000 until 1:15PM.

Then we went into monkey mode.

The 1:15 PM candle went 363 points. From 5025 to 5388, then sold off 93 points, then rallied 169 more points, sold 102 points, then finally finished the rally moving up another 176 points.

Watching every second of this price action was nothing short of astounding. It was jarring. The kind of action that makes even seasoned traders pause.

Gains — and losses — playing out in seconds. Not minutes.
It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t healthy.
And if it didn’t rattle you a little… it should have.

The market isn’t a casino. We shouldn’t experience the euphoria of hitting a home run and simultaneously the gut wrenching feeling of going bankrupt — 30 seconds apart.

I did nothing.

As price continued we ended up…

Running smack-dab into 3/4 Hour Supply from Apr 2.

It was impossible to keep up with the moves as price was moving so quickly, but as pointed out on Friday, look at the levels ES was seeking out all week amidst the chaos:

This 3/4 Hr Supply held as the high of the week.

Early Thursday we saw prices first leg down fall to 5400, the low ranges of the April 4 supply. Then we consolidated, and resumed the 2nd leg down. We precipitously fell to 5145. 3 points from a support level marked out in the April 10 newsletter.

On Thursday, April 10th I wrote this, anticipating the pullback.

We took advantage of the trade just above that area. I wrote:

We bounced all the way back to the critical area at 5352, marked on the chart and talked about and our runner got trailed out on the pullback

We sold off 120 points, retested the C.A 4 more times, holding higher lows and chopped around that critical area all day Friday, closing just above it.

I took off Friday.

After locking in substantial gains trading our plan, I felt it necessary to celebrate the birthday with friends and family, and get away from the chart.

So What’s Next

ES just closed out a green week. The question now: can we stack another?

Monday’s off to a good start so far.

Let’s stay sharp. Stick to our gameplan and core strategy.
Let’s execute when it counts.

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A Lookback Note:

I’m making this it’s own section because it’s so important to understand where we are in terms of the market, our last 30 days, and the results so far.

The last few weeks have been amazing for our core strategy. Truly the best market we could ask for. We’ve taken 28 trades. We’ve had 23 winners and 5 losers, with several different exit types. The core strategy has allowed us to trade an average of 1.1 trades per day since March 14 inception. These trades have resulted in a rare, 30 day rolling win rate > 80%. On all measures this exceeds expectations. The fleeting price movements we welcome and give thanks to the trading gods. This can easily go the opposite way on a trader. The “key” is being disciplined, always. Now more than ever. We take pre planned trades, take the majority of profits at the next level up, and reduce risk as quickly as possible. The combination of these rules, volatility, and ES price movements have allowed our risk:reward to be the highest they’ve ever been.

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ESDaily Scoreboard

Note: The ESDaily Scoreboard was created to offer accountability for subscribers following the trade ideas shared here. All trades reflected in this scoreboard have been identified before they happen, documented in the newsletter, and often posted publicly on X at @ESDailyTrader. The Scoreboard operates on a 30-day rolling cycle and includes only trade ideas from the most recent 30 calendar days. The scoreboard assumes a scaling profit-taking method, where targets represent the percent of total contracts allocated per trade. Not all targets carry equal size. In the event of a full stop-out, the loss is applied across all contracts taken.

Disclaimer: ESDaily and its owners are not registered financial advisors or broker-dealers. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument. All trading involves risk. You are solely responsible for your own investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Let’s get to it in today’s April 14 AM premarket newsletter…

I cannot stress enough the importance of limiting your trades, and knowing where there are opportunities—and when there are not. This market doesn’t hand out trophies for participation. So many times, traders notch early wins, only to give them right back as Mr. Market slowly chips away at their stack throughout the day. One overtrade. One impulse entry. One “I’ll just try it” later in the session—and the edge is gone.

This environment rewards patience, not action. Sit on your hands until your spots come to you. Let the core setups develop. Let the market reveal its hand. If it’s not clean, skip it. Remember: your job isn’t to trade all day—it’s to extract high-quality risk from the tape and protect your capital like it’s your newborn baby.