Mountain Frog Research
The pre-open read, revisited while the session runs. Each snapshot says what has happened since the open, which of the morning’s branches is live, and what would change the answer.
Every figure in a snapshot is cut at the time on its tile — nothing after it reached the page. They are notes on a session in progress, not a second forecast: the day’s call was made before the open and is graded as it stands.
The opening period made the day's high and its biggest buy delta at the same time. An hour on, price is back at yesterday's close and the 28 Aug high still has not traded.
Today's high printed at 7848.50 in the opening bar, clearing yesterday's high and killing the 08:05 read's bear branch. Price is now 7825.00, under the day's own value, with 9.25 of downside extension.
Sellers took the tape from 7848.50 to 7822.25 by 11:30 and have not extended since. Price has spent two hours in an 11.5-point box and now sits on the 7831.75 POC.
The midday box broke upward at 13:45 and gave the move back inside an hour. Price is on the old cap at 7833.75, and delta is now falling with it.
ES opened on the composite's 7757.75 control and bought straight up. The 9:45 bar did the work, the 10:00 bar absorbed a seller under 7777.75, and the 10:15 bar is through the primary's trigger with a minute to run.
The 10:15 bar closed over the wall and nothing since has closed under it. Range extended to 7811.50 in the bar still forming. Buying stopped paying up after 10:45; price rose anyway.
The afternoon leg from 7790 to 7828 came on a fifth of the morning's buying. Sellers have hit four new highs since 11:00 and lost every one of them.
Price has closed over the 3 Sep high on every close since 14:15 and printed 7844.75, on the window's upper acceptance area. Cumulative delta has fallen since 13:00 the whole way up.
The 08:05 primary died in the 9:45 bar when 7694.25 closed under, and the alternate's trigger traded without its breakout. Yesterday's 7680.50 low is 2.75 points under the session low and untouched. The buyers who paid up in the 10:00 bar are offside.
The bounce off the low ran thirteen points on roughly 4,000 net bought and topped at 7697. The 11:30 bar sold it back to 7688 on the day's heaviest selling, and the session is back on its low at 7684.
The initial balance gave on its sixth test, in the 12:15 bar. The push stopped at 7675, the overnight low, and was met by buyers: the bar closed back on the IB low. Cumulative delta is now at a session high while price sits 20 points under the open.
Buyers absorbed all morning and got nothing for it. From 1:00 they finally moved price, 20 points to the balance's 7711.75 value high. The push over the IB high has been sold so far, and the last hour decides whether that value high rejects price a second time.
ES opened a tick and a half above the 08:05 read's 7712 wall and was sold to 7680.5 inside thirty minutes. Yesterday's 7680 control caught it to the half-point, and the tape has spent two hours buying its way back to 7704.75.
Since 11:30 the session has lived between 7697 and 7709.25, its highs creeping toward the morning read's 7712 wall while cumulative delta bled from +4,481 to +2,008. The initial balance is unextended at four hours in.
The initial balance is still unextended, the morning's +4,481 of buying has been sold back to −6, and the afternoon high printed at 7711.25, three ticks under the wall. Whoever sold the last hour has not been paid.
The overnight gap held its 20.5 points into the open, but two pushes to 7686.5 stopped under yesterday's 7687 high and the first hour closed at its low with the buyers' delta still on the tape.
The 11:00 bar took out 7686.5 and yesterday's 7687 high on the third attempt, the pullback into the initial balance drew no sellers, and the 11:45 period printed 7699 — two under yesterday's 7701 full-session high, four under the 08:05 alternate's 7703 trigger.
Ninety minutes after the third push cleared 7687, the 12.5-point extension is gone: 7679.75, inside the initial balance, on the session control. The day is now a two-node profile inside 14 Sep's 7665–7703 value, and neither morning trigger has fired.
The fourth push over yesterday's high failed at 7694.25 in the 14:00 bar and the initial-balance low went the same bar. The 14:30 bar sold 7683.25 to 7641 on −3,693, and so far in the 14:45 period price has traded 7618.5, 100 points under the composite's value low.
Opened 7684.50 inside 14 Sep's value, printed the session high 7687.00 in the first bar, and sold 33.00 points to 7654.00 by 10:29. The morning primary triggered through 7661.25; its first objective, the 7645.00 overnight low, is nine points away.
The 10:30 bar broke the initial balance and the 10:45 bar ran to 7643.50 on the day's heaviest selling. One buying bar answered; three more have held the low without reaching Monday's low.
The noon lift got 1.50 through Monday's low at 12:45 and was sold on the way up. Cumulative delta has since made a new session low with price 8.75 above its own — the afternoon turns on whether that is absorption or a reload.
The 14:00 bar reached 7662.00 and closed 7660.25 — the first close above 7659.25 since 10:45 — and the next two bars sold it back to 7654.00. Delta is at −11,118 with price 12.00 above 7643.50. One hour left: the shelf at 7648.00–7655.00 breaks or pays.
The pre-market read is published pre-open. Same structure every time: what the auction did, what it is trying to do, how well it is doing it, and what it is likely to do next.