Thank you!

It’s funny how the market works. When the technicals (charts), price action, etc.. are bullish, Good news is received as good news & bad news is either dismissed or even spun as bullish.

e.g.- A strong jobs report, as you imply, would increase the hawkish case for the Fed (bearish for the stock market) so bearish, if there are more sellers than buyers in the market at that point in time. On the flip side, a strong jobs report could also be interpreted as bullish for the stock market as it shows that despite the recent rate hikes, the economy is still on very solid footing.

Bottom line, the jobs report could be the catalyst to take out today’s lows which are/were (IMO, at least) very significant support & it also has the potential to trigger a rally off that level. Could go either way but until & unless today’s lows give way with conviction, I’m leaning towards the latter.

Great question. The way I look at it, the longer the time frame (e.g.- 2-hr candle vs. 60-min candles, in this instance), the lesser the chance of a false buy signal (whipsaw) if waiting for a solid candlestick close (finalized) above the pattern. A daily close above, obviously, would be even better.

The downside to that is the longer the period you wait for confirmation, the less favorable your entry might be, especially with potentially explosive patterns like these. Bottom line is there’s no one “best” answer so other than experience & intuition on whether or not to take the breakout early or hold off for a confirming candlestick close above, I will usually layer in: Taking a partial position either before the breakout (if I strongly suspect we will get one), then on the initial breakout (or breakouts, in this case, both /ES & /NQ), & continue to add that that position rather rapidly as the charts confirm (e.g.- a solid 60-min close above and/or a 120-min close above).

Or perhaps on the active and closed swing trades. I know you layer several trades but maybe different color type for the different levels of layering in.