The open came in above yesterday's value and immediately sold, tagging the prior POC at 7723.75 inside the first half hour. That probe held eight minutes below and closed back over, and the rejection was the launch pad for the rest of the morning. High of 7764.75 at 10:01 CT. Everything after that was give-back: a close at 7731.25, back beneath yesterday's high, sitting near the bottom edge of a value area whose midpoint is thirteen points above yesterday's. The upper half of the day's range never earned any time.
The session
Value settled overlapping higher, an eighteen-point band from 7728.00 to 7746.00 that straddles yesterday's high at 7735.25 with most of its weight above. That level was the battle. Acceptance, meaning time actually spent trading beyond a price rather than a poke at it, went to the buyers there: the POC printed at 7736.75 and the auction ran 29.50 points past yesterday's high before it stopped. The other side of the fight was the low at 7720.75 at 08:51 CT, which was the day's only visit to the prior shelf. It was rejected cleanly and never retested. More than a million contracts changed hands, and the bulk of them built the band, not the extension above it.
The delta tells a different story than the price path. The high at 7764.75 was made with cumulative delta already deep in the red, near its worst reading of the morning. Price rising while net selling dominates is absorption, and absorption that cannot be defended is just a supply of sellers finding willing hands at a good price. By the 11:30 CT mark the delta had recovered to positive while price had already left the high behind. Buying pressed there and was not paid for it. From that point the slide was steady into a close at -3591, and the session finished 8.25 below its VWAP.
How this morning's read did
The morning letter's own upside falsifier was met. It said acceptance above 7735.25 turns yesterday's shelf into a base and puts Monday's low at 7766.25 in reach, beyond what the day's band pays for. Value built above 7735.25 and the high came within 1.50 points of that number. Rotation inside yesterday's range was the published lean and it was wrong by 29.50 points at the extreme.
The 7723.75 call was right in mechanism. The letter named it as the magnet and as the early tell, and the first probe below yesterday's low did reject back into the shelf within minutes. What the read did not allow for was that the same rejection would carry the auction thirty points the other way rather than into a rotation. The downside case never engaged: 7716.75, 7714.00 and 7698.25 all went untouched.
What moved it
FOMC minutes landed at 13:00 CT. Cumulative delta was flat at +145 on the 12:30 mark and had turned to -1889 by 14:30, and the close finished 33.50 under the high. The auction did not reverse on the release so much as accelerate a fade already underway, but the heaviest selling of the day sits on either side of that clock.
Tomorrow’s map
This recap is educational market commentary, not investment advice or a recommendation. It does not consider any reader's financial situation, objectives, or risk tolerance, and past patterns described here are not a guarantee of future results. All levels are computed from the completed regular session. Futures and options trading carries substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor.