What it is
Every trading day, before the open, the system builds a one-page card for ES from three kinds of input:
- Structure — yesterday's Market Profile (value area, point of control, tails, single prints), the 10-day balance, untouched "naked" levels from the last 30 sessions, and the supply and demand zones approved from each day's profile.
- The overnight — the Globex open, high and low, where price sits at build time, the VIX and its direction since the prior close, and who was hitting the market overnight.
- History — every day since 2008 with the same fingerprint (gap size, open location, prior-day shape) and what those days did: how often they closed up, how far they ran, whether they took the prior high or low.
From those the card writes, by rules only, the starred level map, the four trades that can happen with their triggers and stops, a set of checks, and a plain-words summary. The card is frozen when it is built; the archive shows the card that existed before the open.
How a trade is read
Entries come from the footprint, never from the level alone. Three questions are asked of every big print: is it at a level the card named; does price make progress past it in the next bar or two; does the other side answer it. A seller who gets nothing is a seller being absorbed. The VIX is the referee when the questions disagree. The Help section walks through the rules with the sessions that proved them.
What it is not
ESLevel is not advice, not a signal service and not a prediction. It is a structured method and a public trading journal. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor; past sessions, including the graded ones, do not indicate future results. Nothing here accounts for your situation — make your own decisions and size for the day you are wrong.
Who
ESLevel is built and traded by Noble, a software developer and futures trader in Michigan. The application behind the site is his own: Market Profile and footprint rules in code, a database of 5-minute ES bars back to 2008, and a journal that grades each card against what the market did. Questions and corrections are welcome on the contact page.