The First Trade.

Proper context can start the day with a solid win and make all the difference.

Enter the Chartroom here (pre-open Market Tour begins at 8:55 ET)

Through the prior close…
Thursday”s 10-point gap up at the morning”s 2074.00 bias-up target soon extended to pierce Wednesday”s freakish post-close surge to 2079.50. The morning”s bias environment dipped back down to 2074.00, and that was the last of that. The balance of the session trended up to fresh highs, eventually touching 2085.50. And the rally gained traction for its efforts.

Overnight action”s new info…
A shallow dip to 2081.50 was already firming into midnight, and has since extended higher to 2089.75, piercing December”s prior high by 1 point.

If, then…
The range between January”s channel and December”s high has been retraced relentlessly, already producing a new high. This continues to track the template we”ve been monitoring as the likeliest resolution. That template”s own likeliest resolution is to reverse down aggressively, too, but not until after probing the prior high.. Probing prior highs should be today. Especially considering that this morning”s bias environment should be controlled by buyers to reward them for controlling yesterday afternoon. The only potential obstacle would be created by the open”s gap up expending so much energy that it attracts more sellers than buyers — since Friday morning”s bias tends to persist through the noon hour, and intraday counter-trend sponsorship is difficult enough to attract on a Friday afternoon, let alone before a three-day weekend. Don”t forget that this is the area that four consecutive sessions in December probed fresh highs intraday and yet failed to gain traction.

First Trade…
Exiting the open at 9:45 above 2088.75 would be likely also to trigger the 2087.50 bias-up signal at 10:15. Exiting the open under 2083.00 would be unlikely to trigger bias-up.