Monday 14 Sept. GRADE A SETUPS
Monday pre-open. Regime check before any name, always.
QQQ flat on the 10/20/50 with a four-month range. That's not a trend, it's a box. Under my framework that caps deployment hard — two positions, half size, and the first entry trigger only.
Most of what follows will not be taken.
1. The one I'd rank first isn't a fresh mover, it gapped Friday and spent today's pre-market doing nothing.
$FEIM. Big volume expansion out of a months-long range, and the day after is holding entirely inside the event bar. No giveback.
That "quiet day two" is the whole tell.
2. $SGMT is the cleanest non-event structure on my sheet.
10/20/50 stacked and rising. Seven sessions of range contraction at the highs. Each bar narrower than the last.
I don't need a catalyst for this one. Contraction after a trend leg is the setup.
3. Two more of the same family, lower in the ranking.
$NTSK, coiling on the rising 10-day, hourly based above the longer average.
$VHI, five sessions tight at the highs after a 13.50 to 19 advance. Structurally fine. Thin enough that fill quality, not chart quality, is the real constraint.
Thin names lose on the vehicle gate more often than the structure gate.
4. Three pullbacks I'm watching but not grading as ready.
$TEAM, $TXG, $PLSE, all in intact uptrends, all pulled back to the 10-day, all with messy hourly structure underneath.
A pullback where the lower timeframe is still chopping usually needs another session. The daily looks done before it is.
5. $RNG is the patient one. Four weeks of orderly consolidation on the rising 20-day after a July event bar.
It's also caught in an unresolved policy question of mine, how far past an event gap a continuation entry is still valid. That ruling is open, so the name is off the table regardless of how it looks.
Unresolved rulings block capital. That's the point of them.
6. Now the fresh ones. Four names gapping in pre-market this morning, and they are not equal.
$ELMT is the only one I'd call clean: a large gap out of a multi-month base on enormous volume, into open air. Nothing above it.
7. The other three fail on the same thing, where the gap lands.
$DFTX gaps straight into its own July supply shelf. $BMM gaps into a descending long-term average inside a downtrend. $BMGL, same problem, thinner.
A big percentage move is not the qualifier. What sits overhead is.
8. So: twelve names, one flat regime, two slots, and three open rulings taking three of the better structures off the board before I even look at them.
The realistic outcome today is zero positions. That's been the outcome for several sessions running.
A range regime plus unresolved policy is supposed to produce nothing. When it does, the system is working.
9. Full process write-up on how the gate sequence runs: regime, liquidity, vehicle, structure, extension, correlation.