- The Opening Print
- Posts
- The ES Snaps Back, the Dow Rings the Bell, and Silver Finds Another Air Pocket
The ES Snaps Back, the Dow Rings the Bell, and Silver Finds Another Air Pocket
Danny Riley
June 30, 2026
Follow @MrTopStep on Twitter and please share if you find our work valuable!
What a Difference 1 Day Can Make
The ES broke a 5-day losing streak, and the YM settled above 52,572 for the first time ever. Alphabet ($GOOGL) rose 4.8% to lead gains on the Google parent’s first day as one of the blue-chip index’s 30 components, which provided a boost to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI), helping push Caterpillar and Johnson & Johnson higher. It was joined by strong advances in $AMZN, $CSCO, $NKE, and $V.
Alphabet’s push higher helped technology shares, sending the Nasdaq Composite up 2.1% and helping shake off some of the malaise that made last week one of the worst for tech stocks in months, which was fueled by worries about rising interest rates and the cost pressures the artificial intelligence build-out is creating for companies and consumers.
Additionally, $TSLA jumped 8.5%, while Elon Musk’s other company, SpaceX, rose over 7% as the two work closely together on a Texas chip factory that some analysts think might lead to a future merger. Meanwhile, the Russell hit a record high, wrapping up a stellar first half of the year with a 21% gain—its best run in over 30 years—showing that investors are highly confident in the U.S. economy.
I don't know, and neither does anyone else, if the recent weakness is in the rearview mirror, but the Middle East peace talks have brought down oil prices, easing fears of inflation and pressure on the bond market, though both rose on Monday after the U.S. and Iran clashed over the weekend.
It's nice to see big gains like we saw yesterday, and I think we will see more today. However, there was another big sell imbalance on yesterday's close, and after such a big rally and not closing above 7500, I get the feeling today could be more of a two-way trade, but with the bias still being for higher prices.
There are a lot of stops in the ES that basically go to 7540, which is the 38.2% retracement level from the 4-week high; above there, I see 7560 to 7575 as the next big level to overcome.
What I do not want to do is start blasting out higher levels because some of the stats lean slightly bearish. Over long-term historical windows, ranging across 20- to 50-year spans, the final session of June has closed in the red significantly more than 50% of the time. I just don't know how much of the end-of-the-quarter rebalance has been done, and it's my guess that they still have part of it to do.
I want to remind everyone that the first half of July is statistically one of the most consistently bullish periods of the entire trading year. New capital inflows from retirement accounts, mid-year bonuses, and mutual fund distributions typically flood into the market starting on the first trading day of July. This makes the end-of-June softness historically look less like a structural trend shift and more like a brief technical pause, or a "dip," right before the July summer rally kicks in.
You can take it from there...
As we all know, gold and silver have been punished recently as the Middle East sovereign wealth funds, which were the largest buyers of precious metals, have been liquidating for reconstruction costs after the U.S. and Iran war. But today's story is not about gold; it's about silver. I'll be honest, I used AI for the story, but I was the one who came up with the idea/post.
I remember this very vividly. I call this my:
Hunt Brothers: The Corner, The Peak, and The Crash
Driven by a deep distrust of paper currency and a desire to hedge against the roaring double-digit inflation of the 1970s, billionaire Texas oil brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt set out on a calculated, multi-year mission to quietly corner the global silver market. Starting around 1973, the Hunt brothers aggressively hoarded physical bullion and accumulated massive futures contracts, eventually partnering with wealthy Saudi investors to form a formidable buying consortium.
Unlike typical paper speculators, the Hunts stunned the trading floor by demanding actual physical delivery of the metal, going so far as to fly tons of silver bars out of New York and London vaults into highly secure, private storage in Switzerland.
By the winter of 1980, the squeeze reached its boiling point. Having locked up an estimated 200 million ounces—more than half of the world's deliverable supply—commercial industrial users like Eastman Kodak were left scrambling, sending the price on a parabolic 700% surge from its $6 starting point.
On January 18, 1980, the frenzy peaked when COMEX futures struck an absolute intraday high of $50.35 per troy ounce, $49.45 on the London Fix, igniting a global craze where everyday people rushed to melt down family silverware and heirlooms to cash in on the spectacular mania.
Yet, the Hunts’ massive paper fortune was built on a fragile foundation of extreme leverage, using their existing silver as collateral to buy even more contracts. Recognizing the systemic risk, regulators and exchange officials abruptly changed the rules of the game, introducing restrictive margin requirements that effectively barred new buyers and cut off all credit.
With the liquidity floor instantly yanked out from under them, Nelson Bunker and William Herbert Hunt were trapped in a devastating margin-call spiral, culminating on "Silver Thursday"—March 27, 1980—when the market completely collapsed, plunging prices back below $11 an ounce and cementing the brothers' campaign as one of history's legendary cautionary tales of market hubris.
As of yesterday's close, the front-month silver contract (SIN26) settled at $57.035, on the low of the day. The last time silver traded this low was on June 20, 2026. The market printed a session low of $57.035, closing right on its lows after opening at $58.340. Last week, on June 24, prior to yesterday's leg down, the market had a sharp flush that saw an intraday low of $55.750, sweeping right through the $57.00 handle before reversing to close the session at $58.087. Before this late-June correction, the contract had been trading significantly higher, spending most of April and May holding a floor above the mid-$70s and printing highs up near the $90.00 handle in mid-May.
This has been a crushing blow to precious metal buyers. Looking at the max chart of silver, you can see there were two historical pushes up to above $50.00. The first was in January 1980 up to the $50.35 area, which then sold off down to $14.00 in the spring of 1984 (a 90% correction). The other big rally was in April/July 2011, which peaked near $49.82 and traded down to $17.83.
I don't pretend to know what's going to happen next, but from its last January 2026 high at $121.62, silver has dropped $64.58 or 53.1%. As I said above, I don't know if it's going lower from here, but it looks that way. While there is some big support at the $55.00 to $56.00 level, there are also some big air pockets under $47.00.
Is it a Hunt Brother repeat, and it will take years to go back up, or is this a correction to buy? My guess is the latter but I still think there is some downside left.
Max Silver Chart 1974 to Present
Our Lean — Danny’s Trade (Premium only)
Tom Incorvia - Blue Tree Strategies
This week I want to step away from hunting a specific trade and focus on something more useful in the long run: learning to read what the auction is telling you. Two charts below show the same lesson — how the market behaves when price breaks out of balance and gets rejected. The first is a clean, textbook example so you can see the mechanics clearly. The second shows the same logic unfolding in the real world, where one rejection doesn't just stall a move but sends price searching for value somewhere else entirely. Read them together. Once you can recognize a failed auction at the edge of balance, you stop guessing at tops and bottoms and start letting the market tell you where it's going.
CHTR
What you're looking at is a textbook failed breakout, and it teaches more than most clean trends do. For two months, price built a balance area — a two-sided auction where buyers and sellers rotated price between the extremes, with the bulk of trade accepted in the low 220s. When price finally pushed above the upper boundary, the auction was asking one question: is there acceptance up here? The answer came back fast. No buyers stepped up to continue the move, the probe drew aggressive responsive selling, and price was rejected straight back into the range. That rejection isn't noise — it's the market advertising higher prices and refusing them. Value did not migrate up. And here's the lesson: once price is rejected back inside balance, the working expectation is rotation. Prices tend to travel from one extreme of value to the other. A failed auction at the high doesn't just stall — it puts the opposite end of the range in play.
CHTR
This is Charter Communications, and it shows the same auction logic playing out twice — a real-world sequence rather than a single snapshot. Price built its first balance in the spring, then broke above the upper boundary and was immediately rejected. That rejection wasn't a pause; it was a verdict. With no acceptance overhead, the market did exactly what a failed auction tells you to expect — it left the area entirely and went looking for value lower. Notice how far it traveled. Once price was refused at the high, it didn't rotate quietly inside the old range; it broke down and migrated all the way to a new distribution, where buyers and sellers eventually agreed on value again in the mid-130s. Then watch the right edge: price probed the top of that second balance and was rejected once more. The lesson compounds here — a rejected breakout puts the opposite extreme in play, and when value genuinely fails to migrate, "the opposite extreme" can mean an entirely new balance area built well below the last one. Same question, same answer, two different scales.
ESU, NQU, YM, QR 10-Day Comparison Chart
The ES traded in a 7436.00 to 7473.75 Globex trading range, with only 215k contracts traded, and opened Monday's regular session at 7457.00, up 77 points or +1.03%.
After the open, the ES rallied up to 7479.00, then sold off 34.50 points down to 7444.50 in the first minute. It rallied up to 7490.00 at 9:50, sold off 81.00 points down to 7409.00 at 10:15, then rallied 58.75 points up to 7467.75 at 10:40.
The ES pulled back below the VWAP at 7447.75, rallied 24.75 points up to 7472.50 at 10:50, then pulled back below the VWAP again at 7453.00. It rallied 28.75 points up to 7481.75 at 12:05, pulled back to 7470.00, rallied 28.75 points up to 7498.75 at 1:50, then pulled back to 7491.25.
From there, the ES rallied up to 7502.00, pulled back to 7493.00, and traded 7497.00 as the 3:50 imbalance showed $3.9 billion to sell. It rallied up to a new high at 7505.00 at 3:55 and traded 7497.00 on the 4:00 cash close.
After 4:00, the ES flatlined and settled at 7505.00, up 98 points or +1.33% for its largest daily gain since 6/15/26. The NQ settled at 30,052.75, up 684.50 points or +2.33%, its largest gain since 6/15/26. The YM hit a record high after adding Alphabet and settled at 52,572, up +0.70%, and the RTY finished at 3,030.60, up 8 points or +0.26%.
In the end, the ES finally broke out to the upside on the most seasonally strong session of the month. In terms of the overall tone, the ES was the strongest of the four indices. In terms of the ES's overall trade, volume was steady at 1.44 million contracts traded.
Market-on-Close Recap
The MOC opened with heavy sell pressure at $5.05B for sale. The early pressure was not just broad; it was concentrated in high-beta growth and technology. The S&P 500 was showing a $5.03B sell imbalance with a -76.3% dollar lean, while Nasdaq was even more aggressive with a $5.44B sell imbalance and a -92.9% dollar lean. Those readings are notable because anything beyond -66% signals wholesale selling rather than simple rotation.
The transition was the key story. After the 15:51 sell spike, the MOC began to improve steadily. Total imbalance moved from -$5.05B to -$3.84B, then -$3.12B, and by 15:55 flipped positive to +$1.89B. The buy side peaked near $5.52B at 15:57, while sell pressure declined from $7.83B to roughly $1.56B by 16:00. By the cash close, the total imbalance settled at +$1.44B, showing a major late-day reversal from extreme sell pressure into a more supportive close.
Sector flow was sharply split. Utilities were the cleanest wholesale buy with a +77.6% dollar lean, while Health Care was also notable at +66.1%. Real Estate was close to notable at +64.5%. On the sell side, the pressure was concentrated in Information Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, and Consumer Staples. Tech showed a massive -$3.02B total with a -90.9% lean, while Communication Services was even more extreme at -95.8%. Consumer Discretionary posted -$861M with a -82.6% lean.
Symbol-level selling centered on TSLA, MU, META, AVGO, GOOG, NVDA, GOOGL, LRCX, CSCO, WDC, and KLAC. On the buy side, notable demand showed in MA, LLY, SHW, UNH, GE, WMB, PANW, and AEE. Overall, the close began as a wholesale tech/growth sell program but transitioned into a late buy recovery, leaving the final tape less bearish than the 15:51 snapshot suggested.
Daily Market Recap 📊
For Monday, June 29, 2026
• NYSE Breadth: 49% Upside Volume
• Nasdaq Breadth: 72% Upside Volume
• Total Breadth: 64% Upside Volume
• NYSE Advance/Decline: 55% Advance
• Nasdaq Advance/Decline: 61% Advance
• Total Advance/Decline: 59% Advance
• NYSE New Highs/New Lows: 142 / 46
• Nasdaq New Highs/New Lows: 280 / 157
• NYSE TRIN: 1.28
• Nasdaq TRIN: 0.59
Weekly Breadth Data 📈
For Week Ending Friday, June 26, 2026
• NYSE Breadth: 55% Upside Volume
• Nasdaq Breadth: 58% Upside Volume
• Total Breadth: 57% Upside Volume
• NYSE Advance/Decline: 55% Advance
• Nasdaq Advance/Decline: 47% Advance
• Total Advance/Decline: 50% Advance
• NYSE New Highs/New Lows: 337 / 243
• Nasdaq New Highs/New Lows: 745 / 648
• NYSE TRIN: 0.98
• Nasdaq TRIN: 0.66
ES & NQ Levels (Premium only)
BTS Levels are an OP Premium Feature.
Polaris Trading Group Summary - Monday, June 29, 2026
The session began with a strong reminder from PTGDavid that opportunity had already been active overnight, with excellent GLOBEX trades into the Asia session. The day’s main theme was flexibility: the room started with a long-side lean, adapted after upside targets were fulfilled and rejected, and later shifted into a range-trading framework before price worked back toward the 7495 target.
Overnight / GLOBEX Strength
PTGDavid highlighted fantastic GLOBEX trades into the Asia session.
The room was reminded to review the prior night’s real-time postings.
David emphasized that futures opportunities continue outside regular cash hours: “Markets never sleep.”
The overnight plan had clear upside scale levels:
7465
7475
7485
7495
Morning Bias: Long Side First
David initially stated the room should lean long side.
The market was still described as A10 long with a trailing stop.
Price worked into important upside objectives, including:
The 3-day rally target near 7488
Money Box Level 1
This validated the earlier long-side framework and the prior night’s target map.
Key Shift: Target Fulfillment and Rejection
After the 3-day target and Money Box Level 1 were reached, David identified strong price rejection.
The bias changed from buying strength to selling bounces.
David warned that the day could become a Range Runner-style day.
The key instruction was to stay flexible rather than remain attached to the earlier long bias.
Range Trading Conditions
John B noted that price remained inside a larger balance zone from the prior week.
That context helped explain why the market could become sloppy and two-sided.
The room discussed the importance of identifying the market environment first:
Trend market
Range market
Balance/sloppy market
Ram summarized the lesson well: first determine what kind of market is present, then apply the correct tools.
Tools and Trade Selection
In the range environment, the room focused more on:
VWAP
POC
CCI
Volume profile
Money Box levels
A4 / A10 context
David clarified that not every signal is automatically high quality.
A setup can be structurally valid but still lower quality if it is trapped between conflicting levels or poor context.
Candle Structure Lesson
Orest asked about how to define long tails and short tails.
The lesson was that wick/tail size is judged relative to the candle body, not simply by candle color.
A long upper tail shows rejection from above.
A long lower tail shows rejection from below.
A candle can have meaningful wicks on both sides, creating an indecision-style candle similar to a doji.
Lunch Bias
Heading into lunch, David updated the room’s lean:
Buy dips above VWAP
This gave traders a clean afternoon reference.
VWAP became an important dividing line for maintaining a constructive intraday bias.
Afternoon Follow-Through
In the early afternoon, David noted that price was heading toward the 7495 target.
This aligned with the prior evening’s upside scale plan.
CrashF16 also reported that the NQ D-Level target was hit.
The Money Box D-Level targets were praised as especially effective.
Positive Trades and Wins
Strong overnight GLOBEX / Asia session opportunities.
Successful long-side movement into the planned upside scale targets.
Fulfillment of the 3-day rally target near 7488.
Money Box Level 1 reached.
Correct recognition of rejection after target completion.
Smart shift from long bias to selling bounces.
Later adjustment to buying dips above VWAP.
Afternoon movement toward the 7495 target.
NQ D-Level target hit using Money Box levels.
Discovery Trading Group Room Preview – Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Equity Futures
US stock futures are firmer this morning, led by a rebound in tech and semiconductors.
The move helps stabilize sentiment after recent AI-trade volatility.
Nasdaq futures are leading, but the recovery remains fragile.
Oil & Geopolitics
Strait of Hormuz traffic has increased despite recent US–Iran tensions, easing supply-shock fears.
Crude remains weak as markets shift from shortage concerns toward softer-demand and rising non-OPEC supply expectations.
Softer oil is supportive for risk appetite and rate-sensitive sectors.
Macro & FX
The dollar rally remains a key global pressure point, weighing on commodities and emerging markets.
Yen weakness and broader FX volatility remain in focus.
Fed policy is still a macro ceiling, with policymakers maintaining a restrictive stance and keeping rate-cut expectations subdued.
Market Leadership
Mega-cap leadership remains under pressure as valuations compress and AI expectations reset.
Rotation into cyclicals and semiconductors is emerging, but remains uneven.
The loss of Magnificent 7 momentum keeps index volatility elevated.
Today’s Calendar
9:00am ET: HPI and S&P/Case-Shiller Composite 20 HPI
9:45am ET: Chicago PMI
10:00am ET: CB Consumer Confidence and JOLTS Job Openings
After the close: STZ and NKE earnings
Wednesday morning: GIS earnings
ES Technicals
ES retested the short-term downtrend channel top as support and held.
Bulls used that hold to push price toward the 7500 area.
The 7435/30 area remains key short-term support.
The 50-day MA near 7458.75 remains an important pivot after Monday’s close back above it.
Upside room remains toward potential trendline resistance at 7615/10.
ES Levels
Resistance: 7615/10, 8025/30
Support: 7435/30, 7296/91, 7210/05
