The mistake I see just as often, though, is beginners who do find a strategy and still can’t actually explain it. They watched someone take a trade once, it made sense in the moment, and they walked away thinking they understood it. A real strategy isn’t a feeling you picked up from watching someone else trade. It has five parts, and you should be able to write every one of them down clearly before you ever risk real money on it.

The setup criteria — what has to be true on the chart before this trade is even a candidate. The entry confirmation — the specific thing that has to happen for you to actually pull the trigger, not just the setup being present, but the confirmation that it’s playing out. The exit criteria — where you’re getting out if it works, and how you’re deciding that. The profit-taking criteria — whether you’re scaling out, holding for a target, trailing a stop, and why. And the stop-loss criteria — the exact point where you’re wrong, defined before you’re in the trade, not decided emotionally once you’re already in it and losing.

If you can’t write all five of these down right now for the strategy you’re using, that’s worth sitting with. It means you’re trading a feeling, not a strategy, and feelings don’t hold up when the market gets difficult.

Beyond the five criteria, there’s a rhythm to every real strategy that beginners tend to skip past. How often does this setup actually appear in a week? Once, five times, more? What time of day does it tend to show up — is this a setup that plays out in the opening range, or does it need the structure of a full session to develop? A strategy you can’t place in time is one you’ll start forcing on days it was never meant to appear, which is exactly how a good strategy starts producing bad results.

And just as important, every strategy has scenarios where it looks right and isn’t. A false breakout that mimics the real setup perfectly for the first few candles. Low-volume chop that produces the pattern without the conviction behind it. A news-driven spike that satisfies every criteria on paper while meaning something completely different underneath. Knowing these failure modes ahead of time is the difference between a strategy that occasionally fails and a strategy you occasionally misuse.

Once you have real, written answers to all of this, the homework is straightforward and unglamorous: go backtest it. Pull the last month of charts and go through them manually, trade by trade, applying your criteria honestly rather than after the fact. This isn’t about proving the strategy works — you’re testing whether you actually understand it well enough to apply it consistently. Once that’s done, the next stage is a full month of forward testing on a simulator. One strategy. Not two or three running in parallel to see which one feels better. One, tested properly, before it ever touches a live account.

This step feels slow compared to jumping straight into trading, and that’s precisely the point. The traders who skip this stage aren’t saving time — they’re borrowing it from a future version of themselves who will have to relearn all of this anyway, usually after losing money to find out the strategy was never actually understood in the first place.

If you’re in this stage right now — working through a strategy, trying to get honest with yourself about whether you actually understand it — this is exactly the kind of work I help traders through on the path toward funded accounts. If that’s useful, the link is below, or just reply and I’ll point you in the right direction.

Shaw

n

Go back to the IPO itself and the early behavior was exactly what you’d expect from a hyped new listing. Price ripped hard right out of the gate, tagging a high near $225 within the first three trading days. That kind of move is almost never sustainable on its own, it’s driven by initial demand and scarcity rather than any real price discovery, and what tends to follow is a long, unglamorous grind as the market figures out where real buyers actually live. That’s exactly what happened here. From that early high, $SPCX went into a sustained downtrend with no meaningful bounce, working all the way down into the $104-105 zone by the time earnings hit.

Earnings is often where these post-IPO downtrends either continue or start to shift, because it’s the first real fundamental checkpoint the market gets after the initial hype fades. In this case, earnings day gave us the first real bounce off that low, the first sign that sellers weren’t just going to keep pressing without resistance. But the very next day, a red session pushed price back down into that same $104-105 zone, retesting it rather than breaking below it. That retest matters. When price comes back down to a prior low and holds instead of breaking it, especially right after a news catalyst, that’s usually the market telling you it has processed the information and decided that level is worth defending.

That’s the double bottom. And on its own, a double bottom is interesting but not yet actionable, plenty of double bottoms fail. What makes this one worth paying attention to is what happened next. Last week gave us the first genuinely powerful green week since the IPO, with price closing at $133.11 and reclaiming both the 9 EMA at $119.14 and the 20 EMA at $125.00 on the daily. That reclaim matters as much as the move itself, price pushing back above both moving averages after weeks of trading beneath them is one of the more reliable early tells that trend character is shifting, not just bouncing.

Friday’s close looked like a change of character day on my read, which is worth sitting with for a moment. A change of character isn’t just a strong candle, it’s a shift in how the stock is behaving relative to how it had been behaving for weeks. If Friday genuinely marked that shift, there’s a reasonable chance we see continuation into the new week, possibly even a gap up to start, with follow-through rather than a fade.

Here’s where I want to be careful, though, because seeing the setup and having the entry are two different things. The daily chart tells you the broader story is turning, but it doesn’t hand you a clean entry on its own. That’s where the hourly chart comes in. Rather than chasing the move from here, I want to see one of two conditions play out first. Either a day or two of consolidation on the daily to let the move digest and reset, or a clean higher low pattern building on the hourly that shows buyers stepping in at progressively higher levels rather than just holding flat.

If momentum builds the way this setup suggests it might, the natural target becomes a retest of that original $225 IPO high. That’s not a prediction, it’s a level worth having on the radar if the structure continues to develop the way it’s been developing over the last week.

For now, this is a watch-and-confirm situation, not a chase. The chart has done the hard work of building a base in the $104-105 zone. The next few sessions will tell us whether it’s ready to build on top of it.

No Financial Advise

Regards

Shawn

TheSmartTraders.com

ES and NQ both gapped into resistance to open the week. Now we wait to see if momentum has enough left to finish the job.

There are weeks where the market hands you a clean trend and asks nothing of you but patience. And then there are weeks like the one we’re walking into now, where price has done exactly what it needed to do to get interesting — it’s arrived at a decision point, and it’s making everyone wait to see which way it leans.

Let’s start with where we’ve been, because the last two weeks explain exactly why this moment matters.

The Round Trip That Got Us Here

Both ES and NQ spent the back half of July doing something that looked, in the moment, like the start of real trouble. NQ broke down hard, eventually flushing all the way into the 27,184 area, while ES followed a similar script, dropping into the low 7,330s. These weren’t gentle pullbacks. They were fast, aggressive moves that cleared out a lot of weak positioning in a hurry — the kind of flush that makes developing traders assume the trend has flipped, right before it usually hasn’t.

What happened next is the part that actually mattered. Buyers didn’t sit on their hands at those lows. The rally off both bottoms was immediate and persistent, and importantly, it wasn’t a one-and-done bounce — it was a grind, with dips along the way getting bought rather than sold. That’s a different kind of strength than a sharp relief rally. A relief rally exhausts itself quickly. A grind that keeps absorbing pullbacks is telling you buyers are still in control of the tape, not just reacting to an oversold reading.

That rally carried both markets right back into resistance zones that had already proven themselves once before — NQ into the 28,730 area, ES into the 7,542-7,549 zone that had capped price back on July 22nd and 23rd. Markets rarely forget a level that’s already turned them once, and this was no exception. Both indices ran into that supply and paused.

Why ES Has Been Choppier Than It Should Feel

If ES has felt harder to read than usual over the last couple of weeks, there’s a structural reason for that, and it’s worth understanding rather than just feeling frustrated by it.

Zoom out on ES and you’ll notice the market isn’t really trending through this whole period so much as it’s rotating through a stack of four ranges. The top box runs from 7,560 up to 7,640. Below that sits a second box from 7,480 to 7,560. Below that is a third box from 7,420 to 7,480 — and this one is noticeably tighter than the others, only around sixty points wide compared to the roughly eighty-to-hundred point ranges above and below it. Beneath everything sits a fourth box stretching from 7,320 down to 7,420.

That compressed third box is the reason price tends to get congested and choppy whenever it’s rotating through the second and third ranges. Less room inside a box means less room for a trade to breathe, which means more false breaks and more whipsaw before the market actually commits. If ES has felt like it was working against you lately rather than with you, that narrower structure is a real part of why — it’s not that your read was wrong, it’s that the range itself gave you less to work with.

Friday’s close landed around 7,502, putting ES roughly in the middle of that second box. And that’s exactly where the story picks up when the new week opens

The Open We’ve Been Waiting For

Markets opened Sunday evening at 6pm, and both ES and NQ gapped up right out of the gate — which is exactly one of the scenarios we’d flagged as worth watching for. Since the open, both have settled into a tight consolidation, and where each one is sitting relative to the levels we’d already mapped out tells two slightly different stories.

ES opened almost precisely on the key zone we’d identified, not above it and not below it — just parked directly on the level in a tight coil. NQ did something a little different. It gapped up just above its own previous high and has been stuck consolidating right at that level ever since. Neither market has resolved yet. A few hours into the session, this has looked more like absorption than decision — price sitting at a level and digesting it rather than pushing through or rejecting it outright.

Pulling back to the daily chart adds some useful context to what we’re watching this week. ES opened above its 50-day SMA, which is a constructive sign on the bigger picture — it’s holding above a level that’s acted as dynamic support through this entire advance. NQ is in a different spot. It’s attempting to reclaim the 29,000 level on the daily chart, but it’s still trading below its 150-day SMA, which currently sits up near 29,655 while NQ itself trades closer to 28,620. That’s a meaningful gap between where price is and where that longer-term average sits, and it tells us NQ still has real overhead to work through even though its immediate momentum has been pointing up.

Where That Leaves Us

Overall momentum remains up on both indices coming into the week. But momentum alone doesn’t answer the question that actually matters right now, which is whether that momentum has enough behind it to push both markets through resistance and into new highs, or whether this is the pause where the market reconsiders, rejects the highs, and rotates back down to retest last week’s lows.

Specifically, for NQ, the levels to watch are straightforward. A gap up and acceptance above 28,730 opens the door to the next leg higher. A failure to hold that level sends price back toward 28,402, the pivot that’s been the fulcrum of the whole range, with 28,079 as the deeper level if sellers take more control than expected.

On ES, the same logic applies around 7,549. Acceptance above it keeps continuation on the table. Rejection there puts 7,471 back in focus as the first real test, with 7,427 underneath as the deeper support if the pullback has more room to run. And within the box structure, a genuine breakout above 7,560 would mark the shift into the next range entirely — something worth watching for on its own, separate from the shorter-term reaction levels.

None of this is a prediction, and it shouldn’t be treated like one. It’s a map of the doors the market can walk through from here, and price itself is going to tell us which one it chooses. That’s really the whole discipline in a moment like this — not guessing at the outcome, but knowing exactly what each outcome would look like so you’re not scrambling to figure it out after the fact.

The Takeaway

A tight range sitting right on a key level isn’t indecision for its own sake — it’s the market doing its work before it commits. The temptation here is to jump ahead of that work, to decide which way it’s going to break and start positioning for it. That’s usually where trouble starts. The better approach is to let the range resolve, let acceptance or rejection show itself at the level, and then align with whatever the market has actually decided rather than what you assumed it would decide.

Trade what is happening, not what you think should happen. The levels are set. Now we watch how price treats them.

This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.

If you’re still working on building more structure into how you read levels like this, or you’re trying to bring more consistency to a smaller account, I’ve been helping traders work through exactly that kind of framework. If you’re interested, check the link below — or just reply and I’ll walk you through it.

📊 Follow along in real time on X:

www.TheSmartTraders.com

What’s been interesting isn’t just that we’ve had a pullback. It’s that the pullback hasn’t been evenly distributed. SPY has done what SPY tends to do in these stretches, it’s given back ground but held its composure, staying inside what I’d call a controlled retracement. NQ has not had the same discipline. The Nasdaq side of this market has come in hard, and if you’ve been trading QQQ or NQ futures through this stretch, you already know it hasn’t felt like a normal pullback, it’s felt like the market shaking out anyone who was leaning on momentum without a plan for what happens when momentum stalls.

That divergence matters, and it’s the first thing worth sitting with before we get into levels. When the broader index holds up better than its most growth-heavy component, that’s usually telling you something about where the froth was sitting. The names that ran the hardest are the names giving the most back. That’s not a prediction of doom, it’s just an observation about where the market decided to unwind risk first

.Where NQ actually sits right now

Look at the structure on the 15 minute chart and the story is pretty clean once you strip away the noise. NQ ran up into the high 28,000s, rolled over, and came down in a fairly aggressive, almost vertical fashion through the mid-27,000s before finding some footing. That kind of move, where price gives up ground quickly rather than grinding lower, usually means positioning got unwound rather than fundamentals actually shifting overnight. It’s the kind of drop that clears out leverage first and asks questions about value later.

Since that flush, the market has been chopping in a tighter band, and what’s notable is that we’re seeing repeated Morning Star prints forming near these lower levels. I’m not treating a candlestick pattern as gospel on its own, but when you see that formation show up more than once in the same zone, it tells you buyers are at least making an attempt to step in every time price gets pushed down here. That’s worth watching, not worth trading blindly.

Right now price is coasting right around the pivot, with the 27,960 area acting like a magnet and the market unable yet to build real acceptance above it. Above that, the immediate resistance sits in the 28,017 to 28,074 zone, and just above that is the level everyone should actually have their eyes on today: 28,300. That number is not arbitrary, it lines up with the R4 pivot on the daily camarilla read, and it’s the same zone that capped the last leg lower before the flush accelerated. Reclaiming it isn’t just a nice round number, it’s reclaiming the level the market rejected from on the way down.

Why FOMC changes the calculus today

Today’s the kind of day where the chart tells you the setup, but the news tells you the timing. With the policy statement landing this afternoon, whatever structure NQ has built over the last few sessions is likely to get tested hard in a two hour window most of us can’t fully control. That’s not a reason to abandon the framework, it’s a reason to respect that the first reaction to the statement and the press conference is not always the real move. We’ve talked about this before, the initial spike either direction after a Fed release has a habit of round-tripping once the market actually digests what was said versus what was reacted to.

So the plan isn’t to guess which way 2pm breaks. The plan is to know what reclaiming 28,300 would mean, and what failing to hold above the recent lows would mean, and then let the market show its hand before committing size to either side.

The long scenario

If NQ can push through and hold above that 28,300 zone, whether that happens in today’s session or it takes until Monday to actually build acceptance up there, that’s a meaningful shift in character. That would put the 38.2% retracement level, sitting up near 28,643, back in play fairly quickly, and it would open the door for this market to work its way back toward the upper zone it broke down from in the first place. The key word there is acceptance. A quick poke above 28,300 that gets sold right back into doesn’t count. We’d want to see the market hold above that level on a pullback, not just tag it and retreat, before treating this as an actual trend shift rather than a relief bounce.

The short scenario

If instead NQ keeps failing to build any real footing above the current pivot zone, and especially if we start seeing acceptance below the 27,890 to 27,846 area, that tells a different story. That would open the door to another leg down, potentially toward the 27,786 zone and then the 27,617 level below it, which lines up with where the last flush found its low. That’s not a doomsday scenario either, it’s simply the market saying the unwind isn’t finished yet and there’s more supply to clear before real buyers show up in size.

A word on timing and psychology

Here’s the part I think actually matters more than either scenario on its own. We’re heading into month end, and month end has a way of concentrating whatever emotional damage a market has been sitting on. Rebalancing flows, positioning resets, funds squaring up before reporting, all of that tends to show up in the final sessions of the month, and it can make moves look more dramatic than they really are. My honest read is that if there’s going to be a final flush lower in this current move, it’s more likely to happen into month end than after it. Once we roll into a new month, markets have historically had a way of finding some balance again, almost like the calendar itself gives everyone permission to stop fighting and reset.

That’s not a reason to predict a bottom on a specific date. It’s a reason to be patient rather than aggressive on either side right now. This is exactly the kind of environment where traders get hurt chasing the first move, whether that’s shorting strength because it feels like it’s gone too far, or buying weakness because it feels cheap. Neither of those is a plan, they’re both just impatience wearing a strategy’s clothes.

Trade what the market is actually doing today, not what you think it should do once the Fed speaks. Let 28,300 prove itself before you commit to the upside story, and let acceptance below the recent lows prove itself before you commit to more downside. The reaction to FOMC will be loud. Whether it’s the real move or just noise is something only the next session or two will tell you.

This is for educational purposes only and isn’t financial advice. Futures trading carries substantial risk and isn’t suitable for everyone.

If you’re still working on consistency, especially trading a smaller account, this is the kind of setup I walk through in more depth with the traders I mentor toward funded accounts. If that’s something you’re interested in, the link’s below, or just reply to this and I’ll point you in the right direction.

Over the weekend I laid out a cautious, risk-off view: the market was cracking, sitting below the post-FOMC highs but above the early-June selloff lows, and I was staying in cash until it showed me a direction. Today, June 29, the market gave us the first meaningful move off that setup — and it was to the upside.

This was the first real attempt the market has made to bounce from the 50-day simple moving average, reclaim it, and close back above the 9 and 20 EMAs. NQ bounced, and a lot of the semiconductor names that had been crushed bounced right along with it. After weeks of bleeding, the buyers finally showed up. That is worth acknowledging honestly.

But let me be just as honest about the other half: I do not think the market is out of the woods. Not even close.

What Actually Bounced — A Meaningful but Uneven Move

The move today was real, but it was uneven, and that unevenness is the whole story. Some of the names that had fallen hard over the past few weeks put in meaningful bounces. Amazon ran roughly 3% (and was up over 5% at its intraday peak). Google had a big day, up close to 5%. Marvell ran around 4%. Nvidia added over 2%. Micron bounced about 1%. ServiceNow gained around 1.6%.

But not everything participated. Microsoft actually finished red, down around 1.18%. QCOM closed lower as well, off about 0.67%. So while there was a good, meaningful balance of green across a lot of the beaten-down names, some stocks bounced hard and others kept selling off. That split matters. A truly healthy reversal tends to lift the whole group together. When you see some names ripping and others still bleeding on the same day, it tells you the market hasn’t fully made up its mind yet.

The Structure Question — Is This a Lower High?

Here is what I am watching above everything else, and it is the question that defines this entire moment.

When you look at the market structure, this bounce could very well be forming below a lower-high. That is the critical distinction. In a healthy uptrend, bounces make higher highs and higher lows. In a market that is rolling over, bounces fail below the prior high — they look strong for a day or two, suck in the buyers who are desperate to believe the bottom is in, and then roll back over to make a new low. That is a lower-high structure, and it is one of the most common traps in a weakening market.

Right now, I genuinely cannot tell you which one this is. One green day off the 50-day does not resolve it. The bounce is real, but a bounce and a bottom are not the same thing. Plenty of the worst declines in market history featured sharp, convincing one-day rallies on the way down. The reclaim of the 9 and 20 EMAs is a constructive first step — but it is a first step, not a confirmation.

What Matters Now — The Follow-Through Day

So what turns this from a hopeful bounce into something I would actually trust? Follow-through.

The single most important thing now is whether we get a follow-through day tomorrow. One day up can be noise — short covering, a relief pop, an oversold bounce. But if the market can build on today’s move with a second strong session, on real volume, holding above the levels it just reclaimed, then the odds shift meaningfully toward this being a genuine low rather than a lower high. That is the confirmation I need.

The two scenarios are clear, and the next day or two will tell us which one we’re in. Either the market builds on this bounce and starts working toward new highs — a genuine reversal — or it stalls right here, fails below the prior high, and reveals itself as a lower high before rolling back down. I am not going to guess which. I am going to let the market show me.

The Long / Bullish Path

If we get that follow-through tomorrow — a second strong day that holds the reclaimed moving averages, with the semis continuing to stabilize and the laggards like Microsoft and QCOM joining rather than fading — then the bounce earns credibility. In that case, the early-June low holds as a meaningful bottom, the 50-day reclaim becomes a real higher-low, and the path back toward the highs opens up. That is the scenario where stepping back in starts to make sense. But it has to be earned with confirmation, not assumed.

The Cautious / Bearish Path

If instead the market stalls here, if tomorrow fails to follow through, if the names that bounced today start giving it back while the weak names keep sinking — then this was a lower high, and the risk-off posture was the right one all along. In that scenario, the bounce simply relieved the oversold pressure before the next leg lower. The weakness in Microsoft and QCOM today is a small but real warning that not everything is healed. Meaningful warning forces are still in play under the surface.

Where I Stand — Still Patient, Now Watching Closely

I am still in cash, and I have not changed my posture based on one day. But I am watching much more closely now, because this is exactly the kind of inflection point where the market tips its hand. A single bounce does not pull me off the sidelines. A confirmed follow-through, holding structure, with the group moving together — that would start to. Until then, I let the market prove which structure it is building.

This is the discipline: I do not need to catch the exact bottom. I need to catch the confirmed move. Missing the first day of a real reversal costs far less than getting trapped in a lower high.

Closing Reflection

The market made its first attempt today, and it was a good one — a bounce off the 50-day, a reclaim of the short-term EMAs, green across many of the beaten-down names. But one bounce is a question, not an answer. The answer comes with follow-through. Is this a genuine low, or a lower high dressed up as relief? Tomorrow and the next few sessions will tell us.

The first move is not always the real move. Wait for confirmation, respect the structure, and let the market prove itself before you trust it.

This is the kind of inflection point where disciplined traders separate themselves — not by guessing, but by waiting for the market to confirm. If you want to navigate it with us in real time, come join us.

👉 TheSmartTraders.com

This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss. Always do your own due diligence.

Let me be direct about what the charts are telling us heading into this weekend. On Friday, both SPY and QQQ finished below — or right at — their 50-day simple moving averages. SPY closed clearly below its 50 SMA. QQQ is hanging on by a thread, sitting just barely above it. That is not a small detail. The 50-day is one of the most-watched lines in the market, and when the major indexes start losing it, the message is simple: the market is cracking.

But cracking is not the same as broken. And that distinction is the entire story this weekend.

Cracking, But Still Holding Up

Here is the nuance that matters. Even though the indexes have slipped below this key moving average, the market is still holding above the extreme selloff lows we flagged in the first week of June. Remember that stretch — the Broadcom shock, the semiconductor earthquake, the global contagion that dragged the Kospi down over 5%. That was the moment of maximum fear. And as ugly as the tape feels right now, we are still holding above those early-June lows.

At the same time, we are sitting below the levels the market reached on its post-FOMC reaction. So picture where that leaves us: above the panic lows, but below the optimism highs. The market is trapped in the middle, contemplating. It is caught between the reassurance of the Fed and the weight of all the other background news — and it has not yet decided which way to resolve.

That indecision is exactly why this is not a moment to force a position.

The Damage Under the Surface Is Real

I do not want to sugarcoat what is happening beneath the index level. A lot of stocks have been crushed. The semiconductors, the computer hardware names, the Magnificent Seven — many of them are sitting in severely red conditions right now. The leadership that carried this market for the better part of a year has taken real technical damage. When the generals get hit this hard, you have to respect what it means for the broader tape, even if the indexes themselves are masking some of it.

This is the difference between reading the headline index number and reading the actual condition of the market. The indexes are holding up better than the names underneath them. That is a warning, not an all-clear.

One Interesting Wrinkle — The Small Caps and the Dow Are Strong

Here is a detail worth paying attention to, because it complicates the picture in an interesting way. While the semis and mega-cap tech are getting crushed, the small caps (IWM) and the Dow (DIA) are actually holding up strong — both trading above their 9 EMA, showing real relative strength while the former leaders bleed.

On the surface, that is the bullish interpretation: it looks like healthy rotation. Money leaving the crowded, broken tech trade and flowing into the parts of the market that have lagged. And it might be exactly that.

But here is the part that keeps me cautious, and it comes from watching enough cycles to respect the pattern. Small caps breaking out late — after the leadership has already topped and started to roll over — is very often the last thing that happens before everything comes down together. It can be the final leg of a move, the last group to get the memo, rather than the start of a fresh new uptrend. When the most speculative, risk-sensitive corner of the market catches a bid right as the generals are falling, it sometimes signals the tail end of the cycle, not the beginning of a healthy rotation.

Now, I want to be fair: it is genuinely too early to say which of these it is. Rotation and late-cycle blow-off can look identical in real time — the same way an aggressive range move and a real breakout look identical at birth. I am not going to pretend I know which one this is yet. But when I weigh the broken leadership, the indexes losing their 50-day, the elevated volatility, and now small caps catching a late bid, the balance of evidence tells me the same thing: risk-off is the way. The small-cap strength is interesting, but it is not enough to pull me off the sidelines. If anything, the reason it’s strong is the thing I want to understand before I trust it.

Why I Am Personally in Cash — and Staying There

I will tell you exactly what I am doing, because I believe in being transparent about my own positioning. I have been largely in cash for the last two to three weeks. And I am going to continue to stay in cash until the market clears up and shows me a direction.

This is a risk-off environment. Full stop. When the indexes are losing key moving averages, when leadership is broken, when the market is caught between competing narratives and volatility is elevated, the smartest position is often no position. I would rather sit on my hands and protect my capital than force a trade into a tape that is showing erratic, unpredictable behavior. There is no rule that says you have to be in the market at all times. Cash is a position — and right now, it is the one I am most comfortable holding.

What I Need to See Before I Step Back In

I am not bearish forever, and I am not calling for a crash. I am simply waiting. The market is digesting a lot at once — the Iran situation and the geopolitical overhang, the Fed’s path, the damage in tech. I want to give it time to settle and work through all of it. Once the dust clears, the picture will be far easier to read, and the right opportunities will present themselves with much better odds.

Specifically, I want to see the indexes reclaim and hold above their key moving averages, the broken leadership stabilize rather than keep bleeding, and volatility calm down to the point where price action becomes orderly again instead of erratic. When the market is ready, I will be ready. But I am going to let it prove itself first rather than trying to guess the bottom in the middle of the chaos.

The Discipline of Doing Nothing

This is the hardest lesson for most traders, and it is worth stating plainly. Doing nothing is a decision, and often it is the most profitable one. In a volatile, directionless, risk-off tape, the trader who forces action is usually the trader who gets chopped to pieces. The capital you protect today is the capital you get to deploy aggressively when the real opportunity finally arrives. Patience is not passivity. It is preparation.

The market will hand us a clear setup again. It always does. The job right now is simply to still have our full account intact when it does.

Closing Reflection

The market is cracking but not broken — holding above the early-June lows, but below the post-FOMC highs, caught between the Fed and everything else. The damage under the surface is real, the environment is risk-off, and the responsible move is to wait for clarity rather than force conviction where none exists. I am in cash, I am patient, and I am watching closely.

Sometimes the best trade is the one you don’t take. Protect your capital, respect the volatility, and let the market come to you.

This is exactly the kind of environment where having a clear head and a disciplined community matters most. If you want to navigate this carefully with us — and be ready to move when the market finally gives the all-clear — come join us.

👉 TheSmartTraders.com

This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss. Always do your own due diligence.

Before any trade gets taken, before any idea gets shared in the room, there is the research. Every week I go name by name through the market and build out a complete map for each one: where it sits structurally, what setup is forming, the exact condition that would trigger me in, the precise level that proves me wrong, and the targets I’m playing for. This week that process produced 18 fully mapped ideas — longs, shorts, and updates on positions I’m already tracking.

Here’s why that matters to you. Last month we posted over a 51% return — and I want to be very clear about where that came from. It did not come from gut feel, hot tips, or luck. It came from this — the exact research you’re about to see a piece of. Every winning idea last month started its life as a row in a sheet just like this one: a name, a context, a trigger, a stop, a target. The 51% is the outcome. The weekly research is the engine that produced it.

So today I want to pull back the curtain, show you how the process actually works on a couple of names, and walk through what I’m watching heading into the week.

Let me show you exactly what one of these looks like, start to finish, so you understand the depth here.

Take NOW (ServiceNow). The context: this is a stock that broke a major daily downtrend, falling all the way from $180 down to $80 before finding its footing and beginning to recover. It’s now testing a meaningful supply zone in the $126–130 area, and importantly, the move is tailwind-dependent — it needs the broader market behind it. The $114–115 area is the 60-minute breakout reference that defines the lower structure.

The idea: I want to see NOW hold above $130 for a session or two, or pull back into the $126–128 zone and hold there. The confirmation that gets me interested is price holding $130, pulling back into $126–128, and reclaiming — at which point the targets become $140–145, then $150–155. The invalidation is clean and pre-defined: if it traps longs at supply and fails below $126 — specifically if it rejects $128–130 and loses $122–123 — the trade is off, and the downside path opens toward $114–115, then $108–110.

That is one name. Notice what’s there: context, a clear long thesis, a specific trigger, a defined invalidation, and layered targets. Every one of the 18 names this week is mapped to exactly this level of detail. That is the difference between trading and gambling

A Second Sample — A Short, Mapped the Same Way (INTC)

People assume research like this is only about finding longs. It isn’t. INTC (Intel) is this week’s highest-conviction short idea in the semiconductor group, and it’s mapped with the same rigor.

The context: Intel put in a failed breakout at $125.57. On the 60-minute chart it’s carving a descending wedge with lower highs — a classic weakening structure. And critically, it’s sector-correlated: if the strong names in the group lose their footing, INTC tends to follow fast and hard. The flip side — what would invalidate the short — is a clean reclaim of $125.57 with volume, which would put the bullish case back in play toward $130–135.

That’s the kind of two-sided thinking that protects an account. I don’t just look for what I want to happen — I define exactly what would prove me wrong before I ever take the trade

What Else Is On the List This Week

Those are two of the eighteen. Here’s a taste of what else I mapped — the names, the stories, and why they’re on my radar. The specific triggers, stops, and targets for these are in the full members’ research:

The semiconductor complex is the center of gravity right now. MU (Micron) is what I’ve flagged as the cleanest risk in the entire group — a textbook breakout setup with the tightest, best-defined structure of any name this week. AMD is pressing into all-time-high territory with a breakout over $500 in play. SNDK and QCOM are riding the same sector breakout, and ARM is digesting a vertical move that ran from $232 to $355. When an entire sector moves together like this, the correlation is both the opportunity and the risk — and knowing how to position around it is everything.

Beyond the semis: META is on a runaway gap — a genuine strength signal — with a weekly target up at $736.80 as long as it holds its key level. IBM has gone parabolic off a major demand zone and is pressing into supply. MSFT triggered and is now working through a major gap zone. NFLX, ANET, BA, and UBER are all updates on positions already in motion, several of which have already hit their first targets. SHOP, HOOD, and COIN round out the list with their own distinct setups — including HOOD’s sell-the-news risk around June 4, and COIN’s range that has already produced two failed breakouts (and one honest, documented loss — because real research tracks the misses too).

This Is the Product — and It’s How You Get Better

I’ll be straight with you. The reason I share this is not just to show off a watchlist. It’s because seeing the process repeated, week after week, is how a developing trader actually internalizes it. You start to see how context leads to a thesis, how a thesis becomes a trigger, how every idea has a pre-defined exit before a dollar is risked. That repetition is the education.

The full research — all 18 names with every trigger, every stop, every target, updated continuously and walked through live in the room — is what members get. If you want to trade alongside this process instead of guessing, that’s the invitation.

How To Access

Eighteen names, one repeatable process, zero guessing. That’s the whole philosophy in a sentence. The market gives opportunities every single week to the trader who has done the work to recognize them. The research is how you do the work.

Want the full weekly research with every level, plus live updates and the room where we trade it together? Subscribe and join us below.

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I Have Been Saying This for Two Months — And the Results Prove It

If you have been reading this newsletter for any length of time, you have heard me repeat one idea more than almost any other: follow the trend, and respect it. Go with the market until the trend actually changes — not until it feels like it should change. That single principle is not just a nice slogan. It is the exact discipline that produced over a 51% return in our portfolio last month. Not on paper. Not in hindsight. In real time, with every idea shared as it happened.

Over the last eight weeks, the noise has been deafening. Every day, someone new was calling the top. The market was “too high,” “too stretched,” “overdue for a crash.” And while all that noise filled the timelines, we did something very different. We followed the trend, respected the momentum, and let the market pay us. The S&P 500 is now sitting near 7,580 and the Nasdaq near 27,000 — both at or near record highs. The skeptics got louder. We got paid.

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Yesterday we asked whether the market could hold its structure through the heavy data slate and continue the trend. It answered emphatically. The momentum carried straight through to the upside, and both ES and NQ printed fresh new highs on the session. This is exactly the kind of continuation that follows a healthy consolidation near highs — the market paused, absorbed the data, and then expanded higher. Consolidation near highs is strength until proven otherwise, and yesterday proved it once again.

But the real story is not just that the market went up. It is where the strength is concentrating. And that tells us everything about how to position our attention today.

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There are mornings when the market asks you to slow down before it shows you where it wants to go. Today feels like one of those mornings. SPY is coming in slightly negative, down about 0.18%, and QQQ is pulling back a modest 0.31% in premarket. On the surface those numbers feel benign, but context matters here. The market has been running hard — NQ making parabolic moves, semiconductors grinding higher, unfilled gaps stacking up below. When a market that has been stretching higher starts to hesitate, particularly on a morning loaded with high-impact economic data, the prudent response is to wait and listen rather than react and chase.

This is exactly the kind of environment where patience becomes your edge.

The Economic Calendar — Why 8:30 AM Matters Enormously Today

This morning’s data slate is not something to take lightly. At 8:30 AM, the market will receive a full barrage of simultaneous releases: Core PCE Price Index month-over-month…

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Coming into the session, NQ had been making what can only be described as a parabolic move. The kind of price action that looks impressive on a chart but quietly raises a question every experienced trader learns to ask: who is left to buy? Semiconductors had been leading the charge — names across the space pushing higher day after day, stretching further from any meaningful structure. When everything looks like it’s going straight up, that’s precisely when you need to slow down and read the tape carefully rather than chase.

Pre-market, futures were up roughly one percent. On the surface, it looked constructive. But price action in the pre-market told a different story to those willing to look. The gap up into parabolic territory, the lack of follow-through buyers absorbing that move, and the broader context of unfilled gaps sitting below — these wer…

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That does not mean the trend is over.

It means this is the phase where I want to become more selective.

The best setups now are not random breakouts. The best setups are pullbacks into key levels, failed breakdowns, reclaims, and continuation attempts after buyers prove they are still active.

Here are the main actionable ideas I’m watching.

Get my complete watchlist and market notes for $3.99/month here:
https://smarttraders.substack.com/4661f0e4

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The bigger picture

There are markets that give you clean signals and markets that give you rope. Right now, we are operating in a rope market — one that keeps extending higher, keeps absorbing any attempt to shake it down, and keeps rewarding patience over cleverness. The daily trend across the major indices remains constructive. SPY and QQQ are both grinding along their short-term moving average structure, making higher lows on the daily timeframe, and refusing to give back meaningful ground after any push higher. That is the definition of a healthy trend.

And yet, behind that strength, there is something worth noting. Every time the market gaps up and continues, it lea…

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This is not a strategy problem. It is a psychology problem. And it is built directly into the way most traders learn to read the market in the first place.

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Every small pullback so far has been bought aggressively.

Yesterday again looked like the beginning of a pause, but instead of a continuation lower, futures are already pushing higher this morning, with ES up roughly 0.6% and NQ close to 1% before the New York session even opens.

This is relentless buying pressure.

And whether traders like it or not, the market is continuing to reward those who stay aligned with the trend instead of trying to predict the top every single day.

That doesn’t mean the market is “safe” up here. In fact, the higher we go without a deeper pullback, the more dangerous the environment becomes for aggressive chasing. But at the same time, fighting this trend simply because it “feels too high…

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Strong news does not always mean an automatic long.
Strong charts do not always mean chase.
And extended moves do not always mean short.

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TraderNet ETF is launching an open trading championship this month, and I wanted to share it with readers who are interested in testing their skills in a structured competition environment.

The competition is open to everyone and will include both individual trader rankings and team-based rankings.

Key dates:

Registration: May 4 – May 17
Championship: May 18 – May 24
Results Review: May 25
Winners Announcement: May 26

The prize pool includes multiple funded-style challenge packages, including Expert, Student, Student Light, 200K, 100K, 50K, 25K, 10K, and 5K challenge accounts.

This could be a good opportunity for traders who want to participate in a competitive environment, test their execution, and potentially earn access to a larger trading challenge package without taking unnecessary personal risk.

As always, treat this as a structured trading exercise, not a reason to gamble or overtrade. The goal should be to trade with discipline, risk cont…

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We’re heading into a major macro catalyst with the FOMC rate decision, and more importantly, this isn’t just any meeting. This is effectively the final scheduled FOMC meeting under Jerome Powell’s current term as Fed Chair, which ends in mid-May. The next meeting in June will come under a transition phase.

That alone adds a layer of uncertainty.

And if you’ve traded long enough, you already know—markets don’t reward certainty on days like this. They reward patience.

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For today, the main decision line on NQ is 27150.

That level is the key area I want to see the market interact with before forming a strong bias. Until price deals with that zone, chasing the open is not the plan.

Do Not Chase the Open

The open can be fast, emotional, and misleading.

On a big gap down, the first move can look powerful in either direction, but the real information often comes from how price behaves around the key decision level.

If price pushes higher immediately, I do not want to blindly chase the bounce.

If price sells off immediately, I do not want to short after the move is already extended.

The better approach is to wait and let the market show whether 27…

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They think if they can just learn the right strategy, the right indicator, the right level, the right entry model, or the right market profile tool, everything will finally click.

But after a few months — or sometimes a few years — they realize something painful.

The market was not hard because they did not know enough.

The market was hard because they could not do the simple things consistently.

That is the paradox of trading.

Trading is harder than you think because it exposes every weakness you have: impatience, fear, greed, ego, revenge, hesitation, overconfidence, and the need to be right.

But trading is also easier than you trade because most of the damage does not come from the market.

It comes from us adding complexity, forcing trades, fighting conditions, ignoring risk, and turning one bad decision into a full emotional spiral.

The Market Is Not Difficult Every Minute

One of the biggest lies traders t…

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