Every other system on this site trades a stock or an ETF between 9:30 and 4:00 ET. ES, the CME E-mini S&P 500 futures contract, is awake almost the whole week. This system trades the range it builds while the stock market's closed: the high and low set on the overnight Globex session, and what price does to that range once the cash open shows up and everyone else finally starts watching. Charts below are interactive. Click Play on any setup to watch the signal bar fire and the entry, stop, and target draw themselves, computed live from the actual candle, in the 0.25-point ticks ES actually trades in, not cents.
“Whichever setup fires, the entry math never changes: one tick past the signal bar's high or low, buy the close or sell the close.”Jason Parker · Founder
This is the first futures system on this site, so a few of these are new. Click one to see what it means.
Wait for the signal bar to close, then buy if price on the next bar trades one tick, 0.25 points, above the signal bar's high. The close confirms the signal. It isn't your entry price.
Wait for the signal bar to close, then sell if price on the next bar trades one tick, 0.25 points, below the signal bar's low. The close confirms the signal. It isn't your entry price.
Stop goes one tick past the far side of the signal bar. Target is half its range. Identical rule to every other system on this site. The number that changes is the unit: a stock's tick is one cent, ES trades in 0.25-point increments worth $12.50 apiece, and a full point is worth $50 per contract. A five-point signal bar isn't a five-cent one wearing a bigger costume. It's $250 of risk before you've decided how many contracts to trade, which is exactly why the position-size math matters more here than almost anywhere else on this site.
Play with the numbers below. The default reflects a typical breakout bar on this system, five points of risk for two and a quarter of reward.
≈70% is the honest break-even line once spread and slippage are priced in, not the raw number the math alone gives you. ≈80% is doing well. ≈90% is among the best scalpers running a system like this.
Four different jobs, same math once the bar closes. A breakout bar closes near its own high or low, clean through the overnight level. A breakdown bar does the same thing pointed down. A failed-break bar pokes past the level and closes back inside, rejecting its own extreme instead of confirming it. A reversion bar shows up only when the overnight range itself was unusually wide: a weak push toward one edge that reverses hard, betting the range has room to travel back toward its own middle. Whichever one fires, entry is one tick past the signal bar's own high or low, stop is one tick past the far side, target is half the range.
One honest note before the setups. This system's worst days aren't the losing trades. They're the quiet Globex sessions where Asia and Europe both traded ES in a six-point box all night and the cash open inherits a range with no information in it. A range that tight isn't coiled tension building toward a move. It's a session no one showed up for, and trading the break of it is a coin flip wearing a system's clothes. Check the overnight range against a typical session for this contract before the first trade.
Same system, same rules. Only the box width changes across these three. Click through and watch the verdict flip.
Illustrative examples built to test overnight range width, not the setup itself, or volume. Not historical ES prices. The 8pt/25pt marks are a rule of thumb for this contract, not a law anyone enforces, and they'd need rescaling for a different futures product entirely.
Each chart shows the setup forming. Hit Play and the signal bar fires, then the entry, stop, and target draw in, computed the same way you'd compute them live, straight from the signal bar's own high, low, and close, in 0.25-point ticks.
The pattern: the overnight session sets its high, price spends a few bars pressing against it after the cash open, then a bar finally closes clean above it.
Long: a bar closes above the Globex overnight high, near its own high. Buy the close.
The pattern: the same idea, pointed down. Price tests the overnight low, holds it once, then gives it up.
Short: a bar closes below the Globex overnight low, near its own low, after price already tested and held it once. Sell the close.
The pattern: the cash open brings an imbalance print that pokes through the overnight high on nothing but opening-auction noise, then the same bar closes back inside the range. The failure is the signal, not a reason to sit out.
Short: a bar wicks above the overnight high right around the open, then closes back inside near its own low. Sell the close, trading the failure back into the range.
The pattern: the one setup here that only exists when the overnight range is unusually wide. Price makes a weak, small-bodied push toward one edge of that wide range, without the follow-through you'd want to actually trade the level, then a bar reverses hard back toward the middle.
Long: a weak push toward the low of an unusually wide overnight range, followed by a bar that closes strong back near its own high. Buy the close.
Illustrative examples built to show each setup's shape. Not historical ES prices.
A futures account isn't a stock account with a different ticker typed in. Margin, overnight risk, and contract specs work differently here than on any other system on this site. Run your own numbers in the position-size calculator, or head back to risk management for the account-level rules underneath every system on this site.
Common questions about trading this specific system, answered straight.
Every setup on this system uses the same trigger. Wait for the signal bar to close, then enter one tick, 0.25 points, past its high for a long or its low for a short. Buy the close or sell the close. Whether the signal bar is a breakout, a breakdown, a failed break, or a reversion bar, the entry math stays identical once that bar closes.
The range checker tool on this page treats anything under roughly 8 points as a tight, low-information session and anything over roughly 25 points as a wide one worth the reversion setup. A Globex range that narrow usually means Asia and Europe both sat in a box overnight, not a level worth trading the break of.
ES is a CME E-mini S&P 500 futures contract, so it needs a futures account with an FCM, not a standard stock brokerage account. Margin, overnight risk, and contract specs, 0.25-point ticks worth $12.50 and a full point worth $50, all work differently than the stock and ETF systems elsewhere on this site, which is why the position-size calculator matters even more here.
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