Today’s trades are a good reminder that you don’t need to catch a massive move to make meaningful progress. My main lesson is simple: take the high-probability part of the trade, pay yourself along the way, and follow your rules.
Before the market opened, I had already marked my support and resistance levels and built trade plans around them. I mark those levels at least 30 minutes before the open, and often the night before. Once the market opens, I don’t redraw the plan to fit whatever price is doing. I wait for the levels and conditions I planned for to come into play.
On SPY, price sold off into an area where I saw several forms of support lining up: a technical level, moving averages, and pre-market lows. That gave me a higher-probability setup with limited risk, so I started a long position and worked it as price moved up. It wasn’t a huge move, but I didn’t need it to be. The setup had a clear plan, and I managed the trade according to that plan.
I focused on SPY first, so I waited for QQQ to give me a setup I was comfortable taking. QQQ had opened above the daily 5 EMA, dipped into it, and held. That made an immediate short less attractive: if support was holding, price could continue higher. Rather than shorting the first break, I waited for price to move through the 5 EMA and retest it from below. When the former support acted as resistance, I had the confirmation I was looking for.
That confirmation mattered because a break by itself doesn’t guarantee the level has failed. Waiting for the retest helped me avoid acting on the first move and gave me a clearer place to manage risk. From there, I entered, took profits as price moved into support, and repeated the process when the setup gave me another opportunity.
The QQQ trade didn’t have to be a home run. I took a few controlled, incremental moves and locked in a profit. The dollar amount I discussed in the recap reflects my position size; it isn’t a promise of what another trader will make. The lesson isn’t to copy my size or expect a particular result. It’s that a trader can work a small move deliberately instead of relying on one huge run to make the day.
I also didn’t hold my full position all the way to the next moving average. A high-probability outcome is still not a certainty. The market can change, and other support or resistance areas may interrupt a move. Taking profits along the way helps me reduce exposure and avoid turning a planned trade into a bet that price will travel uninterrupted to a distant target.
That’s the difference between a trade idea and a trade plan. A trade idea says where price might go. A plan also defines what I’ll wait for, where I’ll manage the position, and what I’ll do when the setup loses its edge. When the odds decrease, I’m willing to get out rather than keep holding just because I want more.
The biggest takeaway from today isn’t a specific entry on SPY or QQQ. It’s the process: prepare your levels, wait for confirmation, take the portion of the move your plan calls for, and stay consistent with your rules. You don’t need to predict every tick or capture the entire move. You need to manage the risk in front of you and repeat a process you can follow.
Trading always carries risk, and no setup works every time. My use of phrases like “high odds” describes a probability-based view—not certainty. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty; it’s to make decisions with a plan and manage the trade when conditions change.