Pre-open indications, limit fills, and morning levels

Score the open as one procedure

The first print is easier to judge when it is treated as a single opening auction strategy. The archive workflow screens names with an opening indication, sets the trader's own bid and offer from fair value, and then asks whether that print meets a support or resistance level posted on a short list.

Editorial reading: entry, skip, and wait are one morning score. A name that is not indicated, sits outside the opening envelope, or misses the posted level is left alone rather than chased after the first print.

Filter with the opening indication

Opening indications are released before the first print when a stock looks likely to open more than about 35 cents away from the prior close. That opening indication is the first filter on the opening-only list.

Pre-open bid and offer prices are set from fair-value calculations rather than from the last print alone. Fair value, in this usage, is a calculated theoretical open used to place the trader's own bid and offer before anyone prints.

With volatility described as low, the opening envelope around the reference price was given as 0.2 to 0.5. Editorial reading: an opening-only order is close enough to send only when the indicated area sits inside that band.

Work a through-the-touch limit

The limit order is the priced instruction for the open, not a market order that chases the first print. A displayed 20.04 bid and 20.12 offer can still fill a 20.12 buy of 2,000 shares at 20.08 when a crowd seller will trade inside the offer without showing that price.

That inside fill is price improvement. It happens when an undisplayed contra party will trade better than the published quote.

A limit placed a couple of cents through the displayed bid or offer is presented as an adjustment when the book is not filling at the touch.

More selective attempts to buy listed names at a favorable moment are described as producing fewer fills than less timed order entry, because other participants crowd the same prices. Editorial reading: record the miss as implementation cost over the life of the order instead of widening into a chase.

Accept the print only at posted levels

Support, resistance, projected high and low, and pivot numbers are assembled each morning as reference levels for core names. Support and resistance, here, means that posted set of prior highs, lows, projected extremes, and pivot references, so a morning hypothesis can be accepted or rejected against a known price condition.

The opening-only list in the discussed period held seven large-cap stocks with a minimum average daily volume of two million shares. Occasional substitution of a list name is expected, but repeated observation of how a stock trades in the morning is treated as the reason to keep the list small.