I recorded this for the Mentorship group but it has fantastic advice for all traders. Please share your thoughts and experiences.

What we’re seeing here is a very aggressive push down, and the timing is important. This is happening before FOMC, not after. And that tells you something straight away. This move is unlikely to be a reaction. It’s much more likely to be positioning. And importantly, this is actually playing out exactly as we discussed earlier. We said that 5000 was acting like a magnet, that liquidity was building below, and that the market would likely come down and take it. That’s exactly what’s just happened. If you look at the structure before the drop, price had been consolidating around that 5000 area for a long time. That consolidation was building liquidity. You had: - Buyers placing stops below the range - Traders trying to buy support - Breakout sellers waiting underneath So below that zone, there was a clear pool of liquidity. And this move has now run straight through it. Not just a tap. A full, aggressive sweep. That tells you two things. First, the liquidity we expected to be there was there. Second, this wasn’t just stop hunting, there was real selling behind it. This is where a lot of traders get caught out. They expect the big move to happen during FOMC. But very often, the move actually starts before. Institutions don’t always wait for the news. They use the time before it to: - Trigger stops - Access liquidity - Build positions Then FOMC provides the volatility to either continue or reverse that move. So what we’re seeing here is not random. It’s preparation. This move confirms that downside liquidity has now been taken. The question now isn’t “will it drop?” The question is: Was that the move… or is that the beginning of the move? Because once liquidity is cleared, the market either continues in that direction… or it has no reason to stay there and starts to reverse. So, now we’re at the key moment. After a move like this, there are typically three outcomes. Continuation Lower If price holds down here, forms weak pullbacks, and continues to press lower, then sellers are still in control. In that case, FOMC could accelerate the downside.

If you look at this 15-minute chart, what stands out immediately is the amount of consolidation we’re seeing around this 5000 area. Price isn’t trending cleanly. It’s moving back and forth, building a range, with repeated pushes above and below the same zone. Now on the surface, people will say this is “the market waiting for FOMC.” And that’s partly true. But the deeper question is this: Is price waiting for FOMC…or is the market using FOMC as the timing mechanism to release a move that’s already being prepared? From a liquidity perspective, this kind of consolidation is exactly what you would expect before a major event. Because during times like this, institutions are not chasing price. They are building positions. And to do that, they need liquidity. That’s why you see this type of behaviour: Price pushes down, finds buyers. Price pushes up, finds sellers. Then rotates back into the middle again Over and over. This tells you both sides are active, but neither side is in full control yet. The market is being held in this area while orders are being filled. That 5000 level is still acting like a magnet. Price breaks below it, comes back above it, rejects, then returns again. That’s classic liquidity behaviour. Below the level, you’ve got stop losses from buyers and breakout sellers. Above the level, you’ve got trapped sellers and short-term profit taking. So price keeps moving between those areas, filling orders. This is not indecision. This is preparation. Is FOMC Moving Price? Most retail traders think FOMC is what moves the market, but institutions usually already have a bias before the event. They’ve already been positioning. They’ve already been building exposure. FOMC doesn’t create the move, it releases it. The market spends time building liquidity, trapping traders, and preparing. Then FOMC provides the volume and volatility needed to move. So it’s less about FOMC causing the move, and more about it providing cover for what was already building. Looking at the structure, we’ve had repeated pushes below 5000, which tells us downside liquidity is being taken. But there’s no strong continuation lower yet.

That 5000 level is acting like a magnet right now, and there’s a reason for that. It’s not just a “level” in the traditional sense, it’s a liquidity zone. Whenever you get a big, clean number like 5000, a lot of orders naturally build up around it. You’ve got stop losses sitting just below it from buyers, you’ve got breakout sellers waiting for a break, and you’ve also got limit buyers trying to catch a bounce. So what happens is price keeps getting pulled back into that area because that’s where the liquidity is. The market is essentially being drawn there to facilitate orders. Now if you look at the structure, you can see this clearly. Price sold off aggressively into that zone, which tells us there was a strong push to take liquidity. Then instead of continuing straight down, we start to see choppy behaviour and multiple returns back toward that same area. That’s not random. That’s the market working through orders. Every time price comes back into 5000, it’s testing one of two things. Either there are still buyers there absorbing selling pressure, or the market is preparing to remove those buyers before moving lower. And this is where the behaviour matters more than the level itself. If sellers were fully in control, we would expect a clean break and continuation. But instead, what we’re seeing is rejection and rotation. Price dips into the area, gets bought, pushes away, then comes back again. That tells you there is still demand sitting there. But at the same time, you’ll notice something else. The bounces are not particularly strong. Price is making its way back up, but it’s doing it in a fairly controlled, almost grinding way. That’s important. It suggests that while buyers are active, they’re not aggressively taking control. And that creates this back-and-forth behaviour where price keeps getting drawn back into the same zone. This is what people often describe as “price being stuck,” but what’s really happening is the market is building and clearing liquidity.