The sessions and their personality

The NQ trades almost 24 hours a day, but it does not behave the same way at 4 a.m. and at the New York open. The time context is part of the signal: the same setup does not have the same value depending on the hour.

What each session does to the order book

• Overnight, liquidity is thin: a 50-lot order matters, and a 300-contract wall looks immense. Levels hold, but a single participant can flip everything. Wall bounce setups (setup 4) work, momentum setups (setup 10) trap you.
• At the New York open, aggression explodes: icebergs reveal themselves, stop runs follow one another, the delta takes on meaning. This is the window for setups 1, 2 and 10.
• At lunch, desks slow down, TWAP algos drip their clips, the range compresses: divergences are frequent but soft. Halve your size or stand aside.
• The afternoon often replays the morning's structure: VWAP test, return to the POC, then continuation or reversal around 2:30 p.m. New York. Setups 4, 5 and 6 are comfortable there.