One trade worked a little, and another stopped once before working a little on the retrigger. The markets gapped down, filled their gaps, and then stalled and fell, helped by news that a plane was shot down over the Ukraine. NASDAQ volume was 1.8 billion shares. See the NQ and ER sections below. On to options expiration Friday…

Net ticks: +2 ticks.

As usual, let’s start by taking a look at the ES and NQ with our market directional lines, VWAP, and Comber on the 5-minute chart from today’s session:

NQ:

Just a reminder that we use half points for ticks on the NQ and not the quarter point measurement that the exchanges switched to in recent years. This allows us to use 6 ticks as a key target as we do on the other contracts. It also keeps the value of a tick at $10, closer to the value of a tick on the other contracts.

Triggered long at A at 3918.00, hit first target for 6 ticks, raised stop twice and stopped at 3924.50:

ER:

Triggered long at A at 1146.30 and stopped. Put it back in and triggered long at B, hit first target for 8 ticks, second half stopped under entry: