Six Minutes at Three O’Clock

RTH session · Thursday, November 5, 2026

Net +$1,801.40 on 4 logged trades, all winners, $18.60 in commissions, 221 seconds in the market. ES opened the cash session at 7,717.00 and was trading around 7,440 by 3:00 PM ET, 275 points lower, having just bounced 58 points off the 2:26 low into a 2:52 high of 7,457.75. All three trades sold the rejection of that bounce. The two ES scalps on the PA account took 3 points combined out of a bar that ran 18. The NQ short on the APEX-61 and APEX-62 pair took 38 of the 125 that followed.

The numbers

Net / gross P&L	+$1,801.40 / +$1,820.00 (commissions −$18.60)
Trades	4 logged: 2 on the PA account (2 lots each, ES) and 1 on the APEX-61 / APEX-62 eval pair (NQ, copy-traded, logged twice)
Win rate	100% (4W – 0L)
Avg win	+$450.35 per logged trade
Largest win	+$756.90 per account (#3 NQ)
Time in market	221 seconds: 23 s, 50 s and 148 s

Two accounts today: the PA account for the ES scalps and a new Apex eval pair, copy-traded, for the NQ short, which is why that one shows up twice in the count. Cash session; times are Eastern.

Where it came from

Block	Trades	Net
#1 ES short, 3:00:00 PM	PA account, 2 lots, 23 seconds, 2.25 points	+$218.80
#2 ES short, 3:01 PM	PA account, 2 lots, 50 seconds, 0.75 points	+$68.80
#3 NQ short, 3:03–3:06 PM	Eval pair, 1 lot each, 38 points	+$1,513.80
ES	2 trades (2W–0L)	+$287.60
NQ	1 trade, logged twice (2W–0L)	+$1,513.80

What the execution data shows

• The setup was a bounce into a lower high on a heavy down day. ES printed 7,400.00 at 2:26 PM, ran 58 points to 7,457.75 by 2:52 on the biggest volume of the window, dropped 14 points in the 2:54 bar and bounced to 7,448.75 at 2:58. The 3:00 bar opened at 7,447.25 and fell to 7,429.25. NQ did the same thing bigger: 26,885 at 2:26, 27,180 at 2:52, and the 3:00 bar fell 90 points to 27,025.
• #1 sold ES at 7,441.25 at 3:00:00 PM, as the bar started down, and covered at 7,439.00 twenty-three seconds later. 2.25 points, 2 lots, +$218.80 on the PA account. The bar closed at 7,430.00, so the exit was in the first 3 points of an 18-point bar.
• #2 sold again at 7,430.00 at 3:01, near the 3:00 close, and covered 7,429.25 fifty seconds later. 0.75 points, +$68.80. The 3:02 bar then printed 7,424.75 and the 3:08 bar 7,402.25. Both ES trades had the direction and the timing right; what they lacked was a reason to stay in.
• #3 was the same read in NQ with room: short 27,015.25 at 3:03 PM on the eval pair, inside the 3:02 bar’s 27,009 to 27,058 range, covered 26,977.25 at 3:06. The 3:04 bar’s low was 26,983.50 and the 3:06 bar’s was 26,950.25, so the cover came off the lows of the move so far. 38 points, +$756.90 per account, +$1,513.80 on the pair.
• After the last cover at 3:06 PM, ES fell another 33 points to 7,395.75 by 3:10 and NQ another 125 to 26,852.75. By 3:30 the lows were 7,382.00 and 26,790.75. Three trades, three correct reads, and about 45 of a possible 220 combined points taken.

Takeaway

Clean, short and right. All three shorts sold the same thing, the 3:00 PM rejection of the 2:52 bounce, and none of them was ever underwater by more than a tick or two. The week’s leak, sitting on a wrong read, had nothing to sit on today. The open question is the other side of that coin: 221 seconds of exposure on a day that fell 335 points from the open and was still falling when the last trade covered. The NQ short had the right instrument and the right size and got out at the low of its own three minutes; the ES scalps took 3 points out of a 50-point move. The next version of this day holds one lot of the pair through the 3:10 low with the stop at the 3:00 high.

Final Thoughts

CVD & TickStrike confirmation trades today. Probably could have made a lot more money had I traded all day but purposely sat out of the volatility. Wonder what the Globex will bring?