Monday, March 30th, 2026

Context & Trades

We came into Monday with a bearish backdrop from last Thursday and Friday, but overnight inventory was mostly long as futures pushed higher through Asia and Europe back toward Friday's highs. Pre-open, we discussed a key tell: even after a fast tape-driven spike, price still rejected Friday's excess high. If we could not accept above that excess, the plan was to look for rotation lower and inventory correction.

On the surface, pre-open max VEX and max GEX were concentrated around 562 / 560 (with 555 nearby), while VIX was still elevated around 30 and only starting to fade. At the open, max VEX shifted up toward 570 (QQQ roughly near the 620 area), so we discussed a potential one-minute opening-range continuation long into that magnet. But order flow quickly leaned more sell-heavy, and the cleaner setup became downside continuation with 565 and then 560 as key magnets.

Only one trade was executed on stream, the long to max VEX strike, a small scratch for -25p. The one-minute opening-range short broke quickly and never gave a clean backfill entry, so we stayed patient instead of chasing. The original working "bear" thesis remained the same throughout: failed acceptance above Friday's excess highs, combined with the largest GEX strike below at 560, favored continued downside pressure.

Summary

We focused on regime read and level mapping rather than forced execution: rejection at prior excess highs, elevated vol, and a downside magnet structure (565 into 560) inside a still-bearish higher-timeframe trend.

As I write up this report, QQQ is already holding below 562 and looks like it is heading towards 560. Let's see what happens.