Stop Wasting Your Time Over Trading In 2026
In a Nutshell
Ricky explains avoiding wasted time on range-bound days by waiting for a **break of structure** (e.g., new highs/lows or support/resistance breaches) in the first hour, as seen in today's QQQ consolidation without downside continuation despite overbought conditions. Skip shorts without bearish **NASDAQ** sentiment or effortless flow—focus on high-conviction setups like HIMS shorts during sell-offs, while scalpers can profit from ranges but beginners should avoid due to risk. Use criteria like **progress** and **continuation** to trade only aligned opportunities; join LPP for live sessions and resources.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Ricky with Tech Solutions explains how to determine when the market will consolidate for the remainder of the day. He normally shorts the market when overbought, but today, despite being somewhat overbought, the market never broke structure. A beginner asked why he didn't short today unlike other days.
Patterns repeat but are not 100% certain. No pattern or indicator works 100% of the time. Criteria provide conviction based on past experiences where unmet criteria led to poor results. The goal is to avoid wasting the day watching the market trade in a range. Today's QQQ example shows a common resistance range and support range.
In the live trading session with LPP team, he looked for a break of structure or break of support in the first hour. Markets made new highs on the day but not from Friday's highs, staying in the same range. He focuses on general ranges, not exact price levels. This was the same resistance range from Friday. Markets pushed up, corrected quickly, but couldn't hold below $600 for QQQ. It pulled back to support at open, retested 602, consolidated, got rejected at 599, but returned to previous highs without holding below 600.
Days like today can be useful for scalpers who buy lows, sell highs, short overbought levels, buy to cover, go long, and sell. Money can be made with many trades, but more trades increase risk of one bad trade wiping out gains. Less is more.
He focused on HIMS, which gapped up with downside potential. HIMS is overbought but sells off when NASDAQ sells off more. NASDAQ acts as an incubator for the market, conditioning tech stocks. HIMS trades like tech at a multiple.
Monitor NASDAQ: bullish sentiment (higher highs, higher lows) supports longs across NASDAQ/S&P 500. Bearish (lower lows, lower highs) supports shorts. Wanted NASDAQ sell-off for seamless HIMS short, avoiding fighting the trend. If NASDAQ consolidates or pushes higher, HIMS could hold or make new highs, which it did—sold off at open but retested highs and traded in range. Big tech did similar.
Within first 30 minutes to hour, assess continuation on focused stocks. Continuation is the biggest indicator of progress up or down. Markets opened and closed green 1.12%, but open to close was flat due to gap up from Friday. Doesn't carry positions over weekend due to risk in uncertain times.
Criteria-based trades reduce impulsive trades. No continuation downside today: never broke support, established it early, no new highs but held overbought range with consolidation. No break of structure or downside continuation, so no short as sentiment didn't support it.
Ideal trades feel effortless: markets selling off, sentiment negative, direction/price action favorable. Or bullish push with everything aligned. Key components: progress, continuation, actively making higher highs/lows (long) or lower highs/lows (short), not consolidating.
Money can be made in any market, but consolidation lacks clear direction, complicating long/short decisions. Never recommend beginners short due to greater risk.
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