The weakness we called last week arrived, and the Emini gave back 180 points from the prior week’s high and broke 7738. What it did not do was bring out a single Blue Professional bar at the highs, which tells you who was doing the selling. This is the 23 August 2026 entry in the Weekly Futures Market Recap series, covering 15 of the largest futures markets.
TL;DR - This Week’s 3 Calls
- Emini: the sell-off is Amateur-led, not a top. 180 points off the highs and 7738 broken, but no professional profit taking at the highs and the stop is miles away. I want a flush pattern on the 135-minute chart and Blue Professional bars around 7660 before this turns.
- Aussie Dollar: the trade is still live into 72. Friday’s blue Professional bar at the highs is a first technical level of profit taking, not the top. My target sits at 71.80 and I expect more Blue Professional bars this week to finish the job.
- Alternative assets ran while the dollar sold off. Bitcoin 25% to almost 80K, Ethereum 30% from 1900 to 2600, Gold to 4700 and Silver to 70. Professionals are legging out of Gold from 4500 up through 4650, so expect fireworks there.
Macro Setup This Week
Every piece of commentary this week was bonds, bonds, bonds and rates. That was the most boring story on the board. The 10-Year Note chart has no consensus and no trend, and it has been batting backwards and forwards with nothing to trade. The real story was the US dollar selling off, which lit up every forex chart and dragged the alternative assets with it. Money printing is back, and that is the cleanest explanation for why Bitcoin, Ethereum, Gold and Silver all took off in the same week while the Emini was the most boring market of the lot.
It is the last week of August heading into September, and we have not had the summer doldrums we normally get. Two weeks of genuine movement, and no sign yet that it is finished.
Market-by-Market Breakdown
ES - Emini S&P 500 Futures: Amateur Selling, No Professional Exit
The Emini was the most boring market of the week, and it still gave back 180 points. Daily chart: Amateur up bars into the prior highs with Rambo patterns on the lower timeframes were the warning, and we got the weakness. There was no professional profit taking at the highs, the stop is miles away, the background is red and we are still in an uptrend. Price is heading toward cyclical support but is a few days away from the cross. The down bars are Amateur down bars, which means the move down is weak too - and it is even more pronounced on the Dow and the Nasdaq. 135-minute: bars have turned white but this is not a confirmed downtrend. The Professionals were last active well below here and never took profits on any of the highs. Bullish divergence right on the zero line means wait for the flush pattern - higher volume selling to the downside that turns this resistance into support. 45-minute: the low of the Amateur sequence was 7738, we tagged it, squeezed, and broke down. Cyclical resistance is still trending down and we need another blue Professional bar on this timeframe to stop the move. 15-minute: a month ago the Professionals stepped in at the lows with Big Pro Bars and a pro box, and we rallied from there. Now the background is grey, there is no exhaustion sell at the lows, and I want an exhaustion pattern before this turns. 13,500 tick bar: Professionals took profits above 7800, we weakened into a downtrend, and they have taken profits down at the lows. We are testing into those lows with the background in red, but there is no signal yet because we have not tested back up. Watch for blue Professional bars around 7660 to start the rally. These are the reads I take straight off Better Trading Indicators on every timeframe.
6E - Euro Futures: Professional Profit Taking Into 1.17
The Euro has run from 1.14 to 1.17 over the last several weeks and it has been a lovely move. Big Pro Bars came in at 1.16 last weekend, the Professionals came back in on the retrace, and we never got a signal short after them. Into the 1.17 highs they have now started to take profits and we got the first signal up there. Down at the 1.14 lows there were pro boxes but not Big Pro Bars - now we have the reverse at the highs. Watch for a continuation test into 1.17 and a bit, then a roll over.
6B - British Pound Futures: Rambo Patterns, No Professional Exit
The British Pound has rallied four weeks running and I still cannot tell you why. We had a nice signal at the lows, no exhaustion and no Big Pro Bars, just pro boxes, and it has gone straight up since. Into the highs we have Rambo patterns but no blue Professional bars taking profits. That means we can weaken out of the Rambo patterns, but the rally is still in play until Professional bars show up at the highs.
6A - Aussie Dollar Futures: First Profit Taking Below the 72 Target
The Aussie Dollar has been very good to me and the profit target sits at 71.80, just under 72, which is an important number on the higher timeframe charts. Friday’s bar was a blue Professional bar into the highs with a pro box - the first sign of profit taking. Blue Professional bars had been legging in the whole way up and they did not take profits at the earlier highs, so this looks like a technical level rather than the end. The lows had Big Pro Bars and then a single Big Pro Bar right at the low, with the exhaustion sell arriving after the Professional bars - a bouncing ball pattern. I expect more Blue Professional bars this week to top it out and take me out on the final rush into 72.
6J - Japanese Yen Futures: Big Pro Bars at the 62.70 Lows
Last weekend the Japanese Yen had Big Pro Bars coming in on the retrace, not at the lows, and I said that was them pushing price up to get traders freaked out rather than real buying. They then pushed it down to 62.70 and that is where the Big Pro Bars showed up, along with exhaustion buyers getting the move going. Price rallied, no blue Professional bars took profits at the highs, and it has weakened back into a nice retracement. This sets up a stair step trade with a blue Professional bar at the retracement low. If equities sell off and the yen carry trade unwinds, the yen has fuel.
ZN - 10-Year Note Futures: No Consensus, No Trade
Everybody is obsessed with rates and the 10-Year Note chart shows nothing. There is no consensus on rates up or down, no decent trending moves, just backwards and forwards. Big Pro Bars came in at the lows a couple of weeks ago with an exhaustion sell and we rallied from there, but the Rambo channel read is not there. Maybe the 30-Year tells a different story. On this chart there is no trade.
GC - Gold Futures: Professionals Legging Out From 4500
Gold pushed to 4700 after three weeks of me asking when the rally was going to get going. It finally took off three weeks ago through a whole series of long signals. The short trade off the earlier Rambo patterns was not takeable because there were no blue Professional bars taking profits at that point. Now there are. This is textbook legging out: profits taken at 4500, price keeps going to 4575, more profits, then 4650 and more profits again. The background is still red and it is still an uptrend, but expect fireworks and watch for the turn this week.
SI - Silver Futures: 70 High, Profit Taking Into 64
Silver came up to 70 and the same pattern is showing. Professionals took profits into 64 but there was no signal to reverse at that point, and now there is a little more profit taking at the highs. It has been a nice run, but the signals here were not as clean as Gold’s - if you were trading the metals this week, Gold gave you the better chart.
BTC - Bitcoin Futures: 25% Run to Almost 80K
Bitcoin ran roughly 25% and almost touched 80K. Last weekend the chart was full of squeeze patterns, which meant a trending move was coming, but the Professionals had been active in the middle rather than at the lows. As soon as price broke through 65K they got involved and the move took off. There is some profit taking around 72K but nothing at the absolute highs, so the Professionals have not called time on this yet. Remember Bitcoin trades 24/7, so the bars after Friday’s line are weekend activity.
ETH - Ethereum Futures: Up 30% From 1900 to 2600
Ethereum was quiet for three or four weeks and then added roughly 30%, from 1900 to almost 2600. The move started with an exhaustion sell and bullish divergence, then blue Professional bars, then another exhaustion sell pattern, and then it went. There is still no trend signal against it, which means this run has not been given back yet.
CL - Crude Futures: Professional Profit Taking at 88
Crude has had a nice run and the Professionals have started to take profits at 88, with an exhaustion buy and blue Professional bars up there. There were no signals at the lows, barely a blue Professional bar, then squeeze patterns and a break out of them. The Professionals did not come back in to buy the last low - they pushed through and tested that level again. Watch for a decent signal short out of this.
NG - Natural Gas Futures: Nothing Worth Trading
Natural Gas gets one line this week, and that line is that I do not want to talk about it. No clean professional activity, no signal, nothing worth risking money on. Some weeks the right call is no chart at all.
HG - Copper Futures: Exhaustion Buy and Bullish Divergence
Copper put in this week’s best setup on the long side: exhaustion, Big Pro Bars and bullish divergence, and it has started to rally. If a clean signal prints here, this is one that can run.
ZC - Corn Futures: Big Pro Bars Into the Highs
The ags took off and Corn was huge. Big Pro Bars went in right at the highs and it has not rolled over yet. That is exactly the sequence that precedes a signal short, so watch for it to confirm this week.
Pattern of the Week: Who Is Doing the Selling
A 180-point drop feels like a top. It is not one unless the Professionals made it. On the Emini this week every down bar into the weakness was an Amateur down bar - the Professionals never took profits at the highs and never sold into the break of 7738. That is the whole distinction the Follow the Professionals approach exists to make: price tells you what happened, average trade size tells you who did it. A move led by Amateurs runs out of puff in both directions, which is why the up move died at the highs and why this down move has not accelerated. The next thing to look for is not lower prices, it is a flush pattern with higher volume selling that hands the Professionals a low worth buying.
Looking Ahead to the Week of 24 August 2026
I want a nasty little sell-off in the Emini early in the week to flush people out and bring the Professionals back in - a flush pattern on the 135-minute chart and resistance turning into support down here. If instead we turn around in the first couple of days without it, treat the rally with suspicion. Elsewhere: more Blue Professional bars to top out the Aussie Dollar into 72, a possible roll over in the Euro, fireworks in Gold as the Professionals keep legging out, and signal shorts to watch on Crude and Corn. Follow the Professionals, Fade the Amateurs.
Full Transcript (click to expand)
Full transcript of the video above, cleaned for readability.
Intro (00:00): Sunday, 23 August 2026, just gone 1:52am Chicago time. Hope you are doing well. Time for another weekend futures market recap, going through 15 of the largest futures markets and what I am seeing on my charts. We had the weakness we expected - down about 180 points from the high of the prior week, and we also broke that important 7738 number on the Emini. Is it all done to the downside? I do not think so. The Emini was the most boring market of the lot, because everything else exploded to the upside. The forex charts went nuts, Bitcoin went nuts, Ethereum went nuts, and Gold and Silver got dragged along. All I saw in the commentary was bonds, bonds, bonds and rates - the most boring story of the week, with nothing going on in the 10-Year chart. Maybe it is just that the money printing is back: the US dollar sold off, forex markets took off, and the alternative assets took off.
Emini Daily Chart (01:22): The prior week we had Amateur up bars into the highs and Rambo patterns on the lower timeframe charts, and I said expect weakness, because a move driven by Amateurs runs out of puff. That is what we got. There was no professional profit taking up at the highs, the stop is miles away, the background is red and we are still in an uptrend - we just ran out of steam. On cycles we are heading down toward cyclical support on the daily but we are a few days away from that cross turning up. The down bars are Amateur down bars, which means the down move is weak too. These are Amateurs heading down, not Professionals selling off because they think the top is in. It is even more pronounced on the Dow and the Nasdaq. So we wait for the Professionals to step in - after a collapse, or after it simply ends and we continue back up.
Emini 135-Minute Chart (02:53): Rambo patterns last week into the move, and the low of that Amateur sequence was 7738. When that got tagged we fell through it, tagged back up to it, and came on down. On the intermediate timeframe the bars have turned white, but this is not a confirmed downtrend - we have weakness in price, not in Professionals. The last time the Professionals were active was well below here and we are still above that low, and they did not take profits on any of the highs, so we are still in an uptrend. We have a bullish divergence right on the zero line, which says wait for the flush pattern: higher volume selling to the downside that turns this resistance into support. We do not have the cross on the highest timeframe yet, with the red bars underneath the cyan bars, so that energy is still heading down.
Emini 45-Minute Chart (04:17): Again, Rambo patterns at the top of the move, and the low of that move was 7738. We tagged it and got a squeeze pattern, where support and resistance lines and price get really close together, and we broke out of that into a trending move. It has not been strong on the way down yet. Cyclical resistance on the highest timeframe still has that energy trending down. We have had one small pullback to end of trend. I think we need to see another blue Professional bar on this timeframe to stop the move, so there could be continued weakness here.
Emini 15-Minute Chart (05:05): I am adding vertical solid yellow lines to mark the beginnings and ends of the week. A month ago the Professionals stepped in down at the lows - Big Pro Bars, blue background, a blue pro box - and we rallied from there. All we had at the recent highs was Amateur bars and Rambo patterns, and we weakened from there. We have not had an exhaustion sell on the downside yet, the background is grey and we are in a downtrend, and no blue Professional bars have stepped in at the lows. A little bit here, but I think we head down and put in an exhaustion pattern on this timeframe before this turns around. On cycles, a pullback to end of trend on the left shoulder and on the intermediate timeframe on the head. Maybe a small bounce from those cyclical patterns and then back down to flush everybody out.
Emini 13,500 Tick Bar (06:06): At the end of last week we had a nice move with blue Professional bars who had not taken profits at the earlier highs. On the retrace they got in, pushed it up, and then we saw them at those highs - blue boxes, blue bars, but not Big Pro Bars. That was a technical place where the Professionals were taking profits above 7800, and we weakened from there with a nice signal into a downtrend. They have taken profits down at the lows. One bar on the retrace, more Big Pro Bars stepping in, no Big Pro Bars here, exhaustion sell at that point, and we are testing into those lows with the background in red. There is no signal yet because we have not tested back up. Let us see if they push us down and blue Professional bars step in around 7660 or thereabouts and we start to rally.
Emini Wrap (07:11): Not super exciting, just ratcheting down 180 points from the highs, which is decent. Possibly this turns around in the first couple of days of the week, but my guess is that we need to flush some people out. We have to put in a flush pattern on the 135-minute chart and find that resistance-to-support down here. Maybe some fireworks early in the week.
Euro (07:44): The forex charts were great this week. Last weekend on the Euro we had Big Pro Bars come in at 1.16 and they kept going. They came back in on the retrace and we did not get a signal short after those Big Pro Bars, so we kept rallying into the 1.17 highs where they started to take profits. We got the first signal up there, but that was a nice move over the last several weeks - we bottomed at 1.14 with blue boxes at the lows, although not Big Pro Bars. Now we have the reverse. Let us see if we get a continuation testing into 1.17 and a bit and then roll over. Exhaustion buy with bearish divergence at the highs, a rush for the doors, exhaustion sell and bullish divergence at the lows. A lovely run from 1.14 to 1.17.
British Pound (08:42): The British Pound has also rallied. We had a nice signal down at the lows - no exhaustion, so no Big Pro Bars, just pro boxes - and it has rallied for four weeks. I have been asking why, and who knows. Into the highs there are Rambo patterns but no blue Professional bars, so we could get weakness out of the Rambo patterns, but I still want to see Big Pro Bars or Professional bars at the highs. The rally is still in play.
Aussie Dollar (09:16): This has been very good to me and my target sits at 71.80, with 72 an important number on the daily and higher timeframe charts. We had the first signs of profit taking with Friday’s bar - a blue Professional bar into the highs and a pro box up there. Blue Professional bars had been legging in and getting the move going the whole way, and they did not take profits at the earlier highs. There was one squirrely bar, probably an RBA announcement, a bit of uncertainty, and then we just kept going. Exhaustion sell with bullish divergence, because the Professionals had not taken profits earlier and they gamed it up. I did not take profits at that bar because there was a lot of professional activity there and I am expecting more fireworks and more Blue Professional bars to top this out. That is just a first technical level of profit taking. At the lows we had Big Pro Bars and then a single Big Pro Bar right at the low, with the exhaustion sell arriving after the Professional bars - unusual that way around, a bouncing ball pattern - and we rallied from there. A super nice trade. Let us hope we get taken out on the final rush into 72.
Japanese Yen (10:51): Last weekend we were talking about the Professionals getting in on the retrace, and I said no, despite the intervention talk. At the end of that week we had Big Pro Bars on the retrace - they were not buying the lows, which is important. Then they pushed it down and the Big Pro Bars came in at the lows around 62.70, with a whole bunch of activity and exhaustion buyers getting the move going. No exhaustion sell ended it, but they were very interested there. We rallied, no blue Professional bars took profits at the highs, and we have weakened from there. I am looking for a stair step trade with a blue Professional bar at this retracement. If we get a sell-off in equities and a run on the yen carry trade, we get strength in the yen from there.
10-Year Notes (11:56): There is nothing here, and I do not know why everybody is obsessed with rates. There is no consensus on rates up or down, or bonds up or down. Maybe there is on the 30-Year chart, which I have not looked at, but there is nothing here - just batting backwards and forwards with no decent trending moves. Big Pro Bars came in down at the lows a couple of weeks ago with an exhaustion sell and we rallied from there, but Rambo patterns to a Rambo channel? No, I do not see it. It is all happening in the other markets.
Gold (12:34): 4700. We had all of these signals, and a couple of weeks ago I was asking when this rally was going to get going - three weeks in a row saying we have got to rally. It went nowhere and then finally took off three weeks ago into a whole series of long signals. Now we have a bit of profit taking. You would not have taken the earlier short trade, because it was based on blue Professional bars way back and those were Rambo patterns with no blue Professional bars taking profits. Now we have them. The Professionals leg in and leg out of markets: at 4500 they took some profits, it kept going to 4575, they took some more, then 4650 and more again. They are starting to leg out. It has not been a whole bunch of blue Professional bars and there was no pro signal at that point, but we had them here, so I would expect a bit of fireworks on Gold. Still an uptrend, background in red. Let us see if it turns around this week.
Silver (13:46): Same thing. We have come up to 70. We had them taking profits into 64 but no signal to reverse at that point, and now a little more profit taking at those highs. It has been a nice run. Silver did not give clear signals, but Gold definitely did.
Bitcoin (14:06): Up to almost 80K - we almost touched it. Remember Bitcoin trades 24/7, so this is the Friday line and what follows is weekend activity where Bitcoin is weakening a little. In last weekend’s video we were talking about a whole bunch of squeeze patterns, which means we squeeze out into a trending move, but we had not seen Big Pro Bars. They had been active in the middle but not at the lows. As soon as it broke through 65K they got involved and it took off to the upside. Maybe some profit taking at 72K, but not on the absolute highs. A super big run - about 25% on Bitcoin.
Ethereum (14:50): Similar, but Ethereum is up about 30%, from 1900 up to almost 2600. Here we got a signal coming out of the move. Ethereum had been very quiet for three or four weeks. Exhaustion sell and bullish divergence got the move going, some blue Professional bars, another exhaustion sell pattern, and then bang, it took off to the upside. Still no trend signal against Ethereum.
Crude (15:15): We have some profit taking at the highs. There were no signals at the lows down here, not even a blue Professional bar - one or two happened. Squeeze patterns, we came out of that. No blue Professional bars taking profits earlier, but they have started to take profits at 88, with an exhaustion buy and some blue Professional bars there. A nice little run up. I was talking about Big Pro Bars coming at the lows and the highs and expecting weakness after that, but they did not come back in to buy that low - they came back in, pushed through, and tested that level again. Let us see if we get a decent signal short on Crude out of that.
Natural Gas and Copper (15:56): Natural Gas - do not want to talk about that. Copper: this week’s activity gave exhaustion, so Big Pro Bars, bullish divergence, and we have started to rally. Let us see if we get a nice signal on Copper and it starts to run.
Corn (16:09): All the ags started to take off, and Corn was huge. All the Big Pro Bars went into those highs and it has not rolled over yet. Let us see if that ends up being a nice signal short on Corn.
Week Ahead (16:22): That is enough charts for the time being. This is the last week in August and then the beginning of September. It has been exciting for a couple of weeks - not the summer doldrums we normally have. Let us see what happens with the Emini this week. We are going to get a nasty little sell-off to bring the Professionals back in. That will be interesting. Hope your trading is going well.
Want These Calls With the Indicators I Use on the Charts?
Every read in this recap comes off the same three tools on my charts: Better Pro Am for who is buying and selling, Better Sine Wave for the cycles, and Better Momentum for the divergences. The blue Professional bars and red Amateur bars are built from CME average trade size data, not opinion. Get them on your own charts with Better Trading Indicators, and follow the Professionals, fade the Amateurs.
