NQ AM Session Review 09/30/2026

Date: 2026-10-30

Daily consolidation and gap objective

[00:02] There’s a daily chart, and you can see how we’ve spent a little bit of time between these lows and this high—a small consolidation.

I felt it was likely to make an attempt to go higher. I mentioned that the other day in regard to Monday’s regular trading hours opening range gap. I thought we could get up there at least to the consequent encroachment of that Monday opening range gap.

[00:40] So today we did that, and we completely closed in Monday’s regular trading hours opening range gap.

Let’s go into the one-minute chart. This morning we had a news event come out at 8:30. From 7:00 to 9:00, we had consolidation until we got to the 8:30 news release, and then it rockets up.

Session liquidity and opening gaps

[01:55] I posted this morning a little drill or quiz: what would it likely do, take out this low here or this high here? If you know what I’ve been suggesting in terms of each session and how it relates to the previous session, and also what I mentioned yesterday and Monday, we would likely pull up into Monday’s regular trading hours opening range gap.

[02:38] You can see that gap in here. Then we had Tuesday’s regular trading hours opening range gap from here to there, the opening price. We also had these relative equal lows here, which I felt we could have done a better job of going down for.

When we got real close to them, I was surprised it didn’t go for them, but we were extended beyond Tuesday’s regular trading hours opening range gap, shaded in gray.

Premarket reversal before news

[03:30] Obviously, the news sent it to the buy-side, which runs against what was being done in London. We had a little bit of a price run here, still inside Tuesday’s regular trading hours opening range gap, and then we started trading lower.

Crossing over from the London session into the 7:00 a.m. pre-market session, 7:00 to 9:00, it was still consolidating. So we have a reversal during the 7:00 a.m. failure swing, bullish fair value gap.

[04:47] News-driven, sends it higher, which runs against all of this. Everyone that was short got destroyed here. I recorded the two price levels you see here in blue and asked which one would be more likely to be taken first and purged. It ran through that, came back up into this old area here, and then we went into the open.

RTH open and gap draw

[05:56] We had the opening price at 9:30 here, took out that low, rallied higher, and took out the consequent encroachment of Monday’s regular trading hours opening range gap. It hit that, came down, and created this little consolidation.

The fact that we moved up into this area right off the jump of the 9:30 opening left this portion of Monday’s gap still unfilled. As we came down in here, I was looking at this little gap, and I expected it to go higher above here and at least make an attempt to close in that gap.

IFVG entry framework

[06:54] I didn’t require it to do the entire thing. This gap here, while I didn’t have it annotated during my execution, I was viewing as an inversion fair value gap. You can see the effects it had here: it used the top of it there and then the upper half of that wick. So there are two things being blended in here.

I wasn’t able to get in during this drop, and I wasn’t able to get that moment as it hit the inversion fair value gap, but I got in with a close-proximity entry.

[07:41] You can see right here, there’s my fill running just above that wick high. As it traded there, I simply went in at market. It would have been the same if I had used that as a buy stop at this candlestick’s high.

If it rallied up here, it would have filled me.

The stop was placed below here, and I expected large up-close candles to form. Why? Because this gap hadn’t been traded to yet on the upper half.

Range expansion into gap

[08:19] Once we clear this high, what inspires me to say there are going to be large-range candles forming? The fact that we have small ranges in here—here, here, here. Small ranges. Once we get above here, large ranges should incur, and that’s what we see.

It reaches up and completely closes in the entirety of Monday’s regular trading hours opening range gap. The fill was here. I wanted to add here, but I didn’t.

[08:58] I was already trying to take partials. I took some out here, and then finally used a limit order up here on the last octant. On the highest candle, I was exiting.

We retraced significantly back down into this buy-side imbalance, sell-side inefficiency right here. The bodies stay inside there, rally up, come back down into an inversion fair value gap, accumulate, rally higher, trade the rejection block there,

[09:58] And retrace back down into an old pool of liquidity. Order block, rallies up, comes back down into buy-side imbalance, sell-side inefficiency, fair value gap, and inversion fair value gap with the volume imbalance there. Then it rallies up, takes out the high that formed here, and comes back down.

Look how it’s respecting the high of Monday’s regular trading hours opening range gap. It’s also respecting this wick as I teach it. So here is that premium wick.

Bearish order flow and caution

[10:37] The bodies stay below it. We have a tiny little wick above Monday’s regular trading hours opening range gap, which is that big shaded orange area, and the bodies stay below that. So that’s bearish, as I indicate with order flow.

Then we have a fair value gap here. It trades up into it beautifully, folds over, comes back up into the same gap, reclaims the bearish fair value gap, trades to here, sells off, and takes the liquidity here.