Lesson 03

Where it opens writes the script

Open location picks the base case and the risk case.

In one lineYou don't choose today's story at 9:30. The open hands you the most likely one, and the job is to know it in advance.

Three questions at 9:25

Five minutes before the bell, the overnight range is final and you know roughly where the cash session will open. Ask:

Against yesterday's value: inside, above or below? (AMT Lesson 07)
Against yesterday's range: inside it, or already outside it?
Against the overnight range: near the top, the middle or the bottom? And was the night mostly long or mostly short?

The answers pick the script. You write the base case first and the risk case right under it.

Opens	Base-case script	Risk case to plan for
Inside yesterday's value	Rotation. Value edges and the POC are the plan's levels	A clean break of a value edge that holds: the day stops rotating
Above value, inside yesterday's range	A test of whether higher prices are accepted. Yesterday's VAH is the line	Back inside value early: the move up is rejected
Above yesterday's high	Either it builds new value up there or it returns. The first hour decides which	A fast return through yesterday's high into value
Below value or below yesterday's low	The same scripts, mirrored	The same risk cases, mirrored

These are structures, not percentages. You will hear rules like "if it opens inside value it stays inside 80% of the time." Treat every one of them as a claim to test on your own sessions before you trade it. The structure is the useful part.

Base case: rotation. Today opens inside yesterday's value and spends the session trading between its edges. The plan's levels were the value edges and the POC. Illustration from simulated prices, not a real session.

A different open, a different script. Opening above yesterday's high, the question is acceptance. The pullback holds outside, new value builds higher, and a rotation plan would have been fading a trend all day. Illustration from simulated prices, not a real session.

Overnight inventory

If the overnight session spent most of its time above yesterday's close, the overnight crowd is mostly long. Long inventory has to be sold at some point, and the open is often where some of it gets sold. That doesn't mean "short the open". It means your risk case gets a line: if the first move down takes out the overnight low's half-way point, the night's longs are leaving. AMT Lesson 10 covers inventory in full.

Write the script in one sentence

At the top of your card, before any levels: "Opens [where]. Base case: [rotation / test of acceptance / trend]. I'm wrong about that if [one thing happens]." If you can't write that sentence, you don't have a plan yet; you have a chart.

Key terms

Base caseThe script the open location makes most likely.

Risk caseThe script that would prove the base case wrong.

AcceptancePrice building trade and time beyond a level.

Overnight inventoryWhether the night's traders ended mostly long or short.

Try it

For the next ten sessions, write the one-sentence script at 9:25. At noon, mark it: base case, risk case, or neither. After ten days you will know which opens you read well, which is worth more than any rule of thumb.

AXIS Desk · The Pre-Market Plan · free. Education only, not trade advice. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss; past patterns do not guarantee future results.