It was pretty interesting how after Target 2 got hit the price rebounded back up to exactly Target 1 and then rolled back over. The Trailing Stop tightened a bunch of times before it ended up where you see it on that chart. But notice how ideal that Trailing Stop level was at the time. That’s actually where it eventually ended up getting hit later in the day.

So yesterday was fantastic and today was not so great, but it was a really good week for the Momentum System overall. And that’s what’s important.

We trade the Momentum System using statistics and probability. The reliability lies in sample size. When we accumulate enough rule-based trades the laws of probability work and the system’s edge is revealed.

Lots of Valuable Insight From Today’s Session

11/5/2025

I always tell new users that while the Alert Software is simple to use, it takes a bit of time to get a good grasp all the nuances of the system. There are a lot of things going on under the surface. That’s why I discuss how “every session is different” frequently and talk about how market conditions affect everything.

So a day like today is ideal for pointing out a few things that might not be apparent, to say someone that just started trading the system this week. It was an ideal day for the system with one “filled” alert early in the session that went on to hit both Targets in the first 30-minutes. It doesn’t get much better than that.

But the first thing I want to point out is that “not every Alert gets filled”. I’m sure everyone already knows this, but it’s such an important thing for a new user to be aware of I like to reiterate it just to make certain. Imagine you just started using the software for the first time this morning, it could be confusing that there was a Short Alert – even though it never triggered-in or filled.

I marked up a screenshot of the software from this morning to point it out.

Here’s the important thing to realize about that Short Alert that didn’t fill. The market was making a directional move down at the time and that’s why there was a “potential short”. Makes sense right?

What’s great about the Momentum System is that it doesn’t have any bias. It’s always going to give Alerts in the direction of the current price movement and that’s how it gets us into significant trend moves – like today. It just so happens this morning there was a 30-minute window from 9:00 in the pre-market to about 9:30 at the cash open where price was moving down.

And the most interesting thing was that the Short Alert level was just under support. So hypothetically IF the market had broken below that support and continued down, the Short would have triggered and the system would have had us in a trade in that direction.

But the market decided to reverse around that support and price reversed and headed higher. Then the “current directional price movement” was up so the system gave the Long Alert which quickly triggered in. The “fill” (Entry Confirmation) happened to be right above that pre-market high from around 9:00 which was an interesting coincidence.

The chart provides a good visual reference for what I just talked about and what transpired today.

Yesterday I talked about what constitutes a fairly “normal” session as far as the distances to the Targets and today qualified as far as that goes. Target 1 was 5.50 points past the Entry and Target 2 was 18.25 points for a total of 23.75 points.

But what wasn’t entirely normal about today was the additional follow-through on the trend move past Target 2.

Notice near the top of the chart above I marked the “Traction” with an arrow. The Traction indicator in both the Alert software and Ninja indicator simply shows the maximum adverse and positive excursion price made past the Trade Price Barrier / Alert Level. After the Alert filled, price never went below the Long Alert level so it shows 0.00 negative traction. The high of the session had a “max excursion” 51.50 points above the Alert level. It’s basically a useful metric for measuring the progress and efficiency of an Alert after it fills.

The Trailing Stop eventually got tagged about 30-minutes before the close +38.00 points over the Entry.

The tricky thing about holding onto a “runner” past T2 today was all that congestion between T1 and T2 before price eventually took the next leg up. But it just goes to show that on occasional strong trend days it’s possible to catch a runner holding with the regular Trailing Stop.

Yesterday I mentioned that the “scaling” of contracts is something that each user has to decide for themselves and there are lots of different possibilities and variations when it comes to how many contracts to trade and how to scale out at the Targets and possibly shoot for a runner.

But I’ll leave the discussion for another time. I just wanted to touch on a few basics today for the benefit of new users.

I’d Say Today Turned Out Pretty Well

11/4/2025

When I got to my desk this morning the ES / MES Futures were down around 70 points. I knew it was going to be a pretty wild day. I assumed the ATR’s and ranges would be elevated and they were indeed.

There was one filled Alert this morning that hit Target 1 for +9.75 points. Target 2 was a whopping 32.75 points from the Entry but price didn’t quite make it that far. The price got about +27.25 points of forward “Traction” towards T2 and then reversed. The Trailing Stop had tightened 4 times by then and got tagged a couple ticks above the Entry level.

There are a couple things I want to point out for the benefit of new users.

Because of the wide pre-market ranges and larger then normal ATR’s around the open, today was NOT a normal session. The distance to the Targets was significantly farther away than normal. I would say typically under normal market conditions (if there is such a thing) the distance to T1 is about 4-7 points and the distance to T2 is about 15-20 points.

So on a day like today when we see T1 9.75 points away from the Entry we can tell that market conditions aren’t normal and the volatility is elevated. We want to be aware that market conditions can vary drastically from day to day and take that into account. The system adjusts to that automatically.

Another thing I want to mention is that I have sort of an unwritten rule that when price gets in between T1 and T2 it’s perfectly acceptable to use a tighter Trailing stop than the system. And I’ve actually written about that quite a few times here, but the gist is that if you have more than say a 20+ point gain but price isn’t quite making it all the way to T2, you have some choices.

You can say “good enough” and just close the position.
You can choose to use a tighter stop to protect some of the gains (between T1 and T2)
Or you can just play it “by the book” and in a case like today the additional contracts held past T1 got out just a tad over breakeven.

Personally I don’t like to let a 20+ point gain evaporate and go all the way back to breakeven.

Keep in mind that in normal market sessions it’s fine to trade the system purely mechanically. But on certain occasions it might make sense to use a little common sense judgement. When price pushed past T1 and got about half-way to T2 it would have been reasonable to set a tighter stop say at T1. Or maybe below the low of one of the prior candles past T1.

The system is very flexible as far as scaling and you are always free to use a different stop than the system at any time, based on what you see on the chart. Using a different Trailing Stop than the system is really the main discretionary thing you might consider at certain times.

Trading 2 Contracts “by the numbers” today would have resulted in a +10.25 point gain and that was basically it for the day. Later in the afternoon there was a Short Alert and a Long Alert and neither triggered-in and that was fine. Honestly it seemed like a good day to wrap it up early after that first trade. The last 4-hours of the session the price returned to the Trigger Range and basically just clanged around inside it until the close.

We want to maintain perspective in line with what the market is serving up each session and when the ranges and ATR’s are wider then normal like today, both risk and reward are elevated too.

As we move forward in November I’ll be posting here every couple / few days with lots of interesting things related to trading the Momentum System.

November is Off To A Good Start

11/3/2025

Today was the first trading day of November and the cash session opened at a new all-time high. And we’ve seen similar price action quite a few times recently. The market gaps up and the first impulse move is down.

The system gave an early Short Alert that hit both Targets. Check out the Alert Software screenshot:

(read the System notes from the bottom up)

The Short Alert fired off just 8-minutes after the cash open and filled quickly. Target 1 got hit just 4-minutes later which is indicative of the “momentum” of the down move. As you can see the Trailing Stop tightened prior to T1 getting hit and then tightened a couple more times before Target 2 got hit.

45-minutes into the session a 2 Contract trader was “done for the day” after T2 was hit. There was actually an additional 15+ points of “traction” past Target 2 before price rebounded and there are several different ways one could have played this Alert trading more than 2 Contracts.

The distance to the Targets was fairly significant too.

Target 1 was +7.50 points
Target 2 was +25.25 points
Total trading 2 Contracts +32.75 points

I’d say that’s a pretty good way to start off the new month.

November – Expecting Good Price Action

I mention seasonality quite a bit heading into a new month but every year turns out differently – kind of like the weather.

I’ve lived in the same place in Florida for the past 25 years and some years it’s freezing in December and other years it’s 80 degrees and you can walk on the beach. So seasonality only goes so far and it’s the same with the market. As we head into November all the indexes are at all-time highs and there’s a lot of strange things going on. The news is having a big impact on the markets from day to day and we’re all aware of all the crazy news and things pending right now.

November has traditionally been a good month for trading with lots of participation and action right up until Thanksgiving weekend where everyone gets in Holiday mode. But even after that I expect to see plenty of good trading conditions because there’s so much going on in the world and news to move the markets. While we might see some dull session here and there, I expect a lot of volatility as we start the new month.

As we get into November 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

 October 2025 Commentary – Notes – Education – Examples

PowerEmini Day Trading Futures – Automated Alert Signals