Power Emini Commentary – Notes – Education – Examples
We started a new thing in 2025. The Power Emini “Notes” section. Below you’ll find ongoing commentary, trade examples, charts and general short-form random posts. This page gets updated every few days, so check back soon.
Labor Day Weekend!
8/29/2025
Today was the last trading day of August and we’re headed into the 3-day Labor Day weekend.
What this market needs is a good old-fashioned sell-off and the volatility to pick up. I have this theory that the market behavior is slightly different when it’s trading at the all-time highs, but that’s just an observation.
Seasonally speaking, September is the worst month of the year for the overall market. But of course we don’t really care much about what the overall market does, as long as there’s decent intraday price action. And as I’ve been saying, the Summer months tend to be less active with less participation and just generally not as good of a trading environment as the rest of the year.
But that’s about to change and I expect the next couple months is going to be a great trading environment in general. Maybe that kicked off today as we got a decent early session sell-off.
I had a conversation with a user today and I described this past week as “meh”, which is kind of what I expected ahead of the Holiday. The reason I say that is because even though 5 of the 6 Alerts this week hit Target 1, only today’s session provided the follow-through for the Alert to hit Target 2.
Yesterday the price action was weird and the early Short Alert came within 1-tick of hitting T1, which was 7.50 points. If it weren’t for that every trade this week would have at least hit Target 1. And on Wednesday the Long Alert came within 1.50 points of hitting T2 which was pretty darn close. As I’ve said before “close but no cigar”. But keep in mind when you’re trading the system you are always free to make judgement calls here and there. You can always decide that it’s “close enough” and close the trade or even choose to use a tighter stop than the system.
In past months I’ve talked about using discretion vs. trading the system by the exact numbers. My personal thoughts on that are that it’s desirable to make some judgement calls here and there, depending on what is unfolding on the charts and overall market conditions.
It’s perfectly fine to trade the Momentum system “strictly by the numbers” but you want to keep in mind that the systems “edge” plays out over a long series of trades. There will be the occasional Alert that gets “thwarted” by the price action. I’ve seen plenty of times where price gets within a couple ticks of Target 2 but doesn’t quite make it. In which case you have to make a decision on whether you’ll allow a 15-20+ point gain go back to Breakeven or whether you’ll choose to use a tighter stop to protect profits.
I would say about 90% of the time it’s best to trade the exact numbers the software provides, but at certain times it makes sense to use a little discretion.
Here’s something to consider along those lines. When you click to get filled on an Alert there are lots of times you’ll get a better fill than the system. Today was a perfect example. The Short got filled at 6492.75 at the close of the 9:40 1-minute candle. The very next 1-minute candle popped up as h8igh as 6495.25, so it’s highly likely there was a better fill on the trade, maybe 4-6 ticks clicking to enter at market manually.
And also sometimes the price just blows through the Targets and it’s possible to capture a little extra gain due to slippage in your favor. For instance today T1 was 6489.50 and the 1-minute candle that hit it closed at 6487.25. I guess what I’m driving at here is that most trades are going to experience a tiny bit of slippage and it frequently goes in your favor. Sometimes it doesn’t so it all evens out in the long-run. The point is, don’t get hung up on a tick or two. Or even a couple points when the numbers are big.
Speaking of which I had a user ask what the “average distance to Target 1” was. Being the stickler for details that I am I decided to calculate it using the actual data and the answer is 7.00 points. The funny thing was that off the top of my head I was going to say 6.00 points but it was in interesting exercise to get the actual value. But the issue is that the distance to T1 has ranged from 2.25 points to 21.50 points and everything in between. Both of those were anomalies and way outside the norm. Before you ask, the average distance to Target 2 is 23.75 points with the smallest being 7.75 and the largest 73.00 points. And everything in between.
Just goes to show how drastically market conditions can vary.
I have some good ideas for educational material I’ll be posting here in the future. But I’ve noticed readers tend to gravitate to the current month and are less inclined to read back through old stuff, so I’ll save it for next month’s posts.
Enjoy the long Labor Day weekend and I’ll see you back here in September.
Summer Doldrums – Breakeven Trades
8/26/2025
I mentioned in the previous post that the market might be dull headed into Labor Day weekend. And the early session both today and yesterday are certainly along the lines of what I meant.
I’ve mentioned the “Summer Doldrums” several times since June because over the years the market tends to experience these type of conditions at least part of the time during the Summer months. This year has seen a bit more action than some previous years, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about here.
The past two days there was a lot of choppy non-directional sideways price action in the first half of the session. Both days the system didn’t have an Alert triggered-in until after the first 30-minutes, which is kind of uncharacteristic.
But both yesterday and today price eventually broke out of the range to the upside and began trending higher. Both days the system did exactly what it was supposed to do – give a Long Alert in the direction of the breakout as a potential trend higher was beginning to develop.
Both days the price made its way to hit Target 1 and the Trailing Stop tightened and got the trades to Breakeven. Then it was up to the market whether there would be sufficient follow-through to make it to Target 2.
Unfortunately that didn’t happen. But as you should know, the #1 goal of the Momentum System is to get a trade to Breakeven so there’s no risk of a loss going forward. Then it’s up to the market to follow-through and lots of times it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. But eliminating the risk of a loss is part of the strategy that makes everything work out in the long-run.
Suppose we didn’t have the Trailing Stop tighten to get trades to breakeven? Well yesterday’s trade would have been stopped-out and today’s trade would have hit both Targets. The net result would have basically been a breakeven between the two sessions. The same result as we got with the system.
An experienced trader with the proper mental perspective should be impressed by the way the system handled the price action the past couple days.
I can’t stress enough how important market conditions are and how we have to keep our expectations consistent with the price action that’s unfolding. In other words if the market is grinding around sideways and no real significant trend develops, we can’t expect to hit a home run.
Breakeven trades are perfectly fine because we’ve eliminated the risk of a loss.
Speaking of market conditions and the Summer Doldrums
The term “summer doldrums” originates from the nautical term “doldrums,” which refers to a region near the equator where sailing ships can become stranded due to calm, windless conditions. This phrase has evolved to describe periods of inactivity or stagnation in various contexts, particularly during the summer months.
An analogy we’ve used a lot in the past is “if there’s no wind you can’t sail”. And of course “if there’s no waves you can’t surf”.
So that’s kind of how the market conditions have been the past couple days and I’ve talked about this a lot lately. It’s just the “seasonal nature” of things and not surprising ahead of a long Holiday weekend.
So we have a few more trading days before Labor Day weekend and perhaps we’ll see some action, but I’m making a point to keep my expectations consistent with what I see unfolding on the charts. It’s like this every year as far back as I can remember.
Market conditions turn favorable in September.
Binary Events
8/25/2025
I wanted to write this post Friday or over the weekend, but I was tied up with personal stuff. My wife is on a trip to California this week and we had a lot of things to get ready before she left. So it’s Monday morning and I wanted to review Friday’s price action.
As you know it was J. Powell’s speech in Jackson Hole that the market was anticipating and everything hung in the balance prior to that. Participants were waiting to hear whether he was going to be “hawkish or dovish” with regards to lowering interest rates.
It was basically a “binary event” much like a Fed announcement.
And the thing about binary events like this is that the market is likely to make a big move. But the direction of the move is really a coin-flip. As you know we don’t recommend holding an open trade into a Fed announcement in the event the system has an open Alert. That’s because there’s no telling how the market will react and it’s just not worth the risk.
Binary event risk is best avoided when it’s something that can move the market significantly in a short amount of time.
Fortunately the MES Momentum System was flat. It had a prior long Alert that triggered-in, hit Target 1 and then hit the tightened Trailing Stop just prior to the “announcement”. So the trade was closed just a couple minutes before the release of Powell’s comments.
Here’s what that looked like on the 1-minute chart.
Unfortunately, the immediate reaction was a 40+ point rally in the market in the span of 1-minute and the system didn’t participate.
Here’s the 1-minute chart in the minute immediately following the chart above.
Here’s the thing to think about.
It could have gone either way. And the fact the price moved over 40 points in 1-minute should give you pause.
In other words, if the reaction was the opposite and the market plunged 40 points in 1-minute, there’s no telling where one might have been filled on the way down even if they had a hard stop in place.
Moves of this nature due to “binary events” are dangerous.
They can go in your favor or against you and if that happens there’s no telling where your trade might execute. So it’s probably better to be on the sidelines. And it’s debatable whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that the system had closed the trade just prior to the “news event”.
Honestly I wasn’t expecting a market move like that to happen so fast. That move was certainly algo driven and it’s kind of scary that the machines interpreted the speech and reacted so dramatically in the span of just 1-minute. We knew that Powell’s comments were going to affect the market in one way or another, but I’m not sure anyone anticipated the magnitude of that move in such a short timespan.
Anyway I just wanted to post those charts here for posterity and as a warning about how price can move a LOT in 1-minute. That was honestly more dramatic than most Fed announcements we’ve seen recently.
To summarize, it’s best to be on the sidelines when there’s a news-based binary event. It’s funny that I’ve actually mentioned recently that the 10:00 news doesn’t typically move the market enough to worry about, but in this case it did. It’s kind of rare during market hours outside actual Fed interest rate announcements.
The September Fed announcement is going to be another binary event because now the market is assuming the Fed is going to lower interest rates. But that’s probably going to depend on how the next CPI numbers come in and they get released pre-market so we don’t have to worry about that.
Last thing:
We’re headed into Labor Day this coming weekend so I have no idea what to expect from the market this week. Many past years the last week of August is really dull. It could be a boring week with low participation and lots of sideways choppy price action. Let’s hope not, but that would just be common “seasonality” as the Summer draws to a close.
Autumn typically presents some of the best trading conditions of the year and the market environment should get back to more normal after Labor Day weekend.
Serious Momentum – Great Market Action
8/20/2025
Today was a perfect example of why we call it the “Momentum” System.
If you’ve been reading my posts since the beginning of the year you know that one of the cornerstones of my trading philosophy is that “market conditions” are a significant contributing factor. I frequently mention that we have to trade what the market serves up each session and it’s obvious we have no control over that.
But we know for a fact that the market is going to serve up long-range days and big trend moves and that’s what the system is looking to capitalize on. Certain sessions like today the market serves up optimal price action. Today there was “serious momentum” in the early session.
I have a really good article here about Why Momentum Is Key To Trading The Market you should check out that explains what we mean by Momentum and why that’s the name we gave the system.
The downside “momentum” this morning is pretty obvious on the 1-minute chart. As the market started trending down and broke support levels, the momentum really picked up. Think of Momentum as a similar concept as “inertia”.
I don’t usually post 1-minute charts because after an Alert fills you want to switch to a 5-minute chart to follow along. Only the Entry is taken off the 1-minute timeframe. But the chart above really shows how quickly the sell-off picked up steam once it got going.
But the 5-minute chart also really illustrates the “momentum” in the market this morning.
I took this screenshot right after Target 2 got hit.
The speed and velocity of the sell-off this morning really illustrates what we mean by momentum. It’s rare to see both Targets get hit in the same 5-minute candle.
Another interesting thing about the early sell-off today was how the Short Alert coincided perfectly with a break of the overnight support level. That’s why I included the overnight and pre-market price action on that chart.
Keep in mind a 2 Contract trader was “done for the day” when Target 2 got hit so it really didn’t matter what happened after that, but it’s interesting that the market managed to rebound all the way back up to where it started the day by the close.
All the system cares about is price movement and catching the impulse moves. The more “inertia” and momentum the better.
I mentioned in yesterday’s post that it seems like the price action might be picking up and from my experience, once we start to see “range expansion” like this, the trading environment gets better. While we still have a little over a week left in the Summer Doldrums, things really tend to pick up after Labor Day. So whatever the market serves up next week is no big deal because we are headed into Fall which is typically a great trading environment – seasonally speaking.
Volatility is Good
8/19/2025
After yesterday’s tiny little narrow range doji day it was nice to see some real intraday action in the market today.
While the early Long alert didn’t quite make it to Target 1 (came within 3-ticks) the short Alert got a lot of traction and hit both Targets.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of using the mid-point of the Range as a discretionary tighter initial stop level and it’s interesting that’s about where the Trailing Stop got hit on the early Long. One of these days I’m going to explore in detail how we might go about using the mid-point of the Range as the stop, but that’s a lengthy discussion. There are pros and cons and while it’s totally viable as an advanced strategy, it’s not appropriate for every situation.
But for today I just wanted to point out that the market itself might be picking up. Today was kind of unusual in the way the NQ sold off hard. NQ Momentum actually just had one Alert short and it hit both targets scoring a couple hundred points. So there was a bit of a shift / rotation in the market.
Here’s the MES chart about 30-minutes before the close.
Just to reiterate an important point, an Alert that hits both Targets makes up for one that gets stopped-out. And like today, it frequently more than makes up for it. However a little bit of fancy footwork could have potentially scored way more points than the system. But that would have required a little discretion like using a tighter stop on the Long or grabbing some extra points on the Short either at T1 or T2.
The thing to keep in mind is that the system can be traded purely mechanically and over time it has always been profitable that way. So you don’t really have to second guess anything and can just stick to the numbers. But more experienced traders that aren’t averse to using a little discretion will see certain instances where it makes sense to employ an advanced strategy like using a different stop than the system (generally tighter).
Over the years my observation is that the Alerts that really “go the distance” tend to hit Target 1 fairly quickly and don’t have much adverse excursion. That’s where the idea of using the mid-point of the Range might be appealing. However the thing to keep in mind is that we have the system calibrated for a “high win rate” which means that setting the initial stop at the mid-point of the Range would reduce that because there are plenty of times that’s too tight for the price action.
Most traders would agree that a high win rate (75% hit rate on T1 going back over 2-years) is preferable to getting stopped-out more frequently because the stop is set too tight, and that goes back to what I talked about recently in another post. In order to achieve a high win rate the stops need to be far enough away from the price so a trade doesn’t get knocked-out by normal price fluctuation. But the real key is how the system quickly tightens the stops as we get price movement in our favor.
Using a tighter initial stop than the system is viable in certain circumstances, but the trick is that you have to be willing to re-enter the trade using that strategy.
I’ll delve into all that in more detail soon.
But for now, keep an eye on the mid-point of the Range when an Alert fills and think about when it might make sense to use that as the initial stop.
Untradeable Market Session
8/18/2025
Every now and then we get a day like this. The market trades sideways in a narrow choppy range and there’s honestly no way to trade it effectively no matter what you’re doing. I saw someone post today “the S&P 500 is headed for the narrowest daily range since March 2024”.
What a mess.
The funny thing is that we can look at a chart in hindsight and assume we might have been able to trade it, but the reality is that as the price action is unfolding it’s just not that easy.
Fortunately the market only has a handful of sessions similar to today and the only way to avoid getting chopped up is to avoid it. I wish there was a way to figure out when a session like this might occur but there’s no easy way to quantify it – it’s more of a judgement call.
You can see where the Long and Short Alerts were given with the green and red dashed lines and you can see where T1 was above and below the price action.
You know I’m a big believer in the fact that market conditions are one of the most important factors when it comes to trading and I know that every now and then a session like this comes along and there’s not much we can do about it. Sideways markets are the worst.
Fortunately it’s fairly rare to see a session like this and i guess we can chalk it up to the Summer Doldrums. Keep in mind that the outcome of any one Alert or market session is not a big deal in the overall big scheme of things. A rotten session like this is just “giving a little back” and that’s part of trading.
Trading Manually vs. Setting GTC Orders
8/15/2025
It was a fairly typical August week, nothing too exciting. 7 out of the 10 Alerts this week hit Target 1. Monday was rough with a couple stop-outs (the day before the much anticipated CPI number) but the week finished strong with both Targets getting hit Thursday and Friday. So far August is showing a very respectable gain for the MES Momentum System.
But finally today there’s something worthwhile to discuss due to how the price action unfolded this morning.
Basically Target 2 got hit so quickly that unless you had a GTC sell order in place at the time, it’s likely there wasn’t enough time to react manually and score the points the system did. The good news is that shortly thereafter price did make it back to Target 2 and there was plenty of opportunity to take profits if you missed the first opportunity.
You can see what I’m talking about here on the 1-minute chart.
The Short Alert was given at 9:38 (eastern) and it triggered-in at 9:46 on a fairly long-range candle.
Four minutes later it plowed through Target 1 and if you were selling manually it’s likely you could have grabbed an extra 2-3 points. That happens a lot. That’s one of the benefits of selling manually.
But then lo and behold, if you were placing orders manually it’s highly unlikely you would have been able to capture the full gain at Target 2 (the first time around) because it basically got hit on a spike-down right at 10:00. That spike-down happened in 10-seconds.
So the question is… is it better to set GTC orders to sell at the Targets or is it better to trade manually by clicking the mouse to sell when a Target gets hit?
Unfortunately there is no right answer. It’s really a matter of preference.
But keep in mind it’s extremely important to have a GTC Stop-Loss order in place at all times. That’s not something you want to risk doing manually, especially in fast markets.
However there is some advantage to selling manually at the Targets because frequently it’s possible to grab a couple / few extra points past the Targets. We see plenty of times where price blows through a Target. But since that’s not the case every single time you just have to decide which method you prefer.
The nice thing about setting GTC sell orders at the Targets is that you would have likely been filled on that spike-down. And there are plenty of times where Targets get hit so quickly that you might not be able to react fast enough doing it manually. Plus with GTC orders in place you can kick back and just let the trade play out.
There’s a better chance you won’t second guess taking profits and you don’t have to stare at the chart.
In theory you could enter a trade, set your stop and targets and just walk away and let the trade play out. The only thing you’d have to do manually is trail the stop here and there.
If you were selling manually today you would have had to make a decision on whether to sell after T2 got hit the first time for less of a gain, or whether you were willing to wait for a second chance to sell. Fortunately there was a second chance as you see on the chart. And honestly it was possible to “grab a few extra points” the second time price hit T2.
So there’s no set rule and it basically depends on which way you prefer. It would probably all even out in the long-run but I’d say in slower market conditions it’s probably fine to trade manually and in fast volatile markets it’s probably better to place the “take profit” orders ahead of time.
Have a great weekend!
A Great Start to August
8/8/2025
The market served up some pretty good price action last week considering it was the first week of August. Over the years July and August have a tendency to be rather dull, but the past couple years July turned out to be the Summer Doldrums month. It seems there’s enough “news” lately to provide a good trading environment.
Today was one of those sessions everyone loves. The market opened and ripped higher right out of the gate. All you had to do was pull the trigger and take the trade.
It’s not all that often we see the market make a move like that right out of the gate, but when it happens it’s perfect for the Momentum System. Both targets hit in the first 30-minutes of trading and you could just call it a day and take the rest of your Friday to do something else.
Like celebrate a great trading week!
Yesterday was similar, except the big directional move after the open was down. And the numbers were bigger.
Here’s a screenshot of the Alert Software from yesterday.
Interestingly enough the numbers were larger yesterday because the system bases the distance to the Targets on the real-time ATR’s in the market. And they’re different every session.
Yesterday:
Target 1 = 7.00
Target 2 = 23.50
Today:
Target 1 = 4.50
Target 2 = 15.25
So far this month there have been 8 Alerts and 6 of those hit both Targets and 2 got stopped-out. Trading 2 Contracts (shooting for the 2 Targets) the system is up +116.75 points so far in August.
That’s a strong start.
Maybe things will get dull at some point and I know those results are better than we typically expect, but it just goes to show how the system can take advantage of a good market environment. You’ve seen me post a lot about that here and it’s one of the misunderstood aspects of trading, but as traders we are beholden to the overall market environment and the day to day price action. If the market trades sideways in a small range, it’s tough to trade no matter what you’re doing. When we get these strongly trending sessions and long-range days, the wind is at our back because the market is serving up optimal price action.
On a different topic… I’ve been thinking about something that I haven’t really discussed much here.
The idea that the “numbers are much bigger now” and we need to take that into consideration. In other words, over the years the nominal price of ES / MES has reached the mid 6000’s as opposed to when it was in say the 3000’s. So a 10-point move now is much less dramatic than it was back then. We need to pay attention to that concept and adjust our thinking.
Here’s a screenshot of the Alert Software from back in October 2018 to illustrate the point.
You can see ES was less than 3000 so a 10-point move back then was much more significant compared to now with the index in the 6000’s.
I think you get the idea but I just wanted to bring it up because a lot of us old-timers remember those days. And the important thing to realize is that we aren’t trading “percentages” like with stocks, we’re trading “points” and it only makes sense that price tends to move more points on average when the underlying index is double what it used to be. Right?
But the “value” of a point is still $50 for ES. And now we should expect bigger point moves because that’s how the law of bigger numbers works. It’s like a 100 point move in the Dow used to be a big deal, now it’s just normal price fluctuation.
Thank goodness for the Micro Contracts! That screenshot above was actually from before the Micros were trading.
Micro E-mini futures contracts began trading on the CME on May 6, 2019
So it makes sense to adapt our thinking and expectations to compensate for the bigger numbers. A 10-point move ain’t what it used to be – or is it? Just something that crossed my mind recently.
This is why we recommend trading the MES with the Momentum System. Because it allows for plenty of flexibility as far as “scaling Contracts”. Besides the standard “trade 2 MES Contracts and shoot for the 2 Targets” basic beginner strategy, there are all sorts of advanced strategies we could use with the system. It’s very flexible and can be traded in any number of ways.
I’ll explore some of those strategies in a future post here.
Enjoy the weekend!
Breakeven Trades – Breakeven Sessions
8/5/2025
I wanted to do a quick update early in the day today because it’s my wife’s Birthday and we’ll be celebrating that this evening.
Today was one of those days where the first alert of the day got stopped-out and the second Alert hit both Targets. That’s not all that uncommon.
Interestingly enough the market was strong right out of the gate when the cash session opened and the price action itself looked just right for a Long trade. But the “10:00 economic news” caused a quick and significant reversal. The System then gave a Short Alert which went on to hit both Targets.
I was able to get a screen grab that shows everything that transpired.
I’ve talked about trading over the 10:00 news quite a few times here so far this year and the gist is that it usually doesn’t have much of an effect on price. However there are times where it does. But the thing to consider is that sometimes it works in our favor. In other words, there have been plenty of times over the years where the system is in a trade and the 10:00 (eastern) news results in a quick move in the direction of an open Alert that hits both Targets.
So it all kind of evens out over the long-run and I don’t really think it’s a good idea to skip an Alert just because there’s pending news at 10:00. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the real market moving news tends to get released pre-market. The majority of times the 10:00 news isn’t really much of a market moving event.
As you probably know if you’ve been using the system a while, there are breakeven trades and there are breakeven sessions.
A breakeven trade is when the price hits Target 1 and then reverses and hits the (tightened) Trailing Stop. A breakeven session occurs when an Alert hits the full stop and then another Alert hits both Targets. And we’ve even seen days where there’s 3 Alerts that all hit T1 but never make it to T2. How any day turns out is the result of how the price action manifests after we get an Alert.
If you look at a chart of early trading today prior to the 10:00 news it looks fairly similar to yesterday right after the open. The price broke out of the top of the Range and had good upward momentum in the first 30-minutes of trading.
Here’s the chart from yesterday.
Notice the strength shortly after the open. The market picked a direction and never looked back. That could have just as easily happened again today, but the news caused price to immediately reverse this morning.
So just keep in mind that the first Alert of the day has a bit higher chance of hitting the stop – which should make sense for several reasons – but if you choose to skip it there’s a chance you’ll miss out on a day like yesterday. The distance to target 1 yesterday was 7.50 points and the distance to Target 2 was 25.75 for a total of +33.25 points.
Like I said in the post below, things seem to be heating up!
August is Heating Up
8/1/2025
What a great way to start off the month of August. The market “action” has really picked up and that’s ideal for the Momentum System.
Today the system gave a Short Alert that hit both Targets for a total of 48.00 points. (trading 2 Contracts shooting for the 2 targets)
So yesterday’s Alert missed Target 2 by 3-ticks and today’s Alert hit Target 2 with one extra tick for good measure. Honestly that confirms the fact that the Targets are calculated pretty darn accurately. Sure we could tweak the distance to T2 to be just a tad less and probably get a slightly better hit rate, but we’ve seen tons of alerts that go WAY past Target 2. The idea is to have the targets at an optimal distance so that we get a good hit rate at the same time we capture as many points as possible.
Today proves that the 37.00 point distance to Target 2 (which was calculated based on today’s ATR’s) was precisely the most accurate distance possible. Because T2 was at the exact price level the market traded to before it reversed (with an extra tick to spare). That makes sense right?
So while July was relatively dull with smaller than usual ATR’s and ranges, things are heating back up as we’ve seen the past couple days.
It’s important to realize there’s a potential change in character in the market itself and why that’s significant. While we can assume the increased volatility is news related it really doesn’t matter because what’s important is that the system thrives on volatility and good price action.
So last month in July, the distance to Target 1 ranged from 3-6 points all month because the ATR’s were “tame” (with the exception of yesterday where the distance to Target 1 was 7.75 points).
Today the distance to Target 1 was 11.00 points. And the distance to Target 2 was a whopping 37.00 points. That’s reminiscent of last Spring when the average daily price action was insane and the max stop was in play almost every session. So market conditions are potentially transitioning to a better trading environment. Now the market seems poised for some real action and long-range days. That’s exactly what we want.
Enjoy the weekend – See you next week!
August Could be a Great Month for Trading
Over the years August has typically been a dull month as far as market conditions. But last August was an exception and this one might be too judging by what we saw today.
I commented last month about how the market seems primarily news-driven lately and there’s been plenty of news to add some spice to what would normally be boring conditions. And typically, once the “range expansion” starts it picks up steam. I also mentioned how trending price action on the daily timeframe as well as intraday was a much better trading environment than sideways conditions. And the intraday volatility is definitely picking up.
As we get into August I’ll be using this page to post commentary, notes and charts relating to the ES / MES Momentum System, our trading strategy and whatever else comes to mind. This “notes section” of the website isn’t intended to be a daily recap, but usually gets updated with new material every couple / few days. It’s a good way for me to be able to post educational material and examples of how the Momentum System handles different market sessions.
Additional Useful Information
Moving Beyond the Trade Setup – Futures Trading Strategies to help Increase our Odds – In-Depth Article
July 2025 Commentary – Notes – Education – Examples
PowerEmini Day Trading Futures – Automated Alert Signals