Marking your chart
This is the last lesson of Floor Trader. Across the level you learned to name market types, swings, support and resistance, reference levels, VWAP, moving averages, volume profile, timeframes, and the scheduled events of the day. This lesson pulls them into one short routine you can run every morning before the RTH open.
The goal is a clean, labeled map of the chart. Not a prediction. Not a plan to buy or sell. Just a clear picture of where the market has been and what is on the calendar.
Why have a routine?
Two reasons:
- Consistency. If you mark the same things the same way every day, you can compare one day to the next. Random marking gives you random charts.
- Calm. Doing the work before 8:30 a.m. CT means you are not scrambling to find yesterday’s high while the market is already moving.
The routine, step by step (before 8:30 a.m. CT)
Step 1: Check the calendar
Open an economic calendar. CME Group’s calendar shows times in CT. Write down today’s scheduled releases and their times (Lesson 13). If an 8:30 a.m. ET report is out today, note it as 7:30 a.m. CT. If it is an FOMC statement day, note the release time in CT.
Step 2: Start big (Lesson 11)
Look at a daily chart. Name the market type (Lesson 1). Mark two or three major swing highs and lows (Lesson 2) as zones, not thin lines (Lesson 3).
Then look at a 60-minute chart and add any nearby levels you see.
Step 3: Mark yesterday and overnight (Lesson 4)
On your working chart, mark:
- PDH and PDL: prior day high and low.
- PDC: prior day close or settlement (know which your platform shows).
- ONH and ONL: overnight high and low since the 5:00 p.m. CT Globex reopen.
Step 4: Add volume levels, if you use them (Lesson 10)
If you use a volume profile, mark the prior session’s POC, VAH, and VAL. Keep the same settings every day.
Step 5: Clean up
Look at the chart and ask: can I read it? Delete duplicate lines and lines so far away that price will not reach them today. Make sure every line has a text label. A line you cannot name is a line you will misread later.
After the open
Three things only exist once RTH starts at 8:30 a.m. CT:
- The open (Lesson 4): mark the first RTH price.
- The opening range (Lesson 5): draw it when your chosen window ends.
- Session VWAP (Lessons 6 and 7): it starts building from the session anchor. If you use bands, keep the same multipliers every day.
A finished example
Here is how a written summary of a marked chart might look. Every number is made up for practice, not a real quote:
MNQ, before the open. Daily: uptrend, higher highs and higher lows. Releases today: CPI at 7:30 a.m. CT. Levels: daily swing high zone 20,150 to 20,160. PDH 20,120.00, PDL 20,040.00, PDC 20,095.00. ONH 20,110.00, ONL 20,060.00. Prior session POC 20,080.00. Price at 8:15 a.m. CT: 20,100.00, between PDC and ONH.
Notice there is no “I will buy if” anywhere in it. That is deliberate. Turning a map into trading decisions needs risk rules, position sizing, and a written plan, which are what the next two levels, Local and Seat Holder, are about.
A quick sense check on scale, using Runner Lesson 6: the distance from PDL to PDH in this example is 20,120 minus 20,040 = 80 points. On MNQ at $2 per point, that is $160 per contract from one end of yesterday’s range to the other.
Make it a habit
Run the routine every session you trade, even on a simulator. Save a screenshot of the finished chart with the date. Over a few weeks, those screenshots become a record you can review: which levels did price react to, and which ones did it ignore? That review is how the vocabulary from this level turns into real chart-reading skill.
Key ideas
- Run the same short routine before every 8:30 a.m. CT open.
- Order: calendar first, then daily, 60-minute, and your working chart.
- Mark PDH, PDL, PDC, ONH, ONL, and any volume profile levels; label every line in text.
- After the open, add the open, the opening range, and session VWAP.
- A marked chart is a map, not a plan, and nothing on it is a signal.