9:10 am Eastern  -  We've already had a bounce from the first line in the sand for the bulls. 677.32 is the bear axis for today. If price gets below that level, the door is open for that zone we talked about in last week's recap - see video here. The zone is from 675 down to around 673.50. Those levels aren't on the board today as tradeable levels, but just know that the whole area down there is a possible gateway to a leg lower in the market. We're talking a day or two close below that zone, which would not be good for the bulls. 

While the uber big picture is bullish (monthly and weekly charts of the SPY), there is plenty of room on the downside for a bigger reset. And yet, 700 is still a target for the bulls. They'll just have more resistance to fight through to get back up to the highs again. So net-net, price is once again in the middle of stuff and there will be pulls in both directions. 

Keep an eye on the transports today (DJT). Currently, they have retraced about half of the down move from last week after they tagged 20,000 and fell hard - just as we surmised they might do. So if this retracement plays out the way most reversal candle consolidation patterns play out, we could be looking at more downside for the DJT. And like last week, the SPY could follow the DJT. There isn't necessarily a correlation, and either market can do their own thing, but historically, the SPY has a tendency to follow the bigger moves that the DJT makes first. Sometimes it's days or weeks. Sometimes they're closer together. Either way, it's good to keep an eye on leading indicators like that. The IWM is also a good leading indicator to look at.

The bull axis for today is 686.18. Getting above that level and getting good closes above it is better for the bulls case for today. While there are no data releases of significance scheduled for today, there will likely be some higher-than-usual volatility while price is in the middle of stuff. As always, it's smart to keep an eye on larger timeframes and take note of how price is interacting with important indicators on those timeframes as it approaches our levels. The one-minute chart is used for the detail it offers. But the intermediate and larger timeframes - like 10-minute and up - are more important in regard to moving averages and retracements, etc. So keep an eye on the big picture. Trade well today!

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

Nothing out of the ordinary for today. You waited for price to get to the levels and you traded against them the right way, at the right time, and pulled two Base Hits without any drama. The first trade happened after the 15-minute window of opportunity opened. By the time the 9:45 am candle closed, price had already visited 681.81 and was on the way down. They didn't revisit the 681.81 level for another hour and a half or so.

Meanwhile, the bear axis level at 677.32 was hit first. The long trade in the E-minis when SPY hit 677.32 gave you a quick Base Hit. Four points happened within a couple minutes, but if you were willing to hold onto the trade for longer and let it develop, more points were possible as price found more support at that level and went all the way back up to revisit 681.81. Base Hit number one at 677.32.

When price got back up to 681.81, that triggered a short trade, and giving the time for the trade to develop gave another Base Hit with no rules being violated, not needing to give the level more wiggle room. Base Hit number two. Price did eventually get on top of 681.81 at about 1:28 pm, but price never came back down and hit the level on the other side, so there was no Recycle Trade taken at the level. They did get close toward the end of the regular session, but even if the operating level of 681.86 was hit, there would have been no long trade entered - if the convergence happened within the last 30-minutes of the regular session. That is 3:30 pm in the Eastern time zone. 

Per the rules, a total of 8 ES points for the day.