AM BRIEFING

ES CHART | KEY LEVELS | SETUPS

THE DAY BEFORE NON-FARM PAYROLL

The most notable news driver is that it is the day before non-farm payroll. Traders tend to forget about it, and it tends to hurt them. Tomorrow is the show… non-farm payroll itself, landing on the Friday before a three-day weekend. The market is closed Monday.

If you use the Trade Buddy journaling software, note in your journal that today is the day before non-farm payroll. Do it every time. One day you will pull up every day-before-NFP session you have traded and see, in your own numbers, whether it is worth trading at all… or whether a five-day hike off the desk is the smarter play.

YOUR SEPTEMBER TUNE-UP: THE PRE-TRADE ROUTINE

The tip of the day, and the theme all week, is your September tune-up… working on your pre-trade routine. Do not get yourself into trouble because you were not prepared to trade. Trading requires the best you. You must be prepared.

Get up early enough to do the routine. If it is not set in stone, make it a non-negotiable. Plop on the chart and start trading unprepared and you deserve to lose… you deserve the pain, because you asked for it. And if you cannot be there mentally, if you are not the best you, Stand Down. Stop being immature. Become a mature trader.

The whole thing takes about 30 minutes:

1. Update your levels: the Battle Plan itself is only 5 to 7 minutes.
2. Watch the AM Briefing: get the map and the bias for the session.
3. Accept the misses: if you miss a trade because you prepared properly, who cares? There is always another.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW: THE BATTLE PLAN IS CARRYING

The Battle Plan has been the top strategy of the week, with a strong distribution of clean setups. Longs are crushing the shorts, which is typical when the tape is stair-stepping up the ladder. Across the week the Battle Plan racked up roughly 250 points of potential… though many of those trades printed in the Asia and London sessions, so unless you are an international member burning the midnight oil, they were difficult to take live.

• Battle Plan 3, repeated: played out clean, then set up a second look on a new low. One version reached its 25-point target with just a point and a half of heat.
• Monday: slop and chop, trash price action. A no-trade day. You could have played range rules, but there was nothing worth forcing.
• Battle Plan 4 at the apex, Battle Plan 5 slingshot: both delivered, including the Tuesday YouTube livestream where the room called the long and took partials into the move.
• Last night’s Battle Plan 3: the note flagged that if the bulls are real, this might be the only pullback. Price dipped to the drop zone, reclaimed, and ran roughly 30 points to target. Green Day insured.

Core Strategy, by contrast, has been slim this week… very little development of clean bounce levels for scalpingScalpingQuick in, quick out. Targeting small profits (5-20 points) many times per day. High win rate, tight stops, fast decisions. Full entry → under the strict rules. It is what it is. Things change week in and week out.

DON’T FORCE IT: THE NO-TRADE DAY IS A REAL DAY

Monday was slop and chop, and the call was to pass. There are days with no trades. Forcing low-quality setups just to have action is how a good week turns into a flat one. The Battle Plan is published the night before, so on the thin days you already know the good levels are not there… and you can wait, or walk.

THE ONLY CHART THAT MATTERS TODAY

Strip everything else away. The Bull Bear Line is up top. The expected range sits below us. Between them is an old established range that should already be on your chart if you are a member, and price is bouncing back and forth inside it. That range is the whole game today.

• Longs in the green area: the bottom of the range. This is where you want to be looking for longs, and if you get long you hold for the longer run… because if we break the range up, the next stop is the Bull Bear Line.
• Shorts in the red area: up at the top of the range. If you get short there, take profitTake ProfitYour target—where you take money off the table. Having a plan for profits is just as important as stops. Don't get greedy. Full entry → down low but hold a runner in case we push all the way back to the expected range. Two beautiful Core Strategy shorts paid from that red zone this week.
• The break decides everything: lose the range to the south and last night’s if the bulls are real pullback is likely in play. Break it north and the Bull Bear Line is the target.

Right now we are back at the halfback, laddered in off yesterday’s high, and sitting at the bottom of the range. That is a big decision point. The wrong move here is a fresh short at the bottom… you needed to be short up top to hold a lotto runnerLotto RunnerA "risk-free" contract held after initial profits are locked in. Your stop is moved to break-even (or slightly profitable), allowing you to potentially capture a massive move—100+ points—with zero risk. Full entry →. Down here it is not a high-probability trade.

WHEN THE LEADER SAYS DON’T SHORT THIS

Over 2,000 sessions have been led in this room, and the goal was never to keep you out of trades. It is to keep you on the right side of price action and give you the highest odds. So when the call is don’t short this, don’t short this, or don’t take a knife catch… you probably shouldn’t. You can counter the leader, that is your right. It is just usually not a good practice. Yesterday, that one call to not short a rising tape saved a lot of traders from a bad seat.

COMMON QUESTIONS FOR ES FUTURES TRADERS

Why is the day before non-farm payroll dangerous for traders?

A: Traders tend to forget what day it is and get caught in positioning ahead of a major report. NFP is a high-impact release, and the session before it can chop or drift in ways that punish size. Journaling that it is the day before non-farm payroll lets you review your own history and decide if it is even worth trading.

What is a pre-trade routine and how long should it take?

A: A pre-trade routine is the fixed set of steps you run before placing a single trade… updating your levels, reviewing the Battle Plan, watching the AM Briefing, and checking that you are mentally ready. It should take about 30 minutes, with the Battle Plan update itself only 5 to 7 minutes. If it is not a non-negotiable habit, you are trading unprepared.

What does Stand Down mean in trading?

A: Stand Down is the command to not trade when conditions or your own mindset are wrong. If you cannot be the best version of yourself at the screen, or the setups are low quality, the correct action is to step away. Not trading is itself a disciplined decision, not a failure.

What is the Bull Bear Line?

A: The Bull Bear Line is the key level dividing bullish and bearish bias on the chart. Today it sits above price as an upside target… if the established range breaks to the north, the Bull Bear Line is the likely destination. Holding above or below it tells you which side controls.

How do you trade a range in ES futures?

A: You look for longs at the bottom of the range, in the green area, and shorts at the top, in the red area. Going long in the red or short in the green fights the structure and cuts your odds. The break of the range is the signal for the next directional leg… down toward the expected range, or up toward the Bull Bear Line.

What is the halfback and why does it matter?

A: The halfback is the midpoint of a prior session’s range, used as a key decision level. When price ladders back off the prior high into the halfback and lands at the bottom of the current range at the same time, you have a high-attention spot where the market often decides its next move.

Should I take a short at the bottom of the range?

A: Generally no. To hold a short with a runner you want to be short from the top of the range, in the red area, not chasing it at the bottom. A fresh short at the range low is a low-probability trade… you are selling into the exact area where buyers are most likely to defend.

Why should I follow the room leader’s “don’t short this” call?

A: The call comes from thousands of live sessions of reading price action, and its purpose is to keep you on the right side of the market. You are always free to counter it, but doing so is usually poor practice. When the leader is yelling not to take a knife catch, the odds are heavily against that trade.

Why do points alone not measure a good trading week?

A: Total points captured ignore the losses you avoided. A week where you skipped dangerous shorts and passed on a slop-and-chop no-trade day protected capital that never shows up as a positive number. Discipline and staying out of bad trades are part of the real scorecard.

📅 Upcoming This Week

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

• Friday, Fri Sep 4: AM Briefing · Live Stream