For options expiration Friday, the markets gapped up and kept going, covered most of the day’s range in 40 minutes, and closed exactly on the VWAP on 1.7 billion NASDAQ shares, which is light for options expiration. We had great Opening Range plays again and another NQ trade that worked.

Net ticks: +30 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:

ES and NQ Opening and Institutional Range Plays:

ES Opening Range Play triggered long at A and worked enough for a partial, barely stopped the second half 2 ticks in the money or could have been huge:

NQ Opening Range Play triggered long at A and worked huge:

ES Tradesight Institutional Range Play:

NQ Tradesight Institutional Range Play:

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.

My call triggered short at A at 4357.50, hit first target for 6 ticks, stopped second half over the entry: