Sunday Chart Prep
The weekend routine that turns a messy chart into a clean set of Strong Levels… before the week ever opens.
2022–2026
Sunday chart prep is the weekend routine every serious futures day trader needs. You tune up every timeframe, carry forward the levels that still matter, delete the stale lines, then review with fresh eyes and publish the Strong Levels that anchor the coming week. It is the quiet work that makes Monday morning easy.
“These are levels I publish on Sunday night for my traders for the week. These are the levels I think are most important, along with some notes.”
This page gathers everything George teaches about weekend chart preparation across hundreds of hours of live ES E-mini futures and MES micro futures sessions… the tune-up, the carry-forward, the fresh-eyes review, and how Sunday’s Strong Levels feed straight into the week’s Battle Plan.
The Sunday Strong Levels
Start with the output. Every Sunday, George publishes a short list of the price levels he believes matter most for the week ahead, each one with a note attached. These are the Strong Levels, the lines his members see on their charts before the market opens.
“Every Sunday I publish these strong levels. These are the lines you see here that’s included in your membership.”
Strong Levels are not a mystery. They are high time frame levels stitched together with the fine-detail levels that shape price action. George curates the set and refreshes it weekly so his traders never work off a stale chart.
“The strong levels are nothing more than high time frame levels, very minutia levels that I want to make sure are on my members’ charts. And so I update that weekly. If I need to update it midweek, I’ll do that as well.”
How accurate are they? George posts the receipts himself. On March 28, 2025, one Sunday level held to the tick… “we almost made it exactly to 5602, just a couple ticks away from actually closing there”. Levels drawn in advance keep proving themselves. Keep them honest and they keep you on the right side.
The Weekend Tune-Up
Charts drift. Lines get bumped during a busy week. A contract rollover shifts your levels a few points off. That is why the weekend tune-up exists. You walk every timeframe, fix the drift, and clean off the clutter so Monday’s chart tells the truth.
“This is why on the weekend you want to do this tune-up… come back in on the weekend, make these little adjustments.”
Do not fuss over a perfect chart. Sometimes you mark a level twice. Sometimes a line slides into the wrong folder. George says relax and clean it up.
“Sometimes you delete lines, or it moves into a different folder, and sometimes you’ll mark levels a couple times and it’s okay. You just delete them. It’s not the end of the world.”
The tune-up matters most because of the accidents you cannot see. A line you nudged Tuesday can hand you a bad trade Friday. Double-check the whole board on the weekend and you catch those mistakes before they cost you.
“I might have moved some levels on accident… that’s why the weekend checkup is so critical.”
Carry the Right Levels Forward
Half the routine is deletion. The other half is carrying forward. You keep the reference levels that still hold weight and mark them clearly on next week’s chart. Ask one question over and over… which levels do I want to carry forward into the new week?
“Which levels do I want to carry forward into the new week… make sure those are on your chart going forward. Those are the levels I want to carry forward into trading next week.”
Which levels earn a spot? George works top-down. He marks monthly, weekly, and daily peaks and valleys, and he keeps weeklies and monthlies together in a folder so a new confluence jumps out at him.
“This is why you want to do folders, because I keep my weeklies and monthlies in my same folder. I want to see if there’s anything new that pops up.”
Then come the session levels. RTH high and low, overnight high, Asia and London extremes, the weekly high and low, single prints, and any untested VPOC. Mark them. Label them. George narrates the exact process on his own chart.
“Make sure you mark that. Then you have an RTH high. And down here we have the Asia low, which is also the weekly low, so mark that. We have a POC from Wednesday that was not tested in the RTH session. Carry that forward.”
Here is the checklist George runs against every level before it goes on the chart:
| Level type | Why it carries forward |
|---|---|
| Monthly / weekly HTF | Big-picture peaks and valleys that frame the macro directive. |
| RTH high / low | The regular-hours range. Untested extremes draw price back. |
| Overnight / Asia / London | Session extremes that map where global money already reacted. |
| Untested VPOC / single prints | Unfinished business the market tends to revisit. |
Label as you go. George does not just mark the RTH high, he notes “RTH high, not tested in the RTH session” (Mar 8, 2026). A labeled level tells you why it is there weeks later. Pair this with your End of Day Chart Review and the weekend work almost does itself.
Come Back With Fresh Eyes
Here is the step most traders skip. George does not finish in one sitting. He marks levels on Saturday, then returns Sunday and looks at the chart cold, with a fresh set of eyes, before he commits to the Strong Levels.
“Tomorrow I come back and look at the chart with a fresh set of eyes and continue marking out what I think are going to be the most important levels. This is part of my process before I begin looking at what I believe are going to be the strong levels for the week.”
The fresh-eyes pass does double duty. You spot the strong levels you missed, and you double-check the ones you already drew. George builds both jobs into the same Sunday sit-down.
“On Sunday, I go back and look at the chart with a fresh set of eyes, because that’s where I’m going to look for the strong levels for the next week. But I’m also double-checking my levels.”
Why split it across two days? Because Friday you are spent. George is honest about it. He cannot make good level decisions with a fried brain, so he lets the weekend do the heavy lifting for him.
“It’s nerve-wracking every week to publish that. I can’t do it on Fridays, my brain’s too done. I actually come to my computer on Saturday and I look at it as a cursory thing. I make a folder of what I think the new strong levels are, which ones I need to delete. And then Sunday I’m like, okay, you got to make some decisions today, pal.”
Saturday is also George’s day for process. He improves the tools and systems, not just the levels… “Saturdays are about what can I improve about what we are doing or what we’re going to do” (Mar 31, 2026). Slow, deliberate, two-pass work beats one rushed Friday scramble every time.
From Strong Levels to the Battle Plan
The levels are the foundation. Every week George publishes two things in order… the Strong Levels first, then the Battle Plan of trades built around them.
“Every week I publish two things. One is called the strong levels. These are the most important levels I think for the coming week. And then I publish my battle plan trades, which are trades around these strong levels.”
The order matters. Draft the levels, then let the levels tell you where to trade. George maps where he wants to go long and where he wants to go short only after the Strong Levels are set.
“Each Sunday I draft two things. Number one is our strong levels, that is the most important levels going into the next week of trading. Based upon where we’re at on the chart and the strong levels, I map out where we want to go long and where we want to go short.”
Strong Levels also carry a direction, not just a price. George treats them as macro levels and adds notes to keep his traders on the right side… “I try to give these notes to help keep you on sides” (Mar 25, 2025). Some are outright warning shots. One weekend a level was a “warning shot to bears, like be careful bears” (Nov 20, 2024).
To spare his traders the redraw, George eventually built the Strong Levels into an indicator he updates every Sunday. Same levels, no hand-drawing, valid for the week.
“I used to do it that way and I was like, man, that’s a pain in the butt for my traders. How can I make this easier? So I decided to learn some Pine Script programming, and now I just update that strong indicator every Sunday, and those levels are valid for the week.”
One honest caveat. These are one trader’s opinion of the most important levels, not gospel… “just what one trader, it’s one trader’s opinion” (Jul 9, 2025). Take the published session, RTH, and VPOC levels and confirm they match your own chart before you trade them.
The Payoff: Levels Drawn Sunday, Traded Friday
Does the weekend work actually pay? The record says yes. Levels George maps on Sunday keep holding all the way to the end of the week.
“This is a dialed-in strong level that I mapped out on Sunday, and we’re trading it on Friday… not bad for a level drawn on Sunday night, right?”
It repeats. In November 2024, George pointed at a level from the weekend and confirmed it played out clean… “over the weekend I published the strong levels, and this level looks like it was pretty much on the money” (Nov 26, 2024). Advance preparation turns support and resistance from a guess into a plan.
One last piece rounds out the routine. During your weekend reflection, set a single focus for the coming week.
“Whenever you do your weekend reflection and you create a focus for this coming week… what’s my focus this week, what’s my verse of the day, what is a trader wisdom quote.”
Clean chart. Carried-forward levels. Fresh-eyes review. A Battle Plan built on the Strong Levels. A focus for the week. That is the whole Sunday routine, and it starts before anyone else has opened a chart. Build it into your Pre-Flight Checklist and Monday stops being a scramble.
“Well, last night I mapped out what I call the overnight battle plan for the group.”
Keep Learning
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Sunday chart prep for futures trading?
What are Strong Levels in ES futures trading?
Which levels should I mark on my chart for the week?
Why review your trading chart with fresh eyes?
How do Strong Levels connect to the Battle Plan?
Do levels drawn on the weekend actually hold during the week?
What time do stock futures open on Sunday?
Stock index futures open Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. Central) on the CME Globex electronic market. That includes ES E-mini futures, MES micro futures, NQ, and YM. From that Sunday evening open, the market trades nearly around the clock until Friday at 5:00 p.m. Eastern, with a short maintenance break each weekday from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
Want the full weekly schedule in one place? See the complete futures trading hours breakdown.
Are futures open on weekends?
Mostly no. Futures close Friday at 5:00 p.m. Eastern and stay dark all day Saturday and most of Sunday. The week begins again Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. So while you cannot trade on a Saturday, Sunday evening is a live session. Many traders use the quiet weekend hours to build their Battle Plan before the open so they are ready when Globex lights up.
What time does NQ open on Sunday?
NQ Nasdaq futures open at the same time as every other CME stock index contract: Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 p.m. Central. ES futures, MES, NQ, MNQ, YM, and MYM all follow one Globex schedule. If one is trading, they all are.
Should you trade the Sunday open?
Be careful. The first hours after the Sunday open are thin. Volume is low, spreads can widen, and price can gap hard on weekend news. A small order can push price further than it would during regular hours. For most traders, Sunday evening is prep time. Mark your levels, review the weekly chart, and let the market settle. Remember, sometimes the best trade is no trade, and liquidity does not really build until the overnight sessions get going. Curious when that happens? Here is how the London session shapes the overnight range.
Why does the Sunday open matter if you only trade the day session?
Because the market has been trading for over fourteen hours before the New York stock open. Where price opened Sunday, and where it traveled overnight, tells you who is in control and which levels already got tested. That is why marking your key levels before the market open is a core part of weekly prep. Walk into Monday knowing the map, and the open makes sense.
What is the difference between stocks and futures trading hours?
Stocks trade a short day: 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday, with limited pre-market and after-hours sessions. Futures trade nearly 23 hours a day, Sunday evening through Friday evening. That is one big difference between stocks and futures. Futures also carry built-in leverage, trade in standardized contracts, and let you go short as easily as long. That flexibility is powerful, and it demands rules. If you are new, start with futures trading for beginners before you place a live order.
Do Sunday hours change on holidays?
Yes. On U.S. holidays like Labor Day or Presidents Day, futures often open Sunday as normal but close early Monday, or trade a shortened session. Always check the CME holiday calendar before a long weekend. Holiday sessions are thin and choppy, so treat the first trading day after a holiday with extra caution.
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“On Sunday, I sit down and look at the chart with a fresh set of eyes, and I publish our strong levels, which to me are the most important levels going into the week.”
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