Don’t Rewrite Your Trade Plan For Summer Chop | AM Briefing #809

AM BRIEFING

ES CHART | KEY LEVELS | SETUPS

‘TIS THE SEASON — SUMMER TRADING AT ITS FINEST

July is a unique time. Summer trading at its finest… and that word “finest” is in big air quotes. This is money-take-money price action. Double taps. Triple taps. Frustration on entries and frustration holding runners. The scripture of the week fits it perfectly… to everything there is a season.

So here is the warning. Be careful how you adjust or change your trade plan based on how the market behaves during July. This is a squirrelly stretch, and the summer lull is NOT the market you want to redesign your whole approach around.

If you ARE going to test something, don’t blow up your main process to do it. Keep doing what you’ve been doing… and test on the side:

• Trigger Profiles: Inside the Trade Buddy Chrome extension you can create two, three, four, five different accounts. When you journal, you pick from those accounts, and your dashboard tracks them separately.
• Or tag it: Stay in your main profile and create a new tag for the experimental trade so you can isolate it later.

BATTLE PLAN BASICS — STRONG LEVELS AS PINBALL BUMPERS

For anyone new listening in, here is how the Battle Plan works. Three pieces stack together to build your narrative for the day:

• Strong Levels & Strong Ranges: Every Sunday George maps the levels he thinks matter most for the week — daily levels and market profile levels. They plot on your chart as a TradingView indicator. These are the bumpers and paddles on the pinball machine, the spots where price gets slapped around.
• Battle Plan mappings: The zigzag lines drawn around those Strong Ranges show what we expect price to do — get under a Strong Range, reclaim it, retest it, and move on. Updated daily and plotted for you.
• The notes: A written set of notes for each Battle Plan trade, telling you the context and what to expect.

The whole point of the Battle Plan is one thing… put you on the RIGHT side of price action. Fewer, higher quality, pre-planned trades.

LAST NIGHT — THE LADDER BACK AND THE LOTTO RUNNER

We gapped down and came right into the Strong Range. Bounced. Came down, bounced again. The Battle Plan called this a middle-of-the-range pullback, and George was honest about it… not the trade to get overexcited about as your first of the week, because the middle of the range rarely gives the cleanest, snappy price action.

Battle Plan 3’s note flagged the tricky Strong Level, called for snappy ladder-back price action, and said to hold a runner because the all-time high is not that far off. And that is exactly what showed up. Price laddered back beautifully off the bottom of the established range.

If you ran the 3-Contract System the way we teach it, the Asia opening handed you the gift of a roughly 20-point move. The play at that point:

1. Peel your contracts as the trade works.
2. Pull your stop under the proven Strong Range so it serves as support.
3. Hold the lotto runner… you went long at the bottom of the range, at the Bull Bear Line. Not a bad place to hold and hope for an all-time high.

WHERE WE ARE — RANGE RULES AND A BULLISH TILT

Right now everything sits inside Friday’s range. ES is in the middle. NQ is at the bottom. The Dow is at the top. Is that bearish or bullish? George contends BULLISH. The Bulls control. All-time highs are in sight above our heads.

Friday proved it. Two trades were on the table — the higher probability long and the better risk-reward short. Range rules won. The long ran to the top for a 50-pointer. George held the short and took a break-even… his choice, his call. Both were outlined, and you get to do you. If you’re flat now, like George, you wait for something new. The middle of the range is not where you force it.

EARN THE RIGHT — THE PRE-TRADE READINESS CHECK

Before you open your platform, you have to earn the right. Run the checklist and answer honestly:

• Emotionally ready? You better be able to answer yes.
• Physically ready? Did you sleep well? Are you hydrated? Getting over an illness? Trading requires the best of you.
• Right equipment, right location? One trader lost two days to internet problems… now trades off a friend’s Starlink. Make sure your setup is solid.
• Enough time? Doctor’s appointments, dentist, swim lessons… if the day is chopped up, you may not have the runway to trade well.
• Reviewed the Battle Plan? Checked the economic calendar? Prepared for a max loss day? Will you trade YOUR system?

Answer yes to all of it and you are cleared for takeoff.

COMMON QUESTIONS FOR ES FUTURES TRADERS

Should I change my ES futures trade plan for the summer?

A: Be careful with it. July is a unique, low-liquidity season full of double and triple taps, and it’s the wrong market to redesign your whole approach around. If you want to test a change, keep running your normal process and isolate the experiment in a separate Trigger Profile or under its own journal tag so the summer chop never contaminates your real edge.

What are Strong Levels and Strong Ranges in the Battle Plan?

A: They are the ES futures key levels George maps every Sunday from daily and market profile data, delivered as a TradingView indicator. Think of them as the bumpers and paddles on a pinball machine — the spots where price gets slapped around, bounces, and retests. They’re not magic, just the levels thousands of hours on ES say matter most.

How do I know a Strong Range is well drawn?

A: Watch how price reacts to it. Bounce, backtest, bounce, backtest, bounce… that repeated respect tells you the line is real. A range that keeps holding becomes a reliable protection layer you can lean on and set stops behind in future sessions.

What is a middle-of-the-range pullback and why be cautious?

A: It’s a Battle Plan entry that sits in the center of the established range rather than at an edge. The Bulls should defend it, but you rarely get the cleanest, snappy price action there. It’s not the trade to get overexcited about as your first of the day… the higher-conviction spots live at the range extremes.

What are range rules for ES futures?

A: When price is inside an established range, look for longs in the green area near the bottom of the range. It gives you a higher probability trade. On Friday that higher-probability long ran 50 points to the top of the range while the counter-trend short only paid a break-even.

How should I manage a lotto runner?

A: Peel your contracts as the trade works using the 3-Contract System, then move your stop behind a proven Strong Range so it acts as support. If you went long at the bottom of the range at the Bull Bear Line, that’s a strong place to hold the runner and let all-time highs come to you.

What is the 3-Contract System?

A: It’s Micros Trader’s core position-sizing framework. You take a position across three contracts so you can peel off size into strength, lock in profit, and still hold a runner for the big move — all while keeping your risk defined from a tight entry. It’s how you turn a 20-point gift into managed, laddered profit instead of an all-or-nothing bet.

How do I use the Trade Buddy Chrome extension?

A: Trade Buddy is a Chrome extension for journaling your trades, planning from the dashboard, and tracking behavioral patterns. You can create multiple trader profiles, so when you journal or test a plan tweak you pick the right account and keep experiments separate from your main results.

What should I check before I start trading?

A: Run a readiness checklist and earn the right to open your platform. Are you emotionally ready, physically rested and hydrated, on the right equipment in the right location, with enough uninterrupted time? Have you reviewed the Battle Plan, checked the economic calendar, and prepared for a max-loss day? Yes to all… you’re cleared for takeoff.

📅 Upcoming This Week

Hit the bell — every AM Briefing and live trading session this week is already scheduled on YouTube:

• Tuesday, Tue Jul 14: AM Briefing · Live Stream
• Wednesday, Wed Jul 15: AM Briefing · Live Stream
• Thursday, Thu Jul 16: AM Briefing · Live Stream
• Friday, Fri Jul 17: AM Briefing · Live Stream