9:28 am Eastern  - The levels for yesterday continued to provide support and resistance overnight as price tried to break out above the highs made during the regular session, only to be pushed back down again. And there were still reactions at the levels from yesterday that price interacted with during the Globex session. There isn't much conviction either way, and the case could be made that there may be slightly more bearish sentiment in the way SPY is acting lately - at least in the near-term picture. Don't forget that the weekly and monthly charts are bullish, but there are things happening on the daily and shorter time frames that have more of a bearish feel. Today's close is a weekly close and price is getting near the 20-period moving average on the weekly chart. After testing the 20-period MA a couple times over the last few weeks, do they want to get a close under it by the close of today? That could send a message that the bears could be planning something big. If today's close is under 680.00, then we'll talk about it in the upcoming Weekly Recap, which should be posted on Sunday, 2/22/2026.

For today, the bull axis is really the zone at the top of the chart - up at 689.13 to 689.45. Price needs to get above that zone and close hourly, then daily candles above it to negate this sideways consolidation thing the SPY has been doing. Again, there are some bearish undertones in the market right now. Unless the bulls can do something about that, the bearish tone is likely to increase.

The bear axis is 681.83. With 10 minutes until the opening bell, as I write this, price is right on top of this level. And there are 9:45 am and 10:00 am data releases that will probably move price around. Considering where price is now - on the threshold of an important axis level, there will likely be some decent movement this morning. We'll need to be careful. The levels are designed for base hits, per the rules of the strategy. But if anything looks out of character - which is easier to tell by studying the longer timeframe charts in real time - then there is no shame in ignoring a level and not trading against it if you're not feeling it. As a reminder though, the Tracking Log that is updated every day after the closing bell, assumes trades were taken at every level, if the price/time interaction was congruent with the Ticks & Trades rules. And you see how the performance of this strategy fares over time. That should give you confidence that even trading every single level (again, strictly by the rules), provides very good returns in the long run.

It is now 9:26 am as I write this, and price has already started to bounce a little at 681.83, the bear axis. These levels are important. The question remains - will the level hold? We will know soon. Be aware of your surroundings with the upcoming data releases. Trade well today!

Trading by the Ticks & Trades Strategy, here is where you would have landed for the day:

Another interesting day, and certainly a day where understanding the rules of the strategy we use let you pull some dollars out of the market and kept you out of trouble at the same time. Follow price though time and ask yourself if you would have been able to trade profitably today if you had the Daily Levels and the Game Plan from this morning.

The opening bell put price on top of the bear axis of 681.83 and price immediately fell into the level and bounced. While that could have been a great trade on the long side right out of the gate, one rule is that we give the market 15 minutes to settle in first. That means we'll leave some potential good trades behind (like a long position against 681.83 at 9:30 am), but in the long run, we stay out of trouble more times than naught by not trading until after the 9:45 am candle. The market has a way of acting more "normal" once traders have jockeyed for position and settled in - and that usually takes about 15 minutes.

So no trade taken at 681.83. The positive reaction off the bear axis for the day like that was an early clue that the bulls were going to try some things today. Remember the bull axis for today was the zone all the way up at 689.13 to 689.45. That was (and still is) an important area for the bulls to get on top of and stay on top of for them to be in a better position to retest the highs and try for 700 again.

No trade when SPY hit 683.81 the first time either. Why? because it was still within our no-trade window of the first 15-minutes. Same with 685.14. Price is acting bullish by now, and we haven't got to 9:45 am yet. Look at where price was at the close of the 9:45 am candle. It was below 685.14 and above 683.,81. They went up first and hit 685.14. That gave you Base Hit number one on your short trade against 685.14 as price fell. They came down into 683.81 and you went long when SPY hit that level. Another bounce and another quick Base Hit. So far, these were the exact trades I took. Eight ES points in the first 25 minutes of the regular session. Precisely by the book.

We had the data releases at 9:45 am and 10:00 am. Price was getting a little jumpy. They shot up and busted through 685.14 again, but you didn't go short there again, because that level had already been traded on the short side, so we're leaving it alone for short trades for the rest of the day. That doesn't mean there won't be any more reactions at the level which could result in profitable trades - it's just that the first hit is the best hit. 

If you had a resting trigger activation at the other level, you would have been put into a short position in the E-minis when SPY hit and blasted though 687.14, as well as adding to that position when SPY hit 689.13 and 689.40. Yes, by the time price got up to the zone, that would have put your original short position taken at 687.14 out of the money right around the 20-point mark. But price is at a very important axis zone, so would you have bailed out of the trade for a loss? No, because there are rules which govern trades like this, and an important consideration you need to take before reversing or closing the trade out completely, is where is current price in relation to other levels? Even on one-minute chart, let alone several other longer time frame charts, there were several clues that the bears would defend that area. Plus, the volatility came from the 10:00 am data release. Those kind of spikes based on news - not based on normal technical market behavior - usually stabile and often revert back to even lower than where they started.

So, technically, that whipsaw action for 5-6 minutes - around 10:00 am to 10:05 am or so - would have given you an additional three Base Hits, which is 12 points. And that without any deviations from the rules we use. Will we count these as official trades for today though? No, I don't think that would be accurate and fair, for a couple reasons. To trade these levels precisely in the kind of fast-moving action that happened today, each of those levels would have to been keyed into your system to activate as soon as SPY hit the levels - and even more importantly, OSO (order sends order) parameters to take profit. That isn't something we usually need to do because once a position is entered automatically, taking profit manually with a limit order is quickly achieved by limit orders on the chart. I was stepping back at 10:00 am to see what the data release, so I was not prepared to go short when SPY rocketed though 687.14. I did seriously contemplate going short at-the-market with a couple contracts when price got in the middle of the zone, but ultimately I just sat on the sidelines and was happy with the first two Base Hits I already had in my pocket. Recall that in the Game Plan, we said this, "But if anything looks out of character - which is easier to tell by studying the longer timeframe charts in real time - then there is no shame in ignoring a level and not trading against it if you're not feeling it." That's what I had in my mind as I watched the dust settle without getting involved.

With all the back and forth afterward around 685.14 and 687.14, there were no Recycle Trades taken, per the rules. You want price to get away from a level for the first time - on the opposite side of the original trade at the level - then if it's been 20 minutes or more, a Recycle Trade works better. So, while I wasn't interested in doing any Recycle Trade attempts, the first official time which was more in line with the rules would have been at 11:18 am, when price came back down into 687.14. There was a bounce, but strictly speaking, there was a Near Miss of the operating level before the level was hit, so it would have been off the table.

The other Recycle Trade that was feasible was at 12:17 pm when price came back down into 685.14. Going long at the level had some promise. That was another Near Miss, so you wouldn't have attempted it unless you were willing to give the level some wiggle room. I did take that trade myself and pulled my third Base Hit, so I know it was possible. If you look at all the reactions at the levels and zone we had on the board for today, you have to admit there was a lot of opportunity. I'm not going to input 5 Base Hits into the Tracking Log because I want to be reasonable. I'm not even going to input 3 Base Hits, but I know if I could pull 3 Base Hits today, you could have too. We'll call it 2 official Base Hits for the day.

By the way, in the post-market, price got in the middle of the bull axis zone after fighting to get up there and stay up there. And that's where the full day ended. These levels tend to work as advertised, wouldn't you say?

Per the rules, a total of (at least) 8 ES points for the day.