When Many Ideas Align

The the market is in an uptrend. For a technical trader, the reason is irrelevant, the chart says it is so. As a result, my day trading plan is to buy retraces until that strategy fails two days in a row.

Trading is an art form, rather than a science, but a rigorous plan is essential to find high probability trade ideas. There are as many trading plans/styles as there are traders. While I rely on Fibonacci structures, I am cognizant of several other trading methodologies and attempt to understand where/how those traders might participate in the market. The following chart is the E-mini SP500 December futures contract on a 987 tick time frame and shows that today was a great day to have that awareness of other trading styles. Find the label "LONG HERE" as I will discuss why this was a high probability long trade entry:

Click to enlarge

"LONG HERE" represents the confluence of six different trading ideas.

1. Today's high measured as a 161.8A (head and shoulders pattern, green fib retracement tool). When the 161.8A is achieved, we expect B to be a 78.6, 100, 112.8 retrace of YA (black fib retracement tool). Since my plan is to buy retraces, I did not consider the short at the high. But the 78.6 retrace of YA could be a B or an A. In either case, this suggested a turn up in price.
2. While I don't trade 200 A patterns, the red fib measurement shows the top as a 200 fractal A (fractal, because on this time frame the XY leg did not cross the 50MA). As with most patterns, the destination is the 161-224 extension of the XY leg (X fr, Y fr in this case) and represented by the purple hashed box. When patterns complete, price either consolidates, continues, or reverses. Nothing earth-shattering here, other than the awareness that a reversal could occur and chart out the destination of all patterns.
3. As mentioned the market is in an uptrend, there are traders who sell to or buy at "gap fills." A gap is the price space created by traders during ETH (extended trading hours). The Previous Day Close is the purple dashed horizontal line. The Previous Day High is the red dashed horizontal line. Some traders consider gaps to range (red line) or gaps to close (purple line). The price vibration at yesterday's high suggested that short-term visual traders in were control and that gap on close may be their next short target, or the location that others may step in to turn price up.
4. Some traders use pivot points based on RTH (regular trading hours range) range. The Pivot Point calculation is based on the previous day: (High+Low+Close)/3 and is represented by the pink horizontal line. Pivot points (PP) may be considered support or resistance so the inability to break the PP would influence those traders to initiate a long.
5. Some traders use market profile. Yesterday's Value Area high is represented by the green dashed horizontal line. The inability to break into yesterday's value area would be considered strength, so traders who lean on market profile might have initiated a long trade.
6. Finally, larger time frame Fibonacci style traders may have measured yesterday's RTH low to today's RTH swing and considered the 61.8% retrace (light blue Fibonacci tool) a sufficient momentum retrace to initiate a long position.

Six reasons. You could ask for more, but you will not get many trades if you do.

That said, notice that price stopped at the 78.6 retrace of the recent swing (dark gray Fibonacci tool). This is a typical location for day time frame traders to change the direction of price. 

If the market closes without making a higher high then I might consider shorts tomorrow.

Trade what you see, but keep in mind what others see too.