Okay here's a pic for you. The area in the rectangle corresponds to my comments at 9:52 yesterday (big seller) and 10:06 (buyer at 275.75).

Essentially, everytime the price rose to 276.05 a seller stepped in with a sell order. Draw a line right across the tops. You can see the volume, each order was around 350k shares which is a pretty good line to drop on the market at once and everytime he did that, it cleared the (level 2) order book clean for about 10c and then the market would drop about 30c in response. It's not unusual for the SPY to transact 350k shares in a minute... but in one second, it denotes a seller with serious intent.

In the same rectangle, you can see the buyer holding the bottom at 275.75. I saw him the first time he held but the price bounced quickly. Around 10:05 where there's about 4 bars in a row testing the level, it became very evident that the buyer was not going to drop. Not only was he absorbing the sales, he was over-buying in response which you cannot see on the chart. He invested about 1-2 million shares to hold that level, not an insignificant amount.

Anyway, that's a brief description of what was happening at that time, to say nothing of why it was happening or what it all means.

Very cool, you can see it all unfolding with the volume bars and range of the candles. The ones at 9:52 and 9:53 are interesting, the seller's first attempt to counter, huge volume with very little movement in price. Can definitely see the buyer holding the bottom line at 10:04, and then at 10:06 he really turned on the juice. At 10:09, maybe a last ditch effort, lots of volume and narrow price bar range, turned it around one more time but not enough and price rose nicely from there. Buyer was not to be denied

Thanks for sharing @MarkB, much appreciated.

Yeah that's pretty much it.

I'm really disappointed with myself for misjudging the activity I was seeing last week. I felt in complete disharmony with the market and now I think I understand why. Here I am watching this big seller on the tape, everyday, wondering to myself about his caution, and I concluded that he was discreetly building into a huge short position... And now I'm fairly certain that I was completely incorrect, and the selling was actually a buyer carefully unwinding a substantial long position. (insert expletive here) Had I known that, I could've played along all week.

If I'm back in harmony with the market, and I think I might be, I predict next week will start with a quick dip, followed by a run-up to 280-281 where liquidity awaits, some consolidation, and then round 2 of the fed sell-off.

Thoughts?

You're asking me? LOL. My data feed is only the base CME package so I can't look at SPY real time. Pulled it on https://www.tradingview.com/ and looks like a little gap at around 280.20 from Feb 1st waiting to get filled, and really strong liquidity to be had at ~286.65. I'm a newb to this (and all I trade is the 6E, the only market I've really followed) but I'd be expecting a strong reaction at both of those; could probably anticipate a nice short unless bulls power up through it, which you would see on the tape before any of us chart guys would

Good luck, looking forward to this week and maybe a couple of your charts with analysis

Well, only one way to find out.

I am interested this morning to see how things play out today, with such a strong close, the order imbalances created a gap up in the premarket that's been holding at 279.35.

My views about the markets near-term future are pretty bearish, I will admit. With the fed committed to unwinding their QE position, the economy on the upswing, asset prices at inflated values, interest rates rising... it looks like it's almost time to put the brakes on again. And stock buybacks... oh stock buybacks... imo, share repurchases are going to be the catalyst for the next major failure.

However, I will try to keep those opinions out of my intraday trading and instead, trade what I see and not what I think. Tougher than it sounds. I definitely need to work on being more patient and picking my spots more carefully. I've been out of sync lately, so hopefully today I can get some mojo back.

i'm seeing a buyer at 279.50 but... well I was going to say he's not getting super aggressive yet but he seems to be turning up the heat now.
let's see if he can hold above .50 or .40

He's starting to pump buy orders in around .20 pretty aggressively but if price can hold below .40, we might see some downside.

Price was leaning in the .20's and he just cleared the book with buy orders.. yikes.

this guys got some strength, thinking about a long here..

Seller just stepped in at .40 full of piss and vinegar.