Gap trade

I had two possibilities in mind going into the open.
1) A push to 10700 cash and then a melt up higher
2) A range or gap fill

The gap up was about 36 on the YM and with Friday’s high being just 7ticks above the close the range fill wasn’t much different.

The market opened and pushed up initially. TICKs were firm but not increasing. The market pushed back down towards the open fairly quickly. I was leaning towards the short for a gap fill.

If I could get a small pop up the risk reward would be favourable for a short. The tape looked good, the target was clear and there was plenty of meat to work with between now and the target.

The market popped a few ticks and I hit it short.

Below is a 90 tick chart, I’ve used this to zoom into the 1 minute bar to show the small pop after almost testing the open (Yes the market’s range is low enough that we need to zoom into 1 minute bars now!)

The market rolled over with no heat for my short. I took my usual 10pt scale on a quarter of my position. The tape looked weak and it looked like I’d get my target, feeling confident I added again to my short on a failed retest of the opening price. I closed that failry quickly for another 10 ticks and was now waiting for my final targets.

The market loitered near the range fill for a while before finally pushing through. I closed the majority of my position at 10620.

I had a quarter of my position left, I was looking for a good breakdown through the gap so I could close into the mini panic. We didn’t quite get that and cautious that most of the equity indicies had filled there gaps I closed the final batch at 10618 for +30

I’ve got nothing else planned for today and will likely do no more trades unless the volume picks up and we take out some key levels.

Summer trade seems to dictate that the window of opportunity is up until about an hour after the open. After that set your alerts and do something else. I’d be enjoying the sun if England had any!