 Good morning book map It's Monday, it's make money Monday And I'm so happy to be here with all of you Alright well as always Let's start the week by zooming out a little bit and giving ourselves a little bit of perspective On last week and what we could expect this week here in the markets So as always I like to use Jim Dalton's top-down approach the idea of the top-down approach is just that we spend All week staring at the chart intraday, and it's good to give ourselves a little bit of perspective So we'll start with the monthly see if there's anything that jumps out at us there I see we have momentum to the upside and we've pulled back with price to balance off that momentum We'll zoom on in and take a look at the weekly see if there's any new signs in the weekly Same thing there. We are seeing that the market a little momentum just get my drawing tool up here Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do so we can see that the market had a lot of momentum to the upside and We are now balancing off that momentum with price So that is not necessarily bearish to see right. It's not bearish if the market has momentum And it needs to pull back to balance it off But, from looking at it here, now that we've reversed that momentum to the downside, again this is on the weekly, now that we've reversed that momentum to the downside, we had an inside week last week, and now we are opening inside that inside week, where we break from here will probably lead to further continuation. If we can break last week's weekly high, we will likely head higher. If we break last week's weekly low, we will likely head lower, but as long as we're balancing around in the range, we could well go nowhere. Alright, let's zoom on in on the daily and look at it from there. So you can see I've drawn these two boxes here. If you were with me last week, you remember I was looking at a balance area that looks something like this right here, I was using this previous area where we had balanced back in June as an area to look for two-sided trade. But now that we've gotten a little more information, now that we're a little more dialed in with last week's trade, I've changed my perspective a little bit, and I see these as two separate balance areas. So this area in here, from the first half of August, is one balance area. And then this one right here is the second balance area. And it's no big deal that they happen to be right on top of each other, it happens. But the real question is, now that we've looked below the balance area low last week on Friday and turned around and head back up and closed inside of balance, now that we're opening in the middle of balance, that tells me that the highest probability is that we are heading back up for that balance area high. Now that doesn't mean we have to go up today. We could go sideways. We could even pull back. But it just means that the highest probability is that the market over the next few days is heading up in that direction. So that's one piece of information that I want to keep in mind. If we are able to break above that balance area later on in the week and find some support, I would look to head to the top of the next balance area, which would be bullish to see. If we head up to that other end of balance and fail and pull back in, I would say we need to go back down to the opposite end again. We may need to chop sideways in this range. Who knows? We might be ready to break or not. But for now, for today, my focus is on heading up towards that higher end of balance. So now let's zoom in a little bit more. We'll look at the market on the market profile chart to give us some perspective with a little more detail. So what the market profile chart does, we can see it's the chart over here on the left of the screen. What that does is it basically puts the market-generated information in a three-dimensional view. So it allows us to see the market-generated information from a slightly different perspective than candlesticks alone. You can think of each one of these daily profiles. That is the profile that is purple and blue. You can think about each one of those like a daily candle. So we can see the perspective of how the market changes from day to day. But we can also see intraday. Where does the market spend the most time? We can tell that by the number of letters that are running back and forth in here. Those are called TPO's. So the amount of TPO's in a particular area tells us where the market spent the most time. And then the volume profile candles show us where the market brought in the most volume. And this is really important to understand because we look at the market as a two-way auction process. What does that basically mean? It means that any time the market is going to make a move to a new location, it is going to follow a simple process. First price advertises. So that means the market moves from one location to another. So let's just take Friday, for example. We opened right here and then we moved down and then we moved back up. Obviously that was because of Jackson Hole. But we had this big move and then we ended higher. That is new information. The market moved higher. Well then we want to know where did the market do the most business? Where did it spend the most time and bring in the most volume? So time-wise we can see this area here has the most TPO's in between 43.88 and 44.06. And we also brought in a lot of volume there. We also have this little note up here where we spent some time and brought in some volume. Up here between say 44.13 and 44.24. So great, that's the information that we have. The market was trending lower on the daily. We made lower highs and lower lows, but the momentum ended higher, right? Also we have these areas where the market spent a lot of time and did a lot of business. Okay, great. So that's the data we're going to carry forward when we look at the weekends trade. So what did the weekends trade do? It just rotated in this upper end of yesterday's range, of Friday's range, right? That is bullish to see. Why? Because if the market had just poked up here and it couldn't spend time and it couldn't bring in volume, well that would be bearish that we needed to head back down and test these levels. But that is not what happened. We spent a lot of time and brought in all the volume inside the upper end of yesterday's range. So that is bullish to see. The next signal that we're looking at this morning is what we call a gap up. So I measure the gaps based on the closing price, the 4 p.m. closing price of the previous session and the opening price, which will be at 9.30 when the market opens of this session. So it looks like as of now we're going to have a gap, maybe seven to eight points of a gap back to yesterday's high. So when we see a gap, stick with me here, it's a little bit confusing what I'm about to explain. But that is bullish to see. What do I mean by the fact that the market is bullish if we have a gap up? That is the market telling us it has momentum to the upside, right? The market has the momentum to the upside and it can keep going up today. When we combine that information with the fact that we believe the market is heading towards the balance area high, it's heading up towards 44.65. That's the big magnet that's pulling on price up there. Well then that is a sign of momentum and that is bullish. But there's a catch, right? Which is that short-term intraday we've created an imbalance in the auction process. There are likely people who would be willing to go long inside yesterday's range who just didn't get a chance, right? The market moved higher over the weekend. They weren't trading. So that tells us there's liquidity waiting inside yesterday's range. There are buyers who want to do business down here. Because of that, it makes the highest probability first thing in the morning a gap fill. So that is the market trying to work its way back down to the previous day's high. Now there's a couple of options for what could happen when the market opens. Option number one, the market grinds for a little bit and then immediately starts to move higher. That is what we call a gap and go. If they can't even come back and fill that gap, that is the most bullish scenario. Or we could get a gap fill and go. That is when the market pulls back down to the previous day's high, but then it finds support and turns around and heads back up. Both of those scenarios, a gap and go or a gap fill and go are both extremely bullish to see and increase the odds. Again, it doesn't mean we have to get there today, but it increases the odds that we're heading up towards 44.65. Okay, however, what we could get is a gap and chop where the market fills the gap and then go sideways for a while before it makes that move before it makes that move higher. So we don't want to get overly bullish overly quickly. We want to be patient, but we want to understand what's happening. If the market pulls back down inside yesterday's range, that is not bearish. That is just the auction process giving those buyers a chance to step in. It's what happens inside the previous day's range that really matters. So the area that I will be most focused on if we do fill the gap is basically this very large node from the overnight range. So we'll call it between 44.16 and 44.25. If the market can find support anywhere inside of there, that to me is bullish that they want to turn around and head higher. Now, we may have to grind and grind and grind. I don't know. Gap and chop is a very real possibility, but I will remain bullish as long as this node holds its support. So the only thing that can change my mind, because of the fact that the overnight range traded in the upper end of yesterday's range, because of the fact that we have a gap up, and because of the fact that on the daily, we had a look below and fail, right, chop. All of those pieces of data tell me I want to be bullish today and just focusing on where do those buyers step in? Where does the market get support? However, if we start to push below the overnight low at 44.13, that would change my mind, right? If the market can't find support in that overnight range and it starts to poke lower, in particular, if it turns that into resistance, well, then I know we got to pull back down, right? But any support above that is bullish to me. So now let's look over at the book map chart. And what I want to do is zoom out a little bit here, and I just want to see where is the liquidity, right? The liquidity is this column over here on the right, on the right side of this white line. That is the liquidity that is currently in the order books. And then over on the left, that is the liquidity that was in the order books at the moment that the market traded at that particular time. So right now, where is the liquidity? Well, it's about even, right? We have this very large node right down here, a little bit above 44.30. And then we have these two large nodes of 44.40 and 44.50. OK, now these could disappear at any moment. But for now, we have about equal liquidity above and below the market. So that tells me, first off, we are likely to fill the gap because we've got liquidity waiting down there yesterday's high and that we're likely to get chopped. Because if there's an equal number of participants above and below price, you know what the market's going to do. It's going to go down to get these ones, and then it's going to go up to get these ones. So that further confirms the idea in my mind that once we fill the gap, I should be looking for support. Any questions from the chat? Good morning to Sebastian, David Lewis, Trading for a Living. Good morning to you. Pavel is here. David G. in the house. Jay is here. Good to see you. Thank God it's Monday. The casino is open, baby. I'm telling you, it's Make Money Monday. I can just feel it. I can feel it in my soul. Good morning. Scooball, Ebb and Flow, Frito. Frito says kind of odd liquidity at $30.75 and not $31. Yeah, it looks like they've been kind of moving it up with price. So I think they're trying to turn that into a magnet to pull the market back down or push it away. They're effing with our heads. That's exactly what they're doing. Oh, the games they will play. The Holy Trinity is here. Good morning to you. Deborah in the house. Galaxy. Welcome. All right, well, there's not much else for me to talk about here. We got 10 minutes till the market opens. Looks like we're going to open the gap up. So hit me with your questions. Actually, let's take a moment to look at the NQ. Why not? NQ in balance as well. Let's jump out and take a look at the daily. So the NQ's balance area is not quite as clean as the ES here. I would say we could either be very close to the target to the upside, being somewhere around $15.120, or it could be up there at $15.340. So let's zoom on in and take a look at the market profile chart. Yeah, so OK. Looking at the cumulative volume over here on the NQ, they have a lot of resistance waiting just above price here, around $15.130. So they've got the gap up. That's bullish to see. They've got the look below and fail. That's bullish to see. But they may run out of steam right away up there at $15.130. However, however, if they can break through this large node, if they can grind and fight and push their way through there, come back down and turn that bad boy into support, it will be a straight shot right back up to $15.370. This next large node on the cumulative, just as quickly as we did the last time, went straight up there, just as quickly as we came back down, we can head right back up again. If we can get through this node here at $15.130 and turn it into support, that turn it into support is important because when the market is in balance, it can run out of steam and head back down very easily. So we would need the buyers to hold up there to really be bullish for continuation higher. But exactly the same as the ES, you have a gap up. You have the overnight range having spent most of its time and brought in most of its volume in the upper end of yesterday's range. So that is bullish to see, increasing the odds that if they fill the gap, they will find support somewhere in here. So I would literally play it just like the ES. It's fine to be bearish short-term to fill the gap, but once that gap is full, you should be looking for support inside yesterday's range. I'm sorry, inside this overnight range. Because if they find buyers anywhere in here, they're going to head right back up. So both markets, I would describe as bullish this morning. And we're just looking for a gap fill and those buyers to confirm that bullish narrative. And of course, the most bullish scenario is if they can't fill the gap. If they try to fill it and then reverse somewhere in the gap, that's the most bullish. And then the last thing I'll just mention really quickly here on the ES, between yesterday's high and that balance area high is two different sets of single prints at $44.37 and $44.50. Those are likely to act as resistance. You can see they're acting as resistance right now. So the market will likely have to push to get through there. We'll look for bounces back, but as long as they can, it's bullish to see. I'm feeling good. I'm going to totally murder this name, but Lerchem, sorry, best guess. Do you see market profile for the 24-hour market or only your trading session? That's a great question. So I split my sessions between the regular trading hours and the overnight. And I do it quite literally 9.30 AM to 4 PM. That's regular trading hours and everything else is overnight. So if you look at the profile, you can see the one that has the sort of purplish color. That's the regular trading hours. And the one that has the dark and light blue, that's the overnight range. Good morning, Nicholas. CCCC, welcome. Holy Trinity says, any thoughts on Google? We got five minutes, I'll look at it. The Google, the Google. Oh man, Google is in balance. No doubt about it. Yeah, so I would literally describe it the same way I just described the market as a whole. It's the exact same thing. So they're going to open with a slight gap up. The first order of business is to fill that gap, get back down to the previous days high, which looks like it's about 20 cents lower. If it can find support there, if it can come back down and find support around yesterday's high, around Friday's high, you will look for it to turn around and head back up to the 134 level. However, you don't want to be bullish beyond that. What happened the last time they tried to get above there? They failed and came right back down to the opposite end of balance. So you can pretty much just draw a box here on your chart, looking at the daily, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, just like that. The fact that they tested the lows and turned around and headed back up is bullish, but only if they can get above that high and turn it into support. Otherwise you might be looking at more sideways moves here in the goog. If they fill the gap, if they get back down into yesterday's range and they don't find support, that will be bearish. They need to head back down towards that lower end, 128-ish, okay? And if the lows don't hold, if that lower end doesn't hold, the next time around they'll come back to fill this gap. This was a look below and fail. They probably won't do two of those in a row with that big of a gap. So if they come back down and they test the lows from Friday, turn it into resistance, I would be looking for a gap fill back down to 124. Sebastian says, you referred to the gap fill as a move to Friday's high. I thought the gap was the distance between the close of the previous day to the opening of the current day. Well, the previous day was Friday, right? Cause it's Monday. I consider the weekend just one big overnight session. Okay, the fact that they're trying to front run price here, they're trying to open at the high of the overnight increases the odds in my mind, they will pop back down and try to fill that gap. So first order of business for the market is to fill the gap. Can they do it? Sebastian, I mean the pullback to the high as compared to the close of the previous days. Yes, so this is just my opinion. Everybody's got their own opinion. In my opinion, the gap is filled as soon as they get inside the previous day's range. So what you're basically asking is, isn't this a gap fill down here? Yes, by some people's terminology, they consider a gap fill getting to the previous day's closing price. I do not. I consider it the previous day's high because I've witnessed the behavior a million times where we get to the previous day's high and then turn around and head higher, okay? And we never get to the previous day's closing price. So it is a more reliable target to get to the previous day's high and that's where you wanna look for new information. Now let's say in this example, they were to come all the way back down, right? I would be looking for a gap fill, then I'd be looking for support. If they tested this previous, or the closing price from Friday, poked below there and came back up, I would get bullish in the support afterward. So I wouldn't just buy the closing price of yesterday. I'd need to see confirmation that we just needed to test that, then see support, then I get bullish for the momentum. Otherwise in my mind, the higher probability is that we won't even get there. So right out the gate, we are leaving a weak high behind. It is weak because we only got one point above the previous or the opening price and we only have five contracts at the high and it's right up against the overnight high. So that increases the odds. Whenever the market finds support, it'll come back for that high, bullish to see. So what's Bookmap telling us? Bookmap is telling us they are taking out some sellers. These are all the people that wanted to get short pre-market for that gap fill and now they're all getting squeezed because they weren't patient, they didn't just wait for the market to open. They had to get short before that opening bell and now they're all getting squeezed. So at this point, we can consider it bullish as long as they stay above the opening price, above 37.50, but if they pass back through it, they're heading back down for that gap fill. So now the question is, can they turn 44.38 into support? Can they hold it? More short covering, more FOMO buying. Boop, even more. All right, so they're gonna keep drifting higher here as long as they keep squeezing those sellers who got short, but we need to see them pull back and turn this into support before we really look for continuation. Market can't go up forever on short covering. Is that a sweep of the book? Yes, it is. So we're looking at the book map here, the way they just whoosh, pop it higher, whoosh, pop it higher, that sweep in the book. And that happens when it's short's covering, so we still wanna wait for that confirmation. And it looks like we're gonna get our chance, right, yeah. So can they hold above the opening price if they can find support in here around the overnight high? We will look for a continuation up to test the base of the single prints at 44.50, but if they pass back through the opening price, they're likely to try to fill the gap. Can. They hold it. Scootball says it can pull back at any moment. Oh yeah. We got 125 people hanging out, only 39 likes. If you're appreciating what you're seeing so far, please give me that thumbs up and say hello in the chat. All right, testing that support. So these volume dots that I'm seeing on book map right here are telling me the story of what's happened so far today. The green dots are telling me that people got short before the open, and so the market went up to squeeze them out, and this red dot is telling me FOMO buyers bought in up here, so we're pulling back down to take them out, and we're just chopping it up, squeezing as many sellers, squeezing as many buyers, and then looking for those stronger hand buyers to step in. Can they hold the market above the opening price? Dun, dun, shh, shh. Will the buyers step in at this level? Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. All right, well we do have support here for now, but I don't trust it, and I'll tell you why, because with the gap up, you can see if we look at the tick chart here, this is the NICY tick. We opened all the way up at nearly positive 1,000, and we haven't had a chance to pull back down towards the zero line, so that tells me these are likely more FOMO type of buyers, more weakened short term traders. We'll call them scalpers for lack of a better term, and the problem with scalpers is they don't win right away. They don't step back in again. So I don't trust that this support is gonna hold, unless we can stay up here and get all the way back to the zero line. They just can't hold it, captain. They don't have the buyers. Okay, passing back through the opening price increases the odds once again that they will try to fill the gap. Gap and chop, gap and chop, chopity, chop, chop. I still think these are more FOMO buyers. Still looking for that gap fill. As per the asking, I think different teachers of market profile teach it differently. Jim Dalton's theory is different than those of Donald L. Jones. Yeah, so I'm a student of Jim Dalton and Peter Resnicek, but a lot of my perspectives are my own, just because I operate on a very different timeframe than they do. And I've just, over the last few years, just gained a lot of experience. So most of the things I say will probably sound just like Jim Dalton, but slightly different, slightly different takes on things. Scoobal says bullish, I think you're early, Scoobal. You're early. Well, that call just bit me in the face. All right, so I'm still seeing this as gap and chop, looking for resistance just above at 44.50, then the gap fill. Okay, so here's the market's chance. If they can get back to the zero line with the ticks and hold above the opening price, that can give new buyers a chance to buy in up here. Right, basically that would be a sign that the stronger hand buyers that would have been waiting at yesterday's high are getting the FOMO and they're getting in at higher prices. But if we pull back through the opening price, looking for that gap fill. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Sella says, can you always determine if shorts are getting squeezed or where scalpers are getting killed intraday if it is only with PM context? I assume you mean MP market profile context. No, if all I had was the market profile and nothing else, it would be hard to know. There'd be, you know, there's a little bit of just like reading momentum, but having the tick chart and more importantly, the book map chart really helps to know who's doing business where. So one of the biggest indicators for me using book map is seeing where there is liquidity compared to where there is business happening, right? So if there's no liquidity sitting in the order books, but all of a sudden we get a huge volume dot, that's telling me that that's somebody who got stopped out at that particular level, which is why I'm calling this gap and chop. So they just pushed up to take out these sellers. They pushed us down. They pushed down to take out these buyers. They pushed up to take out these sellers. They're just grinding and grinding and grinding, getting as many people long and as many people short as they can before they make whatever will be the eventual move, which I believe is gonna be to fill the gap, then find some buyers somewhere inside yesterday's range and then come right back up for that high. But they just, it's the way the market moves now with all the bots. They chop and chop and chop and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. And then right when you think they're gonna fill the gap, they pull back up and stop out the sellers again and then they go do it. It's like, it's just the way they do it. Very annoying, but it's the new normal. All right, so now the question is, does previous support become resistance? This area around the opening price was acting as support just now while we were chopping above the overnight range, does it now become resistance to get smacked back down? David says, why must Tic come back to the zero line to indicate stronger buyer hand stepping in? It doesn't have to. Nothing has to, right? You must release yourself from these feeling that things have to happen, but if it does happen, that is information. So if the market gets back to the zero line without filling the gap and then it bounces on that zero line, that is a sign that new buyers are stepping in, right? You can't really confirm new buyers until you get back to the zero line because these may just be, you know, shorts covering, they may just be short term FOMO buyers to the signal that it's stronger hand buyers is when we're at zero and we turn around and head higher. I mean, this is close enough, right? So that's where a thing would happen that you would recognize. So then you're asking yourself the question, okay, what does this mean? If people are buying before the market fills the gap, that's momentum. They're not even letting the market get back to here. They're not even letting the market get back into the previous day's range. So that makes it bullish. So it didn't have to come back to the zero line, but it is just the highest probability that it will. And then once it does, if it finds support there, the NQ is a perfect example. That's support at the zero line. That's a sign of buyers stepping in. Let's go take a look at the Q. So they, man, they got it right where I expected, right at the overnight POC. So this is what I was looking for in the ES. They filled the gap, they pulled back down into yesterday's range, and then they found those buyers waiting right where they were waiting in the overnight. That is good support, bullish to see. So now on the NQ, the next question is, can they push back above Friday's high and turn that into support? Can they get above 15, 550 and hold it there for continuation to the upside? So this right here, what you just see in the NQ is basically what I'm looking for in the ES. Chop, chop, chop, all morning long. Chop, chop, chop, well, I sing this song. Gonna pull it down, gonna push it up. Gonna squeeze everyone until I'm done. Can you short here at 44, 45, looking for a gap fill and the liquidity down there? To me, that wouldn't be a good short. I guess actually, yeah, you could at 45 if you wanted to. I always measure my trades based on the amount that I can make versus the amount that I would lose. So I know if they hold the momentum, they're likely to test the base of this spike down, or these single prints down. So if I'm looking to short in here, I've gotta have my stop above there, right? Otherwise I may just get stopped out and it goes down anyway. So if I'm taking that much risk, I wanna make at least double the reward. So yeah, that's acceptable. To me, the better way to play this though, if you want my humble opinion, would be to wait for the gap to fill and be a buyer in here. Because if the gap fills and they find support inside there, remember the target is the opposite end of balance. The target is getting all the way up there. So if you can buy in here, you have much less risk for much bigger reward. You also won't have these choppy signals. You'll have stronger, more reliable signals to trust. But of course, don't take trades because I say so. Do your own research. Have your own system. Trade what works for you. Should be do be do. David says, NQ please. Yeah, bullish man. So they're back above yesterday's high. If they can turn that into support, you'll look for them to head back up and test what is now a low volume high at the high of the day. So it is still very choppy. You're gonna have to clench your butt cheeks a little bit. But if they can hold this overnight high, they will continue higher. You've got higher highs and higher lows. You've got value higher. They already filled the gap. So now all they gotta do is hold support. Can. They. Do it. All right, everyone. Well, that's it for me here on the Bookmap channel this morning. I really appreciate everyone hanging out. Appreciate those 81 likes and all the nice comments. I will be heading over to the Burguage stream. That is the private stream that I run every morning to talk about the markets and give my point of view. If you've enjoyed what you've heard, you might consider joining. It's only 10 bucks a month. You can see at the banner at the top of the screen, you just gotta head to piratetraders.io slash join. And you can join the party. We hang out every day. If not, head on over and check out Bruce's stream. With that, I will say goodbye and I will see you all next Monday. Have a good one, everyone. If you're looking for insights moving forward, unfortunately, it is too early for me to make a call. This feels bullish to me, but I'm not sure if they're gonna fill the gap or not. I really could call it either way. That's the tricky thing about CHOP like this. I will say for sure, if they get the B period high above the A period high now, I would be certain that this is good support and that they're gonna continue higher, but they may still need to fill that gap first before they get, and here we go. The moment I say it, eh, yeah. So bigger picture, right? Not over the next hour, but bigger picture, this is bullish to me, right? This increases the odds. We're heading up towards that opposite end. We may just need to give those stronger hands a chance to get in before we do it. Au revoir, farewell. Have a great rest of your week. Bye.