Power Hour Update for Subscribers
Closing Argument – Trend, Trap, or Just Tired?
📢 Power Hour Update for Subscribers
Closing Argument – Trend, Trap, or Just Tired?
📊 Power Pivots:
$ES: 6008
$NQ: 21828
🧭 Market Recap
Early session strength gave way to sharp selling, nearly tagging our 5978 ES level. But the buyers held the line.
NQ was more stable — it defended the 21730 breakout level, which has been a key inflection zone. Now we’re trading around 6015 ES and 21850 NQ with just over an hour left in the week.
We’re sitting at the edge of a higher timeframe decision:
Do we close above and expand next week, or fail and trap everyone long?
A daily/weekly close above 6015 opens the door to further upside — targeting 6040, and even 6080–6090 in ES, and 22140 in NQ.
But a close below 5995 would raise real concern that today was the blow-off top.
The structure is still intact, but signs of fatigue are building.
📚 Auction Market Theory Insight – Rejection or Acceptance?
What we’re seeing is a classic test of initiative control.
The early buyers failed to extend. Sellers responded. And yet — here we are, back near session highs.
In AMT terms:
The auction attempted to expand higher
It failed, pulled back toward prior value (5978)
Then buyers re-initiated and reclaimed structure
The NQ behavior is especially telling. Sellers had the edge below 21840, and that edge has held — but it’s been tested repeatedly. That signals seller exhaustion.
If 21770 holds into the close, bulls may trap late shorts and launch higher early next week.
But if ES slips below 5995, the entire breakout narrative weakens — especially given the late-week timing.
We are now at the moment of truth for both bulls and bears.
🎯 Key Levels
$ES:
🔹 Support: 5995, 5978
🔹 Breakout Targets: 6040, 6080–6095
🔹 Reversal Risk: Daily close below 5995
$NQ:
🔹 Support: 21800, 21770, 21730
🔹 Upside Targets: 21971, 22140
🔹 Bear Edge Weakens: With each test of 21840
📖 Educational Cue
In Auction Market Theory, repeated testing of a resistance or support weakens it. Why? Because effort is visible — but result becomes muted. If sellers keep defending 21840… yet price keeps coming back… the auction is absorbing, not rejecting.
That builds pressure — and eventually, imbalance releases violently.
🧠 Scenario Branches
1. Trend Continuation
Trigger: Close above 6015 ES / 21850 NQ
Target: ES 6040 → 6080, NQ 22140
Invalidation: Break and close below 5995
Confirmation: Absorption above 6008, no liquidation on uptick
2. Trap and Reversal
Trigger: Rejection from 6015 with close under 5995
Target: ES 5970 then 5941, NQ 21730 → 21676
Invalidation: Hold above 6008
Confirmation: Lower high near 6015, delta divergence, selling volume surge
3. Chop Into Close
Trigger: Ping-pong between 5995 and 6015
Target: None — market stays balanced
Invalidation: Break of either side with momentum
Confirmation: Overlapping bars, low effort/no resolution
🔚 Final Execution Cue
Buyers are in control — but only if they prove it into the close. Otherwise, this week’s gains may have been just an illusion of strength, masking a deeper exhaustion beneath.
📌 Don’t predict the breakout. React to the imbalance.
A close above the highs tells us the auction wants to keep going.
A weak close? That’s where next week’s traps begin.
📌 Final Thoughts – Execute With Context, Not Emotion
This has been a hard-fought, high-volatility week. You’ve seen the pattern:
Rotation between ES and NQ
False starts, liquidation breaks
Immediate reclaims
Now we sit on the edge of all-time highs again.
Will they rip it through on low volume and trap everyone long?
Or are they saving energy for Monday?
“Let structure confirm. Let value guide. Let effort prove intent.”
Stay present. Stay light. Stay lethal.