Filing this one from a ryokan in Kyoto with the sun coming up over the tatami. Important week for futures – 13 of the 15 markets I cover were down on the week, and only Crude Oil and Natural Gas rallied. Pros were already loaded in both before the move. This is the 17 May 2026 entry in the Weekly Futures Market Recap series – every Sunday I break down the week across 15 of the largest futures markets. Here is what I am seeing on the charts heading into the week of 18 May 2026.
TL;DR – This Week’s 3 Calls
- Only 2 of 15 markets up. Crude pushed to $101 and Nat Gas broke out at $2.80. Big Pro Bars were loaded in both before the move – and Pros have not taken profits on Crude yet, which suggests the Middle East bid stays in.
- CPI ran hot. Bonds got smashed. But Pros are now loading ZN at the lows. Counter-intuitive move on the print, then Big Pro Bars stepping in at the bottom into Friday.
- The Emini topped without Pros at the highs. Expect mid-week support, then a likely retest. The setup for a blow-off above 7600 is still in play – we just need to see Big Pro Bars catch the next move up before the real top is in.
Macro Setup This Week
CPI came in stronger than expected – bonds sold off on the assumption rates have to go higher. The risk-off tone hit almost everything except the two markets with active Pro buying. Equity index futures (the Emini) topped without any Big Pro Bars at the highs, which means this is a technical price turning point, not a momentum top. Expect weakness into mid-week, then a retest of 7500 to 7600 where the real signals will form.
Market-by-Market Breakdown
ES – Emini S&P 500 Futures
Got the blow-off peak we were expecting, then a nasty down day on Friday. Daily chart: cyclical turning point coming up, but no momentum confirmation – no Big Pro Bars or amateur bars at the highs, so this is a technical price turning point rather than something to lean on hard. 135-minute: exhaustion buy and bearish divergence broke us out of the channel. No Big Pro Bars into the highs – I would not be surprised if we run for another exhaustion pattern before the real top. 45 and 15-minute: no Pros at the highs, no amateur RAMBO patterns either; Pros came in on the retrace. 13,500 tick chart: the go-to chart for swing and day trading. Whole family of RAMBO patterns shows the amateurs got short way too early. Big Pro Bars then legged in at the test of the highs, legged out 50 points later. Signal short active. No Big Pro Bars at the lows yet. Expect weakness for the first half of the week, then Big Pro Bars catch it and we test back above 7500 towards 7600.
Trade these setups with the indicators I use on the charts: Better Trading Indicators. More analysis in the Emini Trading archive.
ZW – Wheat Futures: 10% Pump and Dump
Last week we had an exhaustion sell with bullish divergence at the lows – the signal at the end of the week went long and Wheat ran 10% from 608 to 680. Then the reverse: exhaustion buy, bearish divergence, Big Pro Bars at the highs. Market pushed and pushed to freak everyone out, ran a whole bunch of stops, then broke into a downtrend. Textbook end-of-trend reversal.
ZC – Corn Futures: Pro Buying at the Lows
Same family of setups as Wheat – Big Pro Bars at the lows at end of last week, no exhaustion sell at that point but a clean signal long. Wheat was the strongest of the ag charts but Corn traded up too. Big Pro Bars at the highs, RAMBO patterns with amateurs wrong-footed, clean signal short, continued down. Now exhaustion sell with bullish divergence forming at the lows again – interesting if that holds this week.
ZS – Soybean Futures: Accumulation Pattern Forming
Similar pattern to Corn. Exhaustion sell with bullish divergence at the lows, Big Pro Bars at 1168. Tested into the lows, then into the highs – blue professional bars taking profits, signal short, and now Big Pro Bars are starting to come in again at the lows. Pros stepping in twice at this zone. Question for the week: another rally in Soybeans and Corn?
6E – Euro Futures: Big Pro Bars at the Highs
End of last week, blue professional bars stepped in at the highs. Exhaustion buy with bearish divergence, then Big Pro Bars right at the top – market broke into a downtrend. Signal a little earlier but once the exhaustion patterns and Big Pro Bars came in, the move got going. In a downtrend on the Euro – no Pros stepped in at the lows.
6B – British Pound Futures: Starmer Out, Pros Sold the Top
With the political garbage in the UK, the market has finally got the picture – looks like Keir Starmer is out. Exhaustion buy patterns into the highs, Big Pro Bars testing and testing, blue professional bars right at 1.365, market sells off. Signal short came in a little later, now in a clean downtrend. No Big Pro Bars at the lows on the Pound.
6A – Aussie Dollar Futures: Pros Buying at 71.50
Weird Australian budget this week – changes to capital gains concessions on assets held over a year and a rework of trust taxation. Makes Australia more difficult to invest in. Market sold off, but Big Pro Bars now coming in at the lows around 71.50. No exhaustion buy with it yet, so this is not a buy signal – but worth watching given there were no Big Pro Bars at the highs either. Pros are getting in at this stage. Wait and see this week.
6J – Japanese Yen Futures: Downtrend Continues
Down, down, down on the Yen. Odd move last week with Big Pro Bars at the highs but nothing at the lows. Spiked to 64.50, sold off. Exhaustion buy under the lip, but no follow-through. Still in a downtrend – no Big Pro Bars catching it.
ZN – 10-Year Notes Futures: Pros Loading After CPI
CPI stronger than expected this week. Bonds sold off – rates expected up. Counter-intuitive move when the number came out, but at the end of the week, Big Pro Bars are starting to come in at the lows. Professionals were selling it down into CPI, and now they are loading at the bottom. This is interesting – the consensus says rates higher means bonds lower, but the smart money is positioning for the opposite. Could be a rally setup this week if we get the signal.
GC – Gold Futures: Pros Catching the Lows
Short signal this week on Gold, but a whole bunch of Big Pro Bars came in at the lows testing into that level. Rallied from there a little. Pros active at the lows. This is important on Gold – and signals problems with inflation persisting. Setting up for a potential rally if we get the signal this week.
SI – Silver Futures: Profit Taking at 88
The reverse setup to Gold. Into the highs at 88, Big Pro Bars came in – profit taking, not loading. Exhaustion buy with bearish divergence, flush pattern, signal short. Then busted some stops on the upside and broke into a proper downtrend. Gold might catch this week, but Silver is heading down.
BTC – Bitcoin Futures: Pros Bought 79K, Stuck at 82K
Good end to last week, then crapped out with everything else at $82K. At 79K Big Pro Bars stepped in, pushed it back to 82K. They stepped in again with exhaustion, got the move going – now just bouncing off RAMBO patterns. Bitcoin in a downtrend. Ethereum also down – not much to talk about, no Big Pro Bars coming in.
CL – Crude Oil Futures: Pros Loaded $92-96, Now $101
One of only two markets rallying this week. End of last week, Big Pro Bars stepped in at the highs – not at the lows, news-driven, but the area held. Broke into an uptrend, more Big Pro Bars, rallied to $101. RAMBO patterns now, exhaustion buy with bearish divergence – but the Big Pro Bars are loaded at $92-96 and they have not taken profits at $101. That suggests we still have problems in the Middle East and the bid stays.
NG – Natural Gas Futures: Pro Buying the Breakout
The other market rallying this week. Caught at $2.80 end of last week, Big Pro Bars buying this breakout. Let us see where it goes – the setup is clean and the Pros are positioned.
HG – Copper Futures: Topped Out at 660
Copper topped out this week at 660. Big Pro Bars at the highs, big bars at the highs. Clean signal short and Big Pro Bars now coming in starting to sell it down. In a downtrend on Copper.
Pattern of the Week: Reading Pros vs Amateurs at the Highs
The Emini 13,500 tick chart this week was a textbook example of how to read the Pros versus the amateurs at a top. We had seven or eight RAMBO patterns in a row – that is the amateurs getting short way too early. They got pushed out. The market rallied back up, broke above the prior highs, and that is where the Big Pro Bars came in. They legged into the high, legged out 50 points later, legged out again. No Big Pro Bars at the equivalent prior tests – completely different signal profile. This is the difference between a top led by amateurs that the Pros will fade, and a top with Pros actively distributing into strength.
Read more on this approach in Follow the Pros, Fade the Amateurs.
Looking Ahead to the Week of May 18
Weakness in a whole bunch of markets to start the week. Emini continues to sell off, probably caught mid-week – watch for Big Pro Bars and exhaustion sell patterns on the 13,500 tick chart. Could surprise to the upside with a rally above the previous highs. 10-Year Notes could be rallying this week – watch for the signal. Gold setting up for the same. Bullet trains on Monday into the mountains so internet may be patchy.
Full Transcript (click to expand)
Full transcript of the video above, cleaned for readability.
Intro (00:00): Sunday May 17, 2026, just gone 1:02 AM Chicago time. Hope you are doing well – it is the weekend, time for another weekend futures market recap. We are going to go through 15 of the largest futures markets and I am going to show you what I am seeing on my charts. Important week this week, hope you traded it well. Everything was down, down, down except two markets – and I wonder if you can guess what those markets were. Before getting onto the charts, yep, we are still in Japan having a great time. We spent just over a week in Tokyo – loved everything we did there. Now we are in Kyoto for three days. Staying in a traditional ryokan with tatami mats everywhere, no chairs, futon mats, an outdoor two-person bathtub I have been using three times a day, and a breakfast tray that is a real experience. Off to a mountain onsen in a few days for the final part of the trip.
Emini Daily Chart (02:32): We were expecting this. Got a peak, a nice blow-off peak in the Emini this week and then a nasty down day on Friday. We will see the setup for that, but in the higher time frame charts we have not seen professionals step in. The blue professional up bars is what we are looking for in the higher time frame charts to signal an important end to this move. All we are getting is a little bit of profit taking, then market sells off, and then we are going to go back up probably through 7600 to get that blow-off move. We have a cyclical turning point coming up on this daily chart – overshot resistance on the lowest time frame and coming up to bounce off resistance to be caught by the resistance in the next highest time frame. In the next couple of days that resistance will probably plot on this daily chart and that is important. But in terms of momentum on this daily chart, in terms of blue professional bars or amateur bars at those highs, there is nothing on this daily chart. So it is a technical price turning point rather than something we need to worry about more.
Emini 135-Minute Chart (03:40): Going down the time frame. Here we have got an exhaustion buy, bearish divergence and flush patterns up here. In my mind this exhaustion buy is breaking us out of this channel we have been in on the 135-minute chart. That was an important level we busted through and that exhaustion buy is running stops, all of those things to get us going. I would not be surprised if we run for another exhaustion pattern in this move because we have not seen any blue professional up bars into these highs. Bounced off some little amateur down bars here on the 135-minute chart, we kept on going. We have breached resistance on the intermediate time frame, coming up to this resistance on the highest time frame. For the proper cyclical turning point to be confirmed we need to put in a pullback to end of trend on this time frame. We are going to get weakness Monday into Tuesday and then a little rally back into those highs where we put in a pullback to end of trend pattern on that lowest time frame to test into those highs. This initial selling weakness is just temporary – we are going to go back up and test. When we test into those highs, that will be interesting to see. Do we get an exhaustion pattern then? Do we get blue professional up bars into that move? This has not put in end of trends yet on this time frame, so that is important.
Emini 45-Minute Chart (05:03): Again, no blue professional bars into those highs. The last one we had was the breakout into the signal long at 6800 into those highs. In this move, no amateur bars with RAMBO patterns at the highs, no blue professional up bars. In terms of cyclical patterns, you can see we have put in a couple of end of trends on a left shoulder here on the lowest time frame on the 45. But on the intermediate time frame, we still have to put in that pullback to end of trend. I am looking for areas of strength to come in, blue professional bars to trail this stop up. Could be nasty on the way down, selling off, but that is when the professionals will step in, hold this and push back up above 7500 to 7600 or so.
Emini 15-Minute Chart (05:47): Here we got some blue professional bars come in. The beginnings and ends of the weeks are marked by solid vertical yellow lines and this is this week’s activity. We are expecting a little bit of weakness because we had exhaustion buy bearish divergence here. We will see this on the 13,500 tick bar chart. But on this chart we did not have blue professional bars into the highs. The professionals came on the retrace then we rallied back up to 7500. No blue professional bars at the highs. We are still in an uptrend until we see that. The blue professional bars are coming in on the retrace here and here. There might be a little bit early at that point and we have weakened down to 7417. Could expect some more blue professional bars to come in. We have definitely overrun on the 15-minute chart in terms of cyclical patterns – a whole bunch of end of trends, pullback to end of trends on the low, on the intermediate time frames. We have definitely overshot in terms of the trending patterns. Need to come back down, find support in the highest time frame and then have that move up.
Emini 13,500 Tick Bar Chart (07:08): This is the go-to chart for all your swing trading and day trading. Last week we said we had Big Pro Bars coming into those highs. We had exhaustion buy, bearish divergence right on the zero line. We like to wait for a flush. When we came back up to test into those highs, no blue professional bars here. We had one little one. We had a signal into this but you can see these amateurs getting short way too early. Whole family of RAMBO patterns – one, two, three, seven or eight into that low. That is the amateurs getting short – they are way, way too early, so they get pushed out. We rally back up, break above here, and here is the professional activity. Big Pro Bars coming in into this high, into this high. They leg in, they leg out, legging out here. Move up another 50 points, leg out with another portion at this point. We did not have that activity into those highs here, here and here. Looks totally different. So this is suspect, led by the amateurs, goes the other way, takes them out, and that is when the professionals come in – and we have got a nice signal short at the moment. No blue professional bars down here. Had exhaustion buy patterns into those highs. We have got to go find blue professional bars, Big Pro Bars. We are in a downtrend on the 13,500 tick bar chart, but at some point this is going to get caught this week.
Wheat (09:34): Last week I was super keen on the ags – I have been keen on the ags for a long time. So we are going to review the signals we got. Wheat was a doozy. We talked on the weekend – had exhaustion sell, bullish divergence down here, that better momentum signaling everybody had run to one side of the boat but the professionals were stepping in. Nice little signal at the end of the week long and the market just took off into those highs. At 608, we ran 10% to 680 and then we get the reverse. Exhaustion buy pattern comes in, bearish divergence, Big Pro Bars, market pushes and pushes to get everybody freaked out, runs a whole bunch of stops, then breaks into a downtrend. That was Wheat – a great little signal at the end of last week.
Corn (10:21): Similar type pattern into the lows at the end of last week. Big Pro Bars came in. No exhaustion sell at that point but a nice little signal. Market traded up. Wheat was definitely the strongest of the ag charts, but into the highs you can see Big Pro Bars stepping in, RAMBO patterns with the amateurs getting wrong-footed at those highs, nice signal short, and it has continued down. The blue professional bars starting to come in with exhaustion sell and bullish divergence on Corn. Interesting if that is going to hold this week.
Soybeans (10:56): Similar type pattern. Exhaustion sell, bullish divergence, some professionals coming in. No Big Pro Bars but they come in at 1168. Testing into those lows. Into the highs you can see we had blue professional bars taking profits, signal short, and now the Big Pro Bars are starting to come in again. Might be getting short at this point, but definitely down at these lows the professionals stepping in again testing that low. Could mean another rally in Soybeans and Corn this week.
Euro (11:39): At the end of last week, blue professional bars stepped in into the highs. Exhaustion buy, bearish divergence and Big Pro Bars right at the highs – we break down, bang, into a downtrend. Had our signal a little bit earlier, but once we got the exhaustion patterns and the Big Pro Bars in, the move could really get going. In a downtrend in Euro – no one stepped in at the lows to catch it.
British Pound (12:07): Same thing. Finally with the garbage going on in politics in the UK, people are getting the picture and selling down. Looks like Keir Starmer is out. Exhaustion buy patterns into the highs, Big Pro Bars testing, testing, blue professional bars right at the high at 1.365, and the market sells off. Got our signal later, in a downtrend. No Big Pro Bars stepped in at the lows on British Pound – still in a downtrend.
Aussie Dollar (12:32): We had a really weird budget in Australia this week. Not sure what they are trying to do – they changed the rules on capital gains concessions for assets held longer than a year, and changed all of the taxation of trusts. Not sure what the point of all that is – it just makes Australia more difficult to invest in. Market sold off, but at the moment we do have Big Pro Bars coming in at the lows here at 71.50, which is interesting. Not come with an exhaustion buy pattern down there – not time to buy the Aussie by any means, but interesting there were no blue professional bars at the highs. They are getting in at this stage. Wait and see this week.
Japanese Yen (13:20): Down, down, down on the Japanese Yen. Odd move last week – Big Pro Bars at the highs, not coming in at the lows. Spiked up to 64.50 and then sold off. Exhaustion buy under the lip – this trade we have kept on going down. No Big Pro Bars – still in a downtrend on Japanese Yen.
10-Year Notes (13:44): Obviously we had CPI this week and CPI numbers stronger than expected. So a sell-off in bonds because rates are expected to go up. But at the end of the week we have got Big Pro Bars coming in. The professionals selling it down into CPI, we had a counter-intuitive move when the numbers came out, but now Big Pro Bars are starting to come in on 10-Years. Interesting.
Gold (14:11): Short signal this week, but a whole bunch of Big Pro Bars coming in at the lows testing into this low. Rallied from here a little, but you can see we did not have the professionals, the Big Pro Bars active at those lows. This is important on Gold. Held on Gold and again that signals problems with inflation.
Silver (14:35): Took profits at the highs – the reverse on Silver. Into those highs into 88, pro bars come in. Had our exhaustion buy, bearish divergence, flush pattern. Got a signal but then busted some stops up and now we have broken into a proper downtrend on Silver. Gold might catch this week but Silver is heading down.
Bitcoin (14:57): Cryptos had a good end of last week then crapped out with everything else at $82K. So 79K, Big Pro Bars stepped in, pushed it back up to $82K. Stepped in again with exhaustion getting the move going and now just bouncing off RAMBO patterns. Bitcoin in a downtrend – Ethereum also in a downtrend. Not much to talk to because we have not seen Big Pro Bars come in.
Crude (15:24): At the end of last week, Big Pro Bars stepping in here at these highs – not at the lows, a lot of this is news-driven, but that whole area held. Broke into an uptrend, more Big Pro Bars and we rallied up to $101. RAMBO patterns at the moment, exhaustion buy bearish divergence, but the Big Pro Bars are in here at $92-$96. So they have not taken profits yet at $101 – that would suggest we are still going to have problems in the Middle East.
Natural Gas (15:59): Same thing at the end of last week. Caught at $2.80, rallied, Big Pro Bars buying this breakout. Let us see where that goes on Natural Gas.
Copper (16:11): Topped out this week at 660. Big Pro Bars come in, big bars at the highs. Got our signal short and Big Pro Bars coming in starting to sell us down. In a downtrend on Copper at the moment.
Wrap: Weakness in a whole bunch of different markets. The Emini going to continue to sell off, probably be caught mid-week – watch for the Big Pro Bars to come in, exhaustion sell patterns on the 13,500 tick bar chart, and then it might surprise us with a rally up above the previous highs. See where these big markets like the Euro end up going. 10-Years could be rallying this week – wait to see if there is a signal. Gold potentially the same thing setting up for a rally. Taking bullet trains Monday off into the mountains – not sure how good the internet will be where we are staying. Hope your trading goes well this week.
Want These Calls With the Indicators I Use on the Charts?
Every market section above was called using my Better Trading Indicators – the same Big Pro Bars, RAMBO patterns, exhaustion buy and exhaustion sell signals you see in the video. They work on TradeStation, NinjaTrader, MultiCharts and TradingView. See the Better Trading Indicators and trade Monday with a plan.
