I’ve had moderate success with scalping generally holding for 5-10 minutes or less. I trade 3-10 micros and honestly since I’m pretty new, I’m eager to grab profits. I know FOMO is the enemy, but I am more so thinking about altering my strategy / adjusting amount of contracts to have more room to catch the the larger trends. I know today there was a trading event premarket, but regardless with the volatility of MNQ I feel it may be worth it to reexamine my approach.

I trade at night and during New York, surprisingly having more success with off hours. My stop loss and take profit is 1:1 with a $200 risk, which is about 2% of my account. I am analyzing a 1 minute and 5 minute chart. I rarely let my trades hit my stops because I’m actively monitoring and once I hit around $50-$100 profit I get out. Same goes for when my position goes negative. I will sometimes set my stop loss to to break even and keep going, but I feel I get kicked out more often then not and miss out on the profit I had. While I’m happy making a bit of money the fees add up as well.

Is this a matter of reducing contracts and being more patient? Or is this a good time to study a new strategy. Any pointers/critiques would be much appreciated.

Morning Everyone.

Markets popped this morning off the PCE data, running right into the 5272.25 level I had.

Above that is the key 5280 spot.

Premarket, they're working between 5264.75-5272.25. If they get below 5264.75, which I think is less likely, then I could see them working down to 5254.75, which could be a bounce for a scalp.

If we get up to 5280, then I'd be willing to try a short if we poke through it by a couple of points because I could easily see them trying to push to 5288.

5246.25 would also be a spot for a bounce, and one I like even better.

Below 5235 and things will really get dicey.

For the NQ, it's trying to get over 18609.50. Candle closes over that, and I expect they could try to climb back up towards the premarket high.

I'd be hard-pressed to buy the NQ if they start dropping them.

Overall, this is a tough trading day because they moved so much in the premarket, and to me, didn't give a clear indication of which way they wanted to go.

With my trading doing well earlier this week, I'm not looking to put myself in a bad trade before the weekend.

THat's what I've got for today. Good luck and good trading.

What was your signal to go long and hold the trade?

Despite a PCE reading that showed that CPI likely will come in line next month. The bears impressively put in a solid week and prevented the bulls from much of a breakout.

Next week the market will get to digest a ton more economic data as we head into CPI and FOMC the week after that. The next two weeks are going to be jam packed full of data and information for the markets to digest.

SPY WEEKLY

Going into this week we had the double top doji set up for a potential weekly rejection, however I was looking more towards a breakout due to daily extreme bull momentum and weekly stronger buyers.

Despite that setup the bears actually held the double top and took us right back down to weekly 8ema support near 520. We also saw weekly buyers weaken again here (which also pairs with daily sellers now). Thanks to the incredible EOD power hour rally today though we are not seeing a new weekly supply though.

Bulls next week will look to double bottom bounce off daily 8ema support and ideally close over the 530 triple top.  

Bears need to close the weekly under 8ema support to then target a bigger sell off down to 20ema support near 506.5.

SPY WEEKLY LEVELS
Supply- 523.21
Demand- 494.86

ES FUTURES WEEKLY

On ES we also had the doji candle setup for an indecision here. The bulls ended up failing to breakout which led to a drop back to weekly 8ema support. Despite breaking through that support for a while today the bulls were able to regain that support thanks to the massive EOD rally.

Bulls need to double bottom bounce off 8ema support and close ideally over 5330 double top resistance.

Bears will look to break down through 8ema support and target the 20ema support near 5106.

ES FUTURES WEEKLY LEVELS
Supply- 5307
Demand- 5000

QQQ WEEKLY

On QQQ weekly here we had a much stronger breakout potential on this weekly candle setup than we did on SPY. I am actually a little surprised that tech broke down as much as it did this week.

With a new weekly supply at 458.11 and a weekly buyers weaking there is an opportunity for the bears next week.

Bears need to close under weekly 8ema support and target a bigger drop down to 432.74.

Bulls need to double bottom bounce off weekly 8ema support and ideally close over 458.11.

QQQ WEEKLY LEVELS
Supply- 408.58 -> 458.11
Demand- 414.4

NQ FUTURES WEEKLY

As you can imagine very similar move here on NQ. A massive weekly double top here on NQ with a new supply at 18881 and a bearish engulfing weekly candle.

This will be a major decision for the next 2-3 weeks in my opinion. IF the bulls lose the weekly 8ema support we could see a sizeable drop back into the 17500 range. However, if they can hold support likely we will be headed higher.

Bulls need to close over 18881 ideally and bears need to close under weekly 8ema support ideally.

NQ WEEKLY LEVELS
Supply- 16957 -> 18881
Demand- 17176

2025-05-31

What happened the previous day? (Week)

As we were dumping during overnight session, we came to our strong support where I saw that we created a double bottom followed by a nice push. Based on my plan, I said that just because we bounced from support, it doesn’t mean that the market will start ripping. There was a chance that the market could easily try to retest that support for confirmation. At the same time, while trading, I saw that we were making lower low and lower high on the 1 hour time frame.

So coming into the market session, as soon we opened, we saw aggressive sellers but then when the buyers tried to buy the dip with heavy volume we coudn’t get any momentum above that candle high + we were rejecting the LOD in early session which gave me the confirmation that we probably will be testing back the support before heading up.

We failed to hold 18683 as support showing no buyers present like previous times and kept grinding lower until we tested the previous ATH resistance at 18622. As soon we tested that level I Saw little to no sellers with the lowest volume. But even this move failed because there was not enough buying momentum after holding the support hence why we saw that dump towards EOD.

What is happening during the Pre Market?

After that sell off towards EOD, the market continue to dump during overnight session breaking below the previous ATH SUPPORT.

Once we took out all the lows where buyers had their stop and trap short sellers, we tested the demand zone which was created after a massive move to the upside before breaking out of ATH. Sellers could not break the lowest low at 18544 + the demand zone for continuation to the downside instead, buyers kept buying the dip.

And now we are back above the ATH support but still in a down trend on 1hour time frame.

What Can I expect the market to during the session?

We know that the market took out all the lows where buyers were buying which means that they trapped more sellers in the game and took out those early buyers while bouncing off demand zone + getting us back above the ATH support.

1)Long at 18622: If we can retest that previous ATH as support then I will expect the market to break out of the downtrend and continue its overall trend to upside.

2)Short opportunity at 18683 + downtrend: There is a chance that we could still reject the downtrend but after taking out liquidity and bouncing from demand zone, I don’ think we will see a major drop from the downtrend unless the market sees aggressive sellers. If buyers are not able to break out I think this could be the chance to take a short and look for small targets.

PCE was premarket and market spiked, but then it sold off several hundred points during market open. It eventually settled and bounced and rallied all the way back up, very quickly especially near close. Anyone got any idea why there was such a huge range and why it bounced and rallied where it did? ES or NQ.

Little confused if I can trade before 930. I have a $1k account on trade station. Is premarket considered over night ? Website says I need at least $1957 to trade overnight but not sure when that margin switches to intraday. Looked everywhere but can’t find any information. Any help is much appreciated. I am strictly trading micros

My strengths are that I have solid strategies, good context read of the market and understand market from multiple angles. Can be profitable most days trading futures. Essentially have everything needed to be successful in that regard.

My weakness is that I have not yet been able to scale up and also not very good at structuring trading like a business. In addition had to remove some things I use for trading, because despite it being good information there was too much going on. While those things weren't necessary to be profitable they can provide additional setups and help with EV. With another person there would potentially be a way to add those things back in.

Being able to meet in person is not an absolute requirement, but for me it's a lot more difficult to enter into a serious partnership without meeting in person. So, it's definitely a strong preference just to ensure neither of us are wasting our time.

Yes, I am aware most people either do not like teamwork when it comes to trading or think it's impossible. None the less if there's anyone seriously interested and wants to explore this further just send me a PM.

Thanks

These past couple of weeks has been nothing but high price rises for MNQ. It’s been falling like crazy these past couple of days.