Current market conditions require a great deal of patience. Why? Simply because the swift moves in the emini S&P500 are occurring in a relatively thin order book. This tends to cause sharp moves with harmonic rotations much longer than average. This in turn means that the supply and demand levels I key trades off of are much farther apart than is typical. So, with the levels  further apart, naturally it can take longer for trades to set up.

Yesterday, I took no trade at all. Today, a nice setup formed based on the larger time frame supply level as shown in the 30 minute chart below...

Because this level was not a particularly strong level (that is didn't have all the attributes I'd like to see) I zoomed into my 5 minute chart and watched for a smaller time frame supply level to setup. Then, I'd key off that level for a short. Here is the chart...

Once the lower edge of the larger time frame supply level was touched, I began watching the 5 minute chart (above) for the fractal supply level. Such a level did form and is shown by the blue outlined-rectangle. Once price fell from that level I placed a limit order to sell (see the order confirm window below).

You can see with this method how relaxed trading can be. I placed the limit order at 9:33, well before price revisited the level at 9:50... more than 15 minutes later. Original target was 1154 based on price action on the 5 minute chart. However, I always manage trades with the MarketDelta Footprint. Because of the patterns in the order flow I decided to exit early. It's a fairly mechanical process to assess Footprint order flow.

While there are numerous subtleties, the main characteristics of the order flow which caused the early exit was a delta divergence indication opposite to my trade, immediately followed up by a retest of the pivot low on very light volume. Notice the print at the low is showing only 5 contracts traded.

Yes, price did eventually continue in my direction, but when order flow changes you gotta watch out. There is no way to no in advance the outcome of any trade, so you take profits when they are presented.