Trading Room RECAP 12.2.25

Cycle Day 2 – The Chop Was Real, The Patience Was Required

Market Rhythm

Welcome to Cycle Day 2 — the day that traditionally behaves like a caffeinated toddler with a Nerf bat. True to form, CD2 delivered turbulence, a two-way draw, and enough psychological warfare to make Sun Tzu crack a smile.

Overnight ES tagged the lower target zone with a clean buy response, then probed the upper objective from the DTS plan. From the open, the market played the classic CD2 game:
look strong → look weak → gaslight everyone → repeat.

As stated in the DTS:

“Both sides shuffle for position and attempt to gas-light each other into submission.”
Check. Verified. Signed in blood.


Intraday Highlights – Tape Action & Trader Color

Early Session

  • ES Bull Scenario: Sustaining above 6830 kicked off a move directly into the 6855–6865 band. Objective fulfilled.

  • NQ OPR Long → TGT 1 hit, then TGT 2 hit, then stop-trail harvested the remaining — textbook execution.

  • CL delivered a clean Open Range Short, printing both TGT1 and TGT2 before geopolitical headlines spiked it vertically.

The Manny Commentary (The Tape Whisperer Edition)

  • Pre-session pearl: “Be present enough to know not every day yields a great setup.”
    A masterclass reminder foreshadowing what CD2 had in store.

  • Callouts included:
    • Set-up #5 Resistance Sell (6859–6863) → +5 and +8 scalps.
    • Warning signals: “Look Above & Fail,” “Tape is lit,” “Could retest lows,” and the classic New England verdict: “Wicked!”

$BIG Dog Money

David reminding everyone of the institutional playbook:

  • “Buy ’em cheap.”

  • Orchestrate a decline → force out weak hands → rip price back up → repeat until retail cries.

Battlefield Notes

  • Range Runner Rhythms dominated — violent rotations, fakeouts, and sand-in-the-eyes reversals.

  • Shorts got caught in rips, longs got slapped on drops, and spectators wondered why they got out of bed.

  • Classic CD2: The market absolutely refused to trend, preferring instead to audition for a Cirque du Soleil role.


Macro & Headlines

  • Putin headlines triggered a sharp spike in CL, with threats of retaliatory strikes and European warnings.
    Traders: unamused.
    Oil: extremely amused.


Late Session

  • Gap fill completed — typical for an inside gap on Cycle Day 2.

  • MOC showed a $1B buy imbalance… which flipped to sell faster than a scalper bailing on a losing countertrade.

  • Settlement: Price closed near mid-session VWAP.
    In other words: CD2 doing CD2 things.


Day Summary

Cycle Day 2 — Verdict:
Choppy, emotional, rotational, occasionally rude
Rewarded discipline
Punished overconfidence
Validated patience

“The Chop is Real.” – Everyone today
“Hagee.” – David, signing off like a Viking trader at 3:59 PM

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