Intraday snapshot · S&P 500 E-mini · Tue 15 Sep 2026
Sold 1.50 through the overnight low at 10:45; an hour on, the bounce is capped 1.50 under Monday's low
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.
Who holds territory
Sellers
Extension is 10.50 below the initial balance and nil above. Monday's low, the excursion's low and the overnight low went in order, and the response stopped at 7659.75.
Who is offside
Buyers from 7661 up
Monday's buyers between 7661.25 and 7703.00 and the opening prints at 7677–7687 are 25 to 35 points offside. The 11:00 buyer at 7646–7652 is in profit by single digits.
Opened at the top, and the balance closed on its low
This is the thirteenth session of the excursion out of the 20–26 Aug balance, and today has traded under its 7653.25 low: the whole range, 7687.00 to 7643.50, sits beneath the 7721.50 value low the morning read called the window's edge.
The 7684.50 open was the top of the day; the first bar printed 7687.00 and nothing has traded above it since. The 10:15 bar took Monday's 7661.25 low to 7654.00, and the initial balance settled at 7687.00–7654.00, 33 points, with its low at its close.
29 Jul – 14 Sep · contains the 2 beside it, not today
12 sessions
developing
Bars are bucketed to approximate distribution shape only. Every labelled price — POC, VAH, VAL, and the levels at right — is the exact tick-level value, not a bucket midpoint.
From the 7703.00 alternate trigger to the 7599.25 July low. Everything the morning read placed below the 7684.50 open has traded; nothing above it has. Last 7652.75, half a point under the excursion's floor.
Extension below at 10:30, the low at 10:45, and a bounce that has not reached 7661.25
The 10:30 bar broke the initial-balance low by 3.25 to 7650.75 on −2,558. The 10:45 bar did the heaviest work of the day, −3,111 to a 7643.50 low: 1.50 through the 7645.00 the morning read set as its bear trigger and 9.75 under the excursion's 7653.25 floor. Extension below the balance is 10.50, above nil.
The 11:00 bar was the first buyer of size, +1,603, closing at 7651.75. The 11:15 and 11:30 bars reached 7657.25 and 7659.75, the second stopping 1.50 under Monday's low, and so far the 11:45 bar has given 4.50 back to 7652.75.
The profile is already bimodal: a 7677.50 node from the first three bars, a 7650.00 node built since 10:30, and almost nothing between 7660.00 and 7661.50, where Monday's low went in one bar.
Delta turned at the low; price has agreed by 16 points and no more
Cumulative delta fell without a pause to −9,246 at the 10:45 low, then turned. The 11:00 bar's +1,603 is the only buying bar of size all session, and price agreed, 7646.25 to 7651.75. Since then the tape has stalled at −27 and +245 while price added 8.00 more to 7659.75, and the 11:45 bar is −608 so far with price back at 7652.75.
The cohort at risk is the 11:00 buyer, long from 7646 to 7652 with the day's low 9 points beneath it. Monday's buyers and this morning's opening prints are the cohort already offside, and neither has been offered 7661.25 to get out at.
Primary at its first objective, alternate dead, bear touched
The alternate died at 10:15 when 7661.25 went, never having traded above 7703.00. The primary triggered there and reached its first objective at 10:45, 7645.00, trading to 7643.50; its second, 7636.00, is untested, 7.50 under the low.
The bear traded 1.50 through its 7645.00 trigger in the same bar and closed that bar at 7646.25, back above it. Its 7665.00 invalidation has not been touched; the bounce stopped at 7659.75. Nothing the morning read placed above the open has been tested.
Sellers hold the day; the one buyer in profit has 9 points of room
Sellers hold the day: every level the morning read put below the open has traded, nothing above it has. The 11:00 buyer's cushion is 9 points.
What argued for the primary
- Extension 10.50 below the initial balance, nil above
- Delta −8,033, with one buying bar of size all session
What argued against
- 7643.50 has held four bars and the 10:45 bar closed back above 7645.00
What decided it
A bounce that cannot reclaim Monday's 7661.25 low is a pause; the seller keeps the initiative until it does.
The rest of the session
The 10:45 low goes, into the May low
PrimaryUnder 7643.50 the 11:00 buyer is offside and price is in space the window never filled. The 7636.00 May low is the only reference before the 14 Jul low at 7599.25. Monday's 7665.00 value low reclaimed says the afternoon is a different auction.
Buyers reclaim Monday's low and fill the gap
AlternateAcceptance above 7665.00 fills the empty 7660–7661.50 zone and makes Monday's low a floor again. The 10 Sep value high at 7677.25 is the first objective, the 7687.00 session high the second. A print under 7643.50 ends it.
Through the May low, where the window is empty
BearBelow 7636.00 nothing has traded since July: the 22 Jul high at 7631.25 first, then the 14 Jul low at 7599.25. Back above the 7654.00 initial-balance low says the push was a probe and not acceptance.
What to watch
- 7643.50 The 10:45 low1.50 under the morning read's 7645.00 bear trigger and the 11:00 buyer's line. Under it the only buying cohort of the day is offside.
- 7661.25 Monday's lowLost at 10:15. The bounce stopped 1.50 short of it at 7659.75, and the profile beneath it is nearly empty from 7660.00 to 7661.50.
- 7636.00 The 28 May lowThe morning primary's second objective, 7.50 under today's low and untested since May. No reference sits between it and the 7631.25 July high.
What this is, and what it is not
This is a context gauge — the climate a discretionary decision gets made inside. It is not a trigger, a signal, or a trade.
Mechanical order-flow entry signals do not survive out-of-sample testing, and nothing here should be treated as one. The value of a read like this is subtractive: it tells you which levels matter, which side is already committed, and when to stand down — not when to click.
Every figure above is computed rather than estimated. The synthesis is machine-written from a fixed analytical framework and reviewed before publication — how these are made. Framework v1.5 (fb07b9e+)