The market opened with a tiny ON gap. Bar 1 and 2 looked very sideways, but when bar 3 formed we got a great bull bar. It was a High 1 Buy and also a clear bear trap right after the attempt to fill the gap.

I entered long with 1 contract, targeting the previous day high at 10.75 pts. The trade hit the target pretty quickly. Price stalled a bit around the previous day high, but then it just kept going. At that point it even looked like we might be able to reach last week’s high.

Price did move a bit higher, but it couldn’t reach last week’s high. Instead, it formed a wedge top, and then price suddenly dropped fast for several bars. The selloff was strong, pushed below the 50% retracement, and the bears didn’t show much weakness — they just kept going. It started to look more and more like a big range day.

The bulls managed to push price back up to the EMA, but it stalled there and formed a kind of second entry sell / triangle breakout mode. I was looking to take the short, but the setup was really poor with a big lower wick, so I stayed out.

The bears then tried multiple times to make a new low, but failed each time. When we finally got a big, strong bull bar closing above the EMA, I took the trade as a bear trap. It was a bit risky since I was buying right into the high of the smaller range.

My plan was to take 5 pts on the first contract and 15 pts on the second, just below the high of day. When price stalled around +12 pts, I got nervous about a pullback and decided to take the trade off at +10 pts. As usual, a few bars later it would have made the full +15 pts.

Holding trades while they’re in profit is still very much a mental game for me, but I can clearly feel progress. I’m getting better at fighting the urge to exit too early.

After that, prices kept crawling slowly higher. It looked like we could be heading for the measured move of the first bull leg of the day, and maybe even last week’s high, but after around 12 PM CT the market got very slow and momentum really dried up.

Price then formed a small range that looked like a possible bull flag. There were still magnet levels higher, but it really felt like buying too high. Even with those magnets, there just wasn’t much room left for a swing trade. In the end, the bulls stayed strong and blasted through the measured move and all the way up to last week’s high. At that point there wasn’t much to do but watch — it was already very late to buy and we were right at the top of the bigger range on the daily chart.

I decided to close shop a bit earlier than usual. I wasn’t convinced anything else would set up in time. It’s hard to believe we’d get a clean bull setup this high, and trusting a bear reversal didn’t feel right either. I’m not sure there was enough time left in the day for anything high quality.