The core book.
Equity index futures are the deepest, tightest market of the three and the only one prop firms will fund at meaningful size — which is why 3E2TS is limited to it. Five strategies, all built around the US cash session. Play each chart to watch the setup form, the trigger fire, and the trade close.
Opening Range Breakout
The first thirty minutes after the New York open decide the day's tone. Mark that high and low, trade the side price breaks, and put the stop on the other side of the range.
- Trigger
- A 5-minute close beyond the high or low of the first 30 minutes of the cash session.
- Entry
- On the close of the breaking candle, not on the wick that pokes through it.
- Invalidation
- The opposite side of the opening range. Back inside and through means the break failed.
- Target
- Two times the height of the opening range, measured from the break.
- Management
- One attempt per side per day. A second failed break is a range day, and range days are not traded this way.
Where it goes wrong
On a range-bound day this strategy gets chopped up: price breaks out, fails, breaks the other way, fails again, and two full stops are gone before lunch. The daily loss limit exists precisely for that day, and the one-attempt-per-side rule is what stops a bad morning becoming a bad week.
VWAP Mean Reversion
When price runs a long way from the volume-weighted average price, the average entry of everyone chasing it gets steadily worse. Fade the stretch and target the average, not a reversal.
- Trigger
- Price extended well beyond VWAP with momentum stalling and an oscillator turning back.
- Entry
- On the first candle that closes back against the move, not while it is still running.
- Invalidation
- A few points beyond the extreme of the move. This trade is either right quickly or it is wrong.
- Target
- VWAP itself. Not the session low, not a new trend — the average price.
- Management
- Never fade into a fresh macro headline, and never add to a losing fade.
The trap in this one
Fading is the fastest way to lose an account, because a stretched market on a genuine trend day just keeps stretching. The rule that makes it survivable is that the stop is small and absolute: it is placed beyond the extreme, it never moves, and one loss ends the idea for the session.
9/21 EMA Trend Continuation
A fast and a slow moving average crossing is not an entry — it is permission to start looking for one. The trade is the first pullback into the fast average after the cross.
- Trigger
- The 9 EMA crosses above the 21 and both slopes turn up on the 15-minute chart.
- Entry
- The first pullback that touches the fast average and closes back above it.
- Invalidation
- Below the low of the pullback. Losing that low means the pullback was a reversal.
- Target
- Trailed rather than fixed — the position is carried while the fast average holds.
- Management
- No entries in the hour before a scheduled macro release; the trend read is meaningless across it.
Why the cross alone loses money
Buying the cross itself puts the stop far below and gives a poor reward-to-risk on a signal that fires constantly in chop. Waiting for the pullback cuts the risk dramatically and skips most of the false crosses, at the cost of missing the occasional trend that never pulls back.
Absorption at Prior-Day Extremes
At an obvious level, watch what happens to aggressive orders rather than what the candle looks like. Heavy buying that produces no upward progress is a large seller working, and that is a trade.
- Trigger
- Repeated buy imbalances into the prior-day high with price refusing to make new highs.
- Entry
- Short on the loss of the low of the stalling area.
- Invalidation
- A reclaim of the absorption high. If the seller is gone, so is the reason for the trade.
- Target
- The nearest untested level below — usually the session VWAP or the prior day's mid.
- Management
- This is a level trade. Away from a level there is no read, and no trade.
Honest about the tooling
Reading order flow properly needs a footprint or depth-of-market tool and a lot of hours in front of it, and it is the easiest of the five to convince yourself you can see. When the read is not obvious inside the first few minutes at the level, there is no trade — ambiguity is the signal to stand down.
Overnight Gap Fill
When the session opens away from the prior settlement without real news behind it, price often trades back to close that gap. The settlement price is a target you do not have to guess.
- Trigger
- An opening gap with no major scheduled news or headline behind it, and no follow-through in the first bars.
- Entry
- After a base forms — a close back above the early session low for a gap down.
- Invalidation
- Below the session extreme. A gap that keeps extending is a news gap and will not fill today.
- Target
- The prior settlement price exactly.
- Management
- Skipped entirely when the gap follows a rate decision, a CPI print or a genuine overnight headline.
The statistic is not a guarantee
Gaps fill often enough to be worth trading and rarely enough to ruin anyone who treats it as a certainty. The losing version is the gap that keeps going all day, and it usually appears on exactly the mornings when the news filter was ignored.
The other books
The same risk framework runs across all three. What changes is the session, the instrument and the shape of the edge.