The full process · Futures & ETF options
Nine layers, read top-down. Moving-average structure sets the map, options flow and gamma confirm the intent, and the index drivers show who’s doing the pushing. When the layers agree, that’s the trade.
Start wide on the weekly chart and narrow all the way down to who’s driving the index. Tap any layer for exactly what to look at.
Moving-average structure across timeframes. This is where levels get marked and direction gets its first read.
Start at the weekly view with the 21, 50, 100, and 200 moving averages on. Read the order, slope, and separation of the stack — that’s the market’s regime.
Mark the key levels of possible support and resistance the MAs point to. These are the lines the rest of the process will keep coming back to.
Drop to the daily with the same four moving averages. Sharpen the levels marked on the weekly — add the ones only visible here.
By the end of this layer you should have a clean map: where support should hold, where resistance should bite, and which side has the structural edge.
Check the 4-hour and 1-hour charts for more clarification on direction. They should rhyme with the weekly/daily map — if they don’t, the read isn’t ready yet.
This is the bridge between the plan and the trade: structure above, execution below.
On the 5-minute, watch the strength of the day against the 21 and 50 MAs:
These are the days to trade — where strong momentum shows up in either direction. No push, no trade.
Structure says where. These layers say whether the market actually intends to go there.
Use the pivot-points indicator for more clarity and confirmation on where the market may be trying to go. Pivots turn the MA map into a session roadmap: expected path, likely stall zones, and the levels that would prove the read wrong.
Read the options flow — real buys and sells — across expirations:
The flows give confirmation of where the market intends to go — short term, medium term, and long term. Intent, not prediction.
View gamma exposure — typically for the ETFs (SPY, QQQ, IWM, DIA) and single stocks like GLD and SLV. GEX shows where dealer positioning can magnetize price, accelerate it, or pin it.
For SPY and QQQ specifically: read the flows and the gamma across different timeframes on options buys/sells to determine the intended direction of the market.
Indexes don’t move themselves. These layers identify which names are doing the work.
SPY and QQQ can’t make large moves without the help of the MAG 7. Watch which of the seven has been pushing and which has been lagging.
That read gives an educated guess on which MAG 7 name the market may use to push the index or ETF higher or lower — and the flows/gamma on that name confirm it.
Watch dispersion: SaaS versus semis, oil versus the index, healthcare versus the MAG 7 — and the large single players inside the index that can drag it around (Lilly in SPY/QQQ, for example).
The same logic holds for the Dow: look at its large components. The index can’t be pushed higher or lower without the single stocks doing the driving.
When one pocket of the market is doing all the work, trade the workers, not the average.
Every session runs the same sequence. Skip a step and you’re guessing; run the full stack and the market tells you its intent.
Run it every session. Check each layer as it confirms — the meter tells you when the day earns a trade.
The method is applied mostly on futures and related ETFs and stocks — anywhere the stack reads clean.
Index futures are the main arena — momentum reads cleanest where liquidity is deepest.
Gamma and flow layers are built for these — this is where intent is most visible.
The names that move the indexes — plus heavyweights like LLY, and metals via GLD & SLV.
Log every trade — why you took it, how it turned out, what you’d change. Entries save in this browser on this device.