Gunner/Trader96

“Confidence is silent. Insecurity is loud.”

First $SPY target hit to the dime at 61 fib. Now it is dead at bottom of hourly ribbon and the 10m 200 and I am not certain we see much more range but target hit regardless how ugly it went along the way. *No position have job responsibilities this week not trading.

Not really trading this week with work needs. Still doing prep and watching some price action. My $SPY prep: 754 is my bull bear line. I expect some indecision between 750 demand on hourly to 755 daily 21 ema. We are stuck in 750-760 overall range until one side breaks and should provide sustained gamma move. Election day and 10 am data, markets hate indecision. I like 757c but really 758 before we clean hourly ribbon, 10m 200, and other confluence. Same as yesterday. I like downside if lose 750 but have 748 as positional support fib. 749p would be my play with expected range to 747 GG target. I actually don't see much range coming today.

I trade daily but invest long term, there’s a huge difference. Let me give you my experience on daytrading after 25 years. Starting in options is mistake one. Learn in commons. Starting in 0dte is mistake two. You are trying to learn price action and personal psychology in the highest volatility, most difficult trading environment on earth. If it wasn’t for X you would never do futures evals and 0dte. Get rid of every account in your feed that promotes anything other than pure learning until you can trade small ball in commons then long dated options then eventually move into short dated options. You will increase your odds of success many times over.

New trader psychology still amazes me. It’s hard to understand the cult like following of grifters or how traders can watch grifters manipulate X posts on success and still support that person. They have to know it devastates other who are trying to learn. People will lose $50k and then tell me “he’s the best, I can’t make it work copying him daily but he never loses”. I sat in a room for maybe 18 months and thought someone might really have some concepts to add to my trading. I enjoyed commenting and really thought I was helping. I gave insights and even walked through my trades. Then it became overwhelmingly clear it was all manipulation. I tracked every alert, backtested end of day every play, and watched X posts that were completely false. It was wild how he wasn’t often called out, and anyone who did was immediately banned and blocked to protect the grift. Then the win, well maybe I am missing something so I’ll watch another few months. Yep, clearly fake. It’s hard to feel sorry for them now. The best trader on the planet, statistically speaking, per his own posts and you can’t be profitable copying the exact trades? 50k followers, supposedly 1300 subs, and 5 comments per post from the same 5 people. Statistically has results multiples higher than every single well known and proven day trader out there. Someone who literally doesn’t understand even vwap, volume, or supply demand. It’s not your $50 or $100 you lose when you support these guys. It’s the years of financial, emotional, and time losses. You will NEVER be successful doing this, and you support a false guru. You even help him trick others, many in worse financial shape than you. Think about that. You’ll never find a single follower who makes a profit in those situations long term, but you’ll see tons of X posts of a single 30% day chasing a 0dte trend. That’s the trick. It’s all marketing. Hard to believe people are so incredibly stupid when it comes to money.

Democrats: If you earn it, we want to tax it more to pay for those who didn’t risk it or earn it. In fact we want to take it after your death for the collective. We know better what to do with it than you do. “What did your kids do to earn it?” WTAF

All this ACA healthcare chat today. Here’s the deal: ACA was a temp subsidy to offset costs for lower income while the industry would be reformed and lower overall costs. That was a lie, in fact costs skyrocketed as tax payers subsidized an unfettered increase and margin hike for the entire industry. 60%, arguably as much as 80%, of Americans are not net contributors. That group of people consistently increases with new births, immigration, and more welfare. You cannot pay for 100% through efforts of only 20% and continue to overburden that 20%. It’s really that simple.

Healthcare is like auto industry from covid. A $50k truck went to $100k due to lack of chips, then when chips came available they slowly dropped to $80k. The costs of production didn’t increase, the ability to normalize a new price level did. Healthcare, education, food prices all same. During covid an example I asked why a company forced execs to increase prices every month 10% when costs were same. “Do it until they break”. Are you reducing after covid? “Absolutely not” That creates a new floor. It gets accepted.

So how did we do today? $SPY prep work... Chop area 768-771 (almost perfect) Plan: Hold over 771 for move up to posted targets (never breached); reject 771 was for chop through 768 for move down to 768 then 765 (exact LOD in session and after hours). Range bottom 765 (perfect!). Walls 770 and 765 (near perfect). Not ideal price action, caught a couple nice moves including 325% and 125% but TBH tried a couple small scalps in chop as well earlier.

I really don’t understand the mentality in daytrading that 20-30% gains on 0dte in 5 mins is bad. $4k play, snipe 25% you pocket $1000 in less time than it takes to make a coffee but you quit a job making $25/hour to daytrade and post online. Webull screenshots and X chatter has ruined trading expectations for most traders.

Let's recap this FOMC day. Couple scalps later in day but no trades early for me. $SPY 1. Chop range 769-772.5 (stayed inside almost all day) 2. Range 768-775 (close, LOD 769) 3. Hold 772 for any upside, lose 769 for downside (stayed inside range = no trades) Sometimes just recognizing nothing is tradable is the win.

Nice green day but nothing crazy, all base hits. Saw the perfect spot but late to party on this gap fill / PDC low of day at the hourly ribbon and daily 21. Called it out as the floor but waited a little bit to jump in for some reason. SPY went pdc to 61 fib exactly. As clean as it gets. Remember prep, 770 for calls but when we hit the extremes you can use fibs or levels to run it up to that spot versus waiting on it to act.

$SPY prep: Hourly is trying to break a longer supply zone now and at hourly 200. I like a test of 769/770 to hold for any upside today, using chart for 770-772 move with potential 774. Chop around 766.5-769.5, range around 760-770 with break of 770 looking like 774 potential per my chart. Just early expectations. Fed meetings start today, little data, vix key level 17.76 ('Merica!). Still messy with daily and weekly compression till about 780 clears.

Let's see how we did. $SPY prep was Chop 760-763 (exactly) Bull view: Hold 764 targets 767-768 (764 was the ramp, retested 3 more times (767.73 was HOD) Lose 760 for bear view (never lost it) Took 2 trades, 2-2, about 104% and 40%. Did not trade after lunch since we have 6 reasons to see chop. First play tapped my upper resistance to the penny and we walked through why to exit there and not continue on a retest of emas, which it did. Pure beauty. And free.

I walk away when we get stuck under a supply. Just perfect here. Even if you didn't short there, you definitely don't long there. Right to the VWAP. Clockwork.

Rode $spy from fib to fib exactly. Confluence of fib, supply zone from prior, R3 resistance, and inside daily ema ribbon MTF. Get a candle formation on 10m (inverted hammer here) and you have a perfect exit. No reason to give it back trying for a screenshot. Someone once told me my charts are just "random lines" and you "sell when happy". That guy is an idiot, and sells subs to stupid people. If you played the simple emas over prior day high zone, you took a huge drawdown on a prayer or got stopped twice. There is nothing wrong with adding in confluence. Simple is simple for a reason when it comes to technicals. Do you really think algos run on 2 emas and a zone? Can you buy a car with a webull screenshot of a 312% runner you bought for $50?

104% on first play, prep did it's job $SPY

Everyone trades differently. I will say that I have 1000s of hours of screentime and millions traded and some things I have to think traders need to evaluate. VWAP - no idea how you don't use this Multiple timeframes - execute on lower, plan on higher Supply / Demand - I use poi zones, incredibly helpful Premarket and prior day are guides, nothing more EMAS as for trend, nothing more Divergence is a cheat code Fibs are static lines based on prior price. Nothing better. Pivots are static lines based on prior price. Nothing better. 15 min break of a level means nothing, backtest and see. Watching 1-2min charts only is why you lose $. Liquidity and FVGs are as real data as you need. I can see GEX levels with no data by looking at my chart, just not net gex. Don't overthink it. Never frontrun a play into a poi, 200 ema or liquidity. Breaks are great, but most often a wick gets yanked back for a loss. Play the odds. These are algos, use the math. Backtest.