When I started my day, the market had just made a strong bullish spike up. Prices stalled and then reversed in a V-shape, dropping sharply. There was no clean entry for me on the way down. Looking back, since this could be a range day, maybe I could have sold with just market sell for a possible swing — but it felt too low-probability at the time.

Prices retested the RTH open and formed a small trading range. When we got a bullish breakout bar, I took the long above it. The problem was that I was buying right into the EMA, and prices reversed hard on me. I scaled in twice to get out at breakeven, and I barely made it out before price dropped further. Later, the bears got trapped too — a strong bull bar engulfed the bear breakout bar after an overshoot of the spike-and-channel.

We then got a High 1 Buy that closed above the EMA, and I expected prices to retest the previous high. I took the trade with two contracts — one at +5 points and one at +9.50 (target was supposed to be 10, but close enough).

After prices finally reached the previous swing high, it became clear a pretty defined range was forming. When prices dropped back to the range low, we got a double bottom. After stalling a bit at the lows, the market produced a strong breakout bar closing on its high above the EMA. We also had a visual higher low and plenty of room back up to the range high and previous swing high, so I took the trade again — three contracts total: two at +5 points and one at +10 points.

It worked out nicely, and since it broke out of the range, I could have held one contract for a bigger swing — but how can we know 😊. Overall a good day. A bit confusing at the start, but once the trading range became clear, everything made sense.