Why I got out

Here is a five minute bar chart of e-mini day session trading. I was long 2 units but sold my position at 908.00. Why?

I thought that today would be a generally up day. On such days the market usually doesn't trade much below its open. Today's open in indicated by the red dotted line.

The initial break on the purchasing manager news was a little discouraging, but not definitive. It carried the market down about 9 points, the size of the biggest reaction on the way up from yesterday's low. It also halted near yesterday's close. I thought the market would rally after that break so I added to my initial position. I expected a quick move to new highs for the day on good volume.

What happened instead was a market that struggled upward on diminishing volume (slanted red line). It made it near back to the day's high. This kind of feeble rally made me nervous because I could see that most of the day's activity had occurred at levels below the opening price, not a bullish sign.

I wanted to give the market a chance to break out to the upside. But I resolved to get out of my longs on any sign of weakness. This weakness indeed developed and I stopped myself out at 908.00.

I am still bullish, but it is starting to look like today is going to be a narrow range day. One thing I don't want to see is a break below the 900 level on increasing volume. That would mean that the market is headed down into the 855-65 zone.