Everyone is betting on Middle East trouble pushing Crude Oil higher. The Professionals just sold the rally at 76 and are stair stepping it down. Meanwhile the Emini finally cleared the 7600 psychological level with what looks like a gathering pattern of professional buying. This is the 12 July 2026 entry in the Weekly Futures Market Recap series, covering 15 of the largest futures markets using CME average trade size data.
TL;DR – This Week’s 3 Calls
- Crude Oil lower, not higher. Big Pro Bars sold the war-fear rally at 76 and added short at 71.50. Continuation below 70 and then 67 targets new lows. A break above 75.50 invalidates the call.
- Emini explosive week above 7600. Friday closed at 7620 through the 7600 level with a gathering pattern of Big Pro Bars on the 13,500 tick chart. Bullish while the trailing stops at 7560 and 7586 hold.
- Gold signal long off 4050. Big Pro Bars defended 4000, stepped back in on the retrace to 4050, and Gold closed strong into Friday. Silver follows if it clears 61.50 to 62.
Macro Setup This Week
The news flow says war: trouble is back around the Straits of Hormuz and the consensus is that Crude and Natural Gas go higher. The professional order flow says the opposite. Pros sold the Crude rally at 76 and Natural Gas got sold down from 3.30 to 2.90. If the energy complex keeps falling, the inflation story cools, yet 10-Year Notes are in a proper move down, which points to higher rates. Gold is the one market behaving as the uncertainty hedge, with Big Pro Bars defending 4000.
Cross-correlating markets is tricky because the timing differs between markets. Each market gets traded on its own signals, not on confirmation borrowed from another chart.
Market-by-Market Breakdown
ES – Emini S&P 500 Futures: Breakout Above 7600
The Emini closed the week at 7620, finally through the critical 7600 psychological level. Daily chart: uptrend, background red, price above the trailing stop on Better Pro Am, momentum back above the zero line, and the Better Sine Wave lines on the highest timeframe are parallel. The retrace into 7300 support held. 135-minute: a triple pullback to end of trend across all three timeframes – that means consolidation before the next trending move, not necessarily reversal. Resistance sits at 7623 on the highest timeframe. 45-minute: two squeeze patterns with support and resistance wound super tight, and no exhaustion buy printed yet – the breakout fuel is still in the tank. 15-minute: Rambo patterns into Friday’s highs with no blue Professional bars taking profits, so any weakness should get bought. 13,500 tick: the most important chart of the lot. Big Pro Bars appeared on Friday in what looks like a gathering pattern – Professionals absorbing everything ahead of the jump. Triple top at the highs, and markets that make triple tops break higher. Trailing stops to watch: 7560 and 7586. These are the Better Trading Indicators signals doing the heavy lifting.
CL – Crude Oil Futures: Pros Shorting the War Rally
Crude is the chart of the week. War headlines lifted price from 67 to 76, but the Big Pro Bars were not buying the lows – they showed up at 76 with exhaustion buy and bearish divergence, selling it down. Signal short, and a stair step trade is now running: the first Big Pro Bar on the retrace stair steps the trailing stop down, with Pros adding to shorts on strength at 71.50. Continuation below 70 and then 67 opens the door to substantially lower prices. A break above 75.50 says the call is wrong. If the Pros are right, the war trade consensus is about to get blindsided.
NG – Natural Gas Futures: Sold Down to 2.90
Natural Gas fell out of bed again. After the signal short a couple of weeks back, Rambo patterns kept getting it wrong on the way up, then an exhaustion buy brought in blue Professional bars that sold it from 3.30 down to 2.90. No blue Professional bars at the lows yet – just an exhaustion sell that got the move going. This stays a downtrend until Big Pro Bars step in at the lows. Like Crude, this is not what a war-premium market looks like.
GC – Gold Futures: Big Pro Bars Defend 4000
Gold had a decent week, rallying with the global uncertainty. Big Pro Bars picked it up at the psychologically important 4000 level after a couple of tests through it. The Amateurs led the way early in the week at 4200 and got excited too early, but on the retrace to 4050 the Big Pro Bars came back in: exhaustion sell, bullish divergence, blue box at the bottom, signal long, and a strong couple of bars into Friday’s close. A nice pattern after a couple of weeks of testing.
SI – Silver Futures: Watching 61.50 to 62
Silver is tracking Gold. Big Pro Bars got in on the retrace after last week’s signal long, and price tested 58. The level that matters: a push through 61.50 to 62 turns this around and starts signaling long again. Gold and Silver moving in lockstep is nice to see, but each gets traded on its own signal.
ZN – 10-Year Note Futures: Proper Move Down
The 10-Year Notes are in a proper move down. Big Pro Bars got short into the exhaustion buy near the highs, the market rolled over into a signal short, paused where the Pros had added, then broke through. Exhaustion sell and bullish divergence with Rambo patterns are showing at the lows, but the background is gray and the downtrend is intact. Bonds down means rates up – and notably, that is happening while the energy complex says inflation should be cooling.
ZC – Corn Futures: Pros Shorting the Rally at 444
Corn leads the ags story this week – and the ags only look interesting once in a while. Big Pro Bars got on at the lows and rode the rally up to 444 into an exhaustion buy, but on this retrace the Big Pro Bars are shorting the rally around 440. Confirmation comes when the trailing stop on Better Pro Am breaks. Signals could fire later this week.
ZS – Soybean Futures: Rolling Over at 1200
Soybeans topped out at 1200 with blue Professional bars and Big Pro Bars at the highs – exhaustion buy, bearish divergence, flush pattern, then bang. Price has strengthened back up to test 1200, but a break of the trailing stop on Better Pro Am potentially sends Soybeans down. Same setup shape as Corn.
ZW – Wheat Futures: Pros Exit at 648
Wheat shows the same pattern as the other grains. Big Pro Bars stepped in at the lows on the retrace with exhaustion sell and bullish divergence, the market rallied, but back up at 648 the Pros are getting out. A break of the trailing stop on Better Pro Am and a signal short would confirm. This week into next week could be the interesting window for the whole ags complex.
BTC – Bitcoin Futures: Rally to 65K, No Pro Profit Taking
Bitcoin has had a nice run up to almost 65K. Pros got interested on the way down at 59K, price tested, signaled long, and critically there are no blue Professional bars taking profits at these highs. The question for this week is whether it just takes a breather or keeps running.
ETH – Ethereum Futures: Pro Support Holds Toward 1800
Ethereum also had a nice run. Big Pro Bars got involved and did not take profits at the highs. Price tested hard down into 1550 with Amateur bars at the lows, then exhaustion sell and bullish divergence – and the zone of the blue Professional bars has held, with no blue boxes of professional profit taking. Still strong toward 1800. Watch for continuation of the rally this week.
HG – Copper Futures: 610 Holds, 630 Breakout Watch
Copper followed through on last week’s signal with Big Pro Bars at the lows. Price tested hard into 610 and has come back up to 630. A break up through 630 sets up a continuation rally.
6E – Euro Futures: Big Pro Bar Activity at 1.423
The Euro is the only interesting forex chart right now. There is a lot of Big Pro Bar activity, though it did not come with an exhaustion sell at the lows. The 1.423 level needs to hold, and price needs to escape the congestion zone around 1.47 for this to rally. The signal is coming down to test Better Pro Am into the end of the week. The other forex charts stay on the shelf.
Pattern of the Week: The Gathering Pattern
Professionals buy low and sell high – but sometimes they buy high and sell higher. On the Emini 13,500 tick chart, the Big Pro Bars that appeared on Friday were not chasing: they were absorbing everything on offer just below resistance, getting ready for the jump above 7600. Add the triple top – and markets that make triple tops break higher – and you have a textbook gathering pattern. The tell is what did NOT happen: no exhaustion buy at the highs, no professional profit taking. That is how you Follow the Pros instead of fading them.
Looking Ahead to the Week of 13 July 2026
The bingo card for the week: ags heading down, Natural Gas heading down, Crude heading down, Gold heading up. Watch Sunday into Monday for the Emini to confirm the jump above 7600 and for Crude to surprise everybody who has the war trade on. If Crude sells off hard while equities take off, the professional data called it days in advance.
Full Transcript (click to expand)
Full transcript of the video above, cleaned for readability.
Intro (00:00): It is Sunday 12 July 2026, just gone midnight Chicago time. It is the weekend, so it is time for another weekend futures market recap. We will go through 15 of the largest futures markets and I will show you what I am seeing on my charts. We finally got some waves here in Noosa, Queensland, Australia – seven plus days of nasty cold winds from the south blowing everything out, but not this morning. Offshore, two to four feet, glassy barrels, sandy bottom, whales in the background. Spent about two and a half to three hours in the water and the sun was out. And the markets are up. We closed at 7620 and a fraction on Friday, finally through the critical 7600 psychological level. I am also going to tackle Crude first because I know everybody thinks we are going back to war – I will show you the levels at which it turns back into an uptrend, but at the moment it is interesting.
Emini Daily Chart (01:20): Emini at 7620. We are in an uptrend, the background is in red, and we are above the trailing stop on Better Pro Am. We have not seen blue Professional bars in a while, but the little retrace into support at 7300 has held. We have just gone above the zero line on Better Momentum, and the lines on Better Sine Wave on the highest timeframe are parallel. We had a little weakness from the end of trends, but we have settled down and I think this is going to be an explosive week or two. I do wonder if the blue Professional bars, the Big Pro Bars we saw on the 13,500 tick bar chart on Friday, are a gathering pattern – blue Professional bars getting ready for the jump above 7600.
Emini 135-Minute Chart (02:14): Background in red, we are in an uptrend. We bounced off the trailing stop and the blue Professional bars came in, with little Amateur up bars after that. From those we got Rambo patterns in other timeframes, and from those we can sometimes run out of puff and head down. On this chart we have been in a downward trend in momentum – draw a trend line on momentum and watch for a big break above it that takes out the high. It has been tight with all the support and resistance lines coming together. Pullback to end of trend on the lowest, intermediate and highest timeframes – a triple end of trend. But end of trend just means the end of the trending move, not necessarily a reversal into a change of trend. It means consolidation until we break into the next trending move, which should be above the 7623 resistance on the highest timeframe on Better Sine Wave.
Emini 45-Minute Chart (03:33): Squeeze patterns happening – support and resistance lines and price super tight together. We break out of squeezes and congestion into trending moves. We are super wound up, shown by the two squeeze patterns, the cyan boxes. Is the break going to be to the upside? I think so, because momentum-wise we have not printed an exhaustion buy yet, and this could be the week we get that going. Yes, Rambo patterns here and a little weakness after them, but we have kept going through, and the blue Professional bars have stepped in.
Emini 15-Minute Chart (04:40): There are the Rambo patterns. At the beginning of the week we had an exhaustion buy with Rambo patterns – that is unstable – and we fell out of bed into a little weakness. We came back with more Amateur bars at the top of that move, came down waiting for resumption of trend, and the background is in red. Friday printed all those Rambo patterns as we play out support to resistance on the highest timeframe. A couple of weeks ago the same thing happened – Rambo patterns into new highs, Amateur bars, then we fell out of bed – but that came with exhaustion patterns: exhaustion buy, bearish divergence, exhaustion sell getting the move going. Are those present now? I do not think so. The last exhaustion buy got us out of the congestion zone, not at the highs, and there are no blue Professional bars taking profits. So on any weakness out of these Rambo patterns I expect the blue Professional bars to come in, trail the stop up, and we try to blast through to test new highs.
Emini 13,500 Tick Chart (06:03): The most important chart of the lot. Last couple of weeks: exhaustion sell, bullish divergence, long signal, then blue Professional bars – Big Pro Bars with the background in blue – coming in at the end of the week, and on the retrace they really got going at that bullish divergence. Last weekend I said it was not convincing as the end of the move, because they got in at 7450 and out at 7550 – not a big enough move for the Professionals. We went Rambo channel to Rambo channel and came back up. Rambo patterns at the beginning of the week into blue Professional bars, and we did sell off. On the retrace the Big Pro Bars sold it down, Amateurs at the bottom, exhaustion sells, we hold, break back up, and we get a signal long with Big Pro Bars. It is not a classic buying-the-dip: they were selling the retrace, did not come in at the lows, and got involved up here instead. This is a triple top – and the market does not like triple tops; if it makes triple tops, it breaks higher – and that is what we got on Friday. In my mind this is a gathering pattern: the Professionals absorbing everything in the market, getting ready for the jump. They buy low and sell high, but sometimes they buy high and sell higher. The trailing stop on Better Pro Am is tight behind at 7560, or 7586 on the other timeframe. If those levels break, that will be interesting. But there has been no exhaustion buy at the highs – the last one was the signal buying us out of the congestion zone. They tried to sell it and got rid of a lot of sellers with those two exhaustion sell patterns, then a weak exhaustion sell gave us a bullish divergence and we rallied. Triple top plus Big Pro Bars as a gathering pattern, buying everything in sight, waiting for the jump. Let us see if we get it Sunday into Monday. The background is in red until the trailing stop is broken, so we go with the last signal – a long.
Crude Oil (08:51): Everything seems to be going badly in the Middle East – the Straits of Hormuz are back with trouble – and yet we only got a modest rally this week, from about 67 up to 76. The Big Pro Bars were not buying the lows. We had one, plus a Rambo pattern, and rallied with a signal. But then a whole bunch of Big Pro Bars came in at 76 with exhaustion buy and bearish divergence, selling it down. We got our signal short and we are stair stepping down – this is the stair step trade, where the first blue Professional bar after the break into a downtrend (actually a Big Pro Bar on that retrace) stair steps the trailing stop down. They got short and added to their position on strength at 71.50. If this keeps going down, it suggests the worry about Crude prices is over – which cuts against the news feeds talking about the Fed raising rates because inflation is still high. Crude going down takes the foot off the gas on inflation. The levels: a break to new highs above 75.50 shows this is wrong. But continuation Sunday and Monday puts new lows below 70, then below 67, in play to bottom this market – they are using any strength to get short, and we could see Crude quite a lot lower.
Natural Gas (10:54): Natural Gas fell out of bed again this week. We had a signal short a couple of weeks ago, came back to test with Rambo patterns getting it wrong repeatedly, then an exhaustion buy, blue Professional bars step in, bang – they sell it down from 3.30 to 2.90. Those are not blue Professional bars at the lows yet; that is an exhaustion sell getting the move going. This is a downtrend until we get blue Professional bars coming in at the lows, maybe Big Pro Bars. Again – you would have thought Natural Gas would be strengthening if the war was continuing. That is interesting to me.
Gold (11:40): Gold typically rallies with global uncertainty and it had a decent week. They were selling it down earlier but picking it up at the lows – Big Pro Bars at 4000, which is psychologically important. We tested through it a couple of times, Amateur down bars, and we break into an uptrend with no blue Professional bars taking profits. The Amateurs led the way at the beginning of the week at 4200 – a little too excited too early – but on the retrace back down to 4050 the Big Pro Bars came in: exhaustion sell, bullish divergence, blue box at the bottom, signal long, and a strong couple of bars into Friday’s close. Gold looking strong – it has taken a couple of weeks to test into it, but that is a nice pattern.
Silver (12:32): Similar story. Last week we had our signal long with Big Pro Bars getting in on the retrace and on the way down. We tested 58, and we just need to get through 61.50 to 62 to turn this thing around and start signaling long. Gold and Silver are both looking strong.
10-Year Notes (12:54): The 10-Years are heading down. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago – Big Pro Bars came in late in the move, definitely getting short into the exhaustion buy. We rolled over, got our signal short, and then they came in well below where they were getting short on the way up. I wondered if it would just hold there – it did for a while, then broke through. This is a proper move down. Exhaustion sell, bullish divergence and Rambo patterns are showing, but we are still in the downtrend and the background is in gray. Bonds going down suggests rates are going up – but I would suggest not necessarily driven by Crude at this point.
ags and Corn (13:41): The ags are starting to take profits this week. The ags only look interesting once in a while, and this is one of those weeks – signals could be happening in a couple of days. Corn is at 440. Big Pro Bars got on at the lows and rallied it up to 444 into an exhaustion buy, but on this retrace the Big Pro Bars are getting involved shorting the rally. We get confirmation when we break the trailing stop on Better Pro Am. They seem to be getting short on Corn, so Corn is potentially heading down.
Soybeans (14:26): Same thing – rolling over this week. We topped out at 1200 with blue Professional bars and Big Pro Bars at the highs: exhaustion buy, bearish divergence, flush pattern, then bang. We have strengthened and tested back up to 1200, but we just need to break the trailing stop and potentially Soybeans are heading down.
Wheat (14:47): Same type of pattern in Wheat this week. They were getting interested on the retrace, Big Pro Bars stepping in at the lows with exhaustion sell and bullish divergence. We rallied, but back up at 648 they are getting out. Again, we need to break through the trailing stop on Better Pro Am and get the signal short. This week into next week could be interesting in the ags. On my bingo card: the ags heading down, Natural Gas heading down, Crude heading down, and Gold heading up on global political uncertainty. The fundamentals that drive inflation say it should cool off, yet we have rates rallying because Bonds are heading down. This is why cross-correlating markets is tricky – sometimes the logic is not there, and oftentimes the timing is just different between markets. Different markets signal at different times, so I look at each market and the signals it generates individually. Gold and Silver moving in lockstep is nice, but there have been periods where that was not the case. Same with Ethereum and Bitcoin – lockstep is nice, but it should not stop you taking trades if one of them signals independently.
Bitcoin (16:15): Talking of Bitcoin and Ethereum – we have had a nice rally up to almost 65K. They were getting interested on the way down at 59K, we tested, we have signaled long, and there are no blue Professional bars really taking profits at these highs. Let us see what happens to Bitcoin this week – is it going to have a breather after a nice little run?
Ethereum (16:39): Ethereum had a nice run too. Big Pro Bars got involved and did not take profits at the highs. We tested hard down into 1550 with Amateur bars at the lows, and on this last move: exhaustion sell, bullish divergence, and the area of the blue Professional bars has held. No blue boxes – which I like to see for professional profit taking. We have tested the highs and lows of those blue Professional bars and it is still strong toward 1800. Let us see if we get a continuation of the rally this week.
Copper (17:14): We talked about Copper last week – a nice signal with the Big Pro Bars at the lows. We tested hard into 610, and it has come back up to 630. Let us see if we break up through 630 and get a continuation rally setting up in Copper.
Euro (17:33): I am just going to show you the Euro – the other forex charts are not interesting, as I have said for several weeks. But there is a lot of Big Pro Bar activity on the Euro. It did not come with an exhaustion sell at the lows – that almost got the move going. Let us see if the 1.423 level holds; it needs to for this to rally. There is a lot of professional activity here and it is seemingly holding. We have our signal coming down to test Better Pro Am at the end of the week. It needs to get out of this congestion zone around 1.47, and 1.423 needs to hold at the lows. That is the only interesting forex chart I see at the moment.
Wrap-Up (18:29): Hope that was useful. Rest up for this next week, which is going to be really interesting. Let us see if equities take off to the upside, and let us see if Crude sells off and surprises everybody – because everybody is expecting it to go higher with a continuation of war in the Middle East. It would take everybody by surprise that they have the war reading wrong and Crude sells off hard. Hope your trading is going well, and looking forward to next week’s trade.
Want These Calls With the Indicators I Use on the Charts?
Every signal in this recap – the Big Pro Bars, exhaustion patterns, Rambo patterns and trailing stops – comes straight off the Better Trading Indicators, built on CME average trade size data. Follow the Professionals, Fade the Amateurs.
