Breakout Traders Sharpen Knives | SPX Market Briefing | 22 Oct 2025

Tuesday delivered a masterclass in doing absolutely bugger all.

Main indexes successfully managed SFA – “Sweet Fanny Adams” – barely moving out of the 20-minute and 60-minute opening ranges, only just peeking past previous day’s highs like timid toddlers testing bath water temperature.

Very little has changed from yesterday’s expectations. I remain overall bearish with anticipated movement from upper range to lower range. Crash/Correction season is nearly over now, so I’ll stop banging that particular drum.

SPX remains bearish as I placed my trade and left it alone for the day. The software did trip back to bullish briefly – classic flip-flop behavior. If we open at or lower today, it’ll flip back to bearish. I need to think of a better way of handling these rare occasions where prices flip around a setup like this.

Manually? It’s relatively simple:

Place your trade and come back tomorrow.
Standard practice. One trade decision per day.

Keep reading for trade anatomy.

SPX Doesn’t Need You To Be Right. Just Consistent.

Pulse bar tells you when. Credit spreads handle the rest.

SPX Market Briefing:

Wednesday arrives with markets having accomplished precisely nothing on Monday whilst everyone waited for something – anything – to happen.

Current Multi-Market Status:

• SPX TnT: Bearish (software flipped to bullish temporarily, will revert if open lower – manual trade holding bearish)

• RUT TnT: Bullish (collecting theta nicely, not at BB extremes)

• ES/YM/RTY/NQ: Daily Range-bound consolidation (waiting for breakout direction)

The Sweet Fanny Adams Movement

Tuesday’s price action delivered a masterclass in accomplishing absolutely nothing. Main indexes stayed glued inside their opening ranges like teenagers refusing to leave their bedrooms. Twenty-minute range? Nope. Sixty-minute range? Also nope. Previous day’s highs? Barely a peek.

This is the market equivalent of showing up to work, sitting at your desk, staring at your screen for eight hours, and leaving having accomplished precisely nothing except consuming coffee and oxygen.

Current Status: Range-bound, indecisive, waiting for permission slip

SPX Software vs Manual Trade Discipline

Here’s where things get interesting. I placed my bearish SPX trade and walked away.

Standard practice.
One trade decision per day.
No babysitting.
No second-guessing.
No emotional interference.

The software, however, had other ideas. Briefly flipped to bullish like a confused teenager changing their mind about university courses. Classic algorithmic flip-flop behavior when prices hover around setup triggers.

Manual Approach Response: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Trade placed.
Decision made.
Come back tomorrow.

If we open at or lower today, software flips back to bearish, the manual approach of “one decision per day” prevents the whipsaw nonsense of chasing every minor fluctuation.

Current Status: Bearish trade holding, software temporarily confused, discipline maintained

RUT – The Professional Theta Collector

Uncle Russell continues behaving like the grown-up in the room. Bullish positioning, not at upper or lower Bollinger Band extremes, just sitting there collecting theta like a systematic rent check.

No drama. No flip-flopping. No indecision. Just premium decay working exactly as designed.

This is what boring, profitable trading looks like. Not exciting. Not thrilling. Just mechanically effective.

Current Status: Bullish, theta collecting, professionally unbothered

Crash Season Nearly Finished

Right, I’m officially retiring the “Crash/Correction Season” drum. October’s nearly over. We’ve made it through September and most of October without the dramatic collapse everyone keeps predicting. (Neither did we see Uptober!)

Yes, we’ve had some volatility. Yes, markets have been choppy. But the apocalyptic crash scenario? Not materializing.

Time to stop banging that particular drum and focus on what’s actually happening rather than what might happen based on seasonal patterns.

Current Status: Crash season ending, drum retired, moving on

Breakout Traders Sharpen Their Knives

Today feels like it could be fun for breakout traders. Markets consolidated on Monday doing absolutely nothing. Energy’s building. Ranges are tightening. Something’s got to give.

Either we breakout higher and the bulls get their parade, or we breakdown lower and bears get their feast. Range-bound traders are collecting theta. Breakout traders are waiting with sharpened knives.

Poppers are locked and loaded, waiting for the opening bell.

Current Status: Consolidation energy building, breakout imminent, poppers ready

One Trade Decision Per Day Philosophy

The software flip-flop situation highlights something important about manual trade management versus algorithmic responses.

Algorithms react to every price fluctuation. They’ll flip bullish, then bearish, then bullish again if prices hover around trigger levels. It’s mathematically correct but practically exhausting.

Manual approach? Make one decision. Place the trade. Walk away. Come back tomorrow.

No second-guessing. No emotional interference. No chasing every minor fluctuation. Just systematic discipline applied once per day.

Sometimes the best trading decision is trusting your initial analysis and refusing to be distracted by algorithmic noise.

Fun Fact:

Window Dressing: Wall Street’s Quarterly Fashion Show

At the end of each quarter, fund managers engage in “window dressing”—selling losers and buying winners to make their portfolios look prettier for investors!

Window dressing is Wall Street’s quarterly equivalent of cleaning your room right before your parents visit—frantically shoving all the embarrassing stuff under the bed and putting the good things on display! Institutional investors tend to clean up their portfolios in September and October before the fiscal year ends by selling their worst-performing stocks and sometimes adding exposure to stocks that have performed better, a process known as “window dressing”.

Fund managers spend the last few days of each quarter desperately trying to make their portfolios look like they knew what they were doing all along. They dump the stocks that have been dragging down performance faster than teenagers hide their browser history, while loading up on the recent winners to create the illusion of investment genius. The end-of-quarter effect shows a pattern of high volatility during the last few trading days of an annual quarter, as large funds rebalance portfolios or “pump” positions to boost quarterly performance.

It’s financial theatre at its finest—taking three months of questionable decisions and trying to make them look strategic in the final act. The best part is that everyone knows this game is happening, but they all play along anyway because admitting you bought a dud stock is harder than pretending it was always part of your master plan!

Trade well,
T2 Markets

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