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Bird Trading

Start Here: How Trade Plans Work

5 min read · Updated

What Trade Plans is

Trade Plans is a daily set of day-trade levels for SPY, ES, QQQ and NQ (Index Levels) and for NVDA, TSLA, BTC, GLD, CL and more (Active Traders). Each plan is posted after the US close, for the next session, so the levels are already on your chart before the open.

A plan is a set of prices. It marks where the market has repeatedly turned, and leaves the entry, the timing, the size and the exit to you and the strategy you already trade. Nothing in it says buy or sell, and nothing in it calls direction.

Start here: the method in short

Every plan is built the same way, in every market, every session:

  1. Regular session only. The levels come from the main trading hours of each exchange, when most of the volume trades. Thin overnight prices are left out.
  2. Structure, then levels. Prices where the market repeatedly turned or paused are grouped into clusters, and the center of each cluster becomes a level. The full method is in how the levels are calculated.
  3. Touches and volume. Pro plans list how many times each level was touched and how much volume traded there. Touches show how often traders defended a price, and each test can wear it down. Heavy-volume prices tend to pull price back, because many traders hold positions there.
  4. Posted after the close. Each market's plan is usually posted within about two hours of that market's close, for its next session.
  5. Checked the next day. Every plan recaps what price did at each of the prior session's levels, so every plan can be checked against a real chart.

These rules stay the same from one session to the next.

The three kinds of level

Every price in a plan is one of three things, described relative to where the instrument closed:

  • Resistance sits above price. Sellers have stepped in there before, so a move up into it is a spot to expect friction.
  • Support sits below price. Buyers have defended it before, so a move down into it is a spot where a fall may slow or stop.
  • Pivot is the level nearest the last close. Price usually interacts with it first, which makes it the natural line to judge the session against.

All three record where the market has reacted before, and the session shows whether it reacts there again. The glossary defines every term a plan uses.

The instruments

There are two plans, and All Access gets both:

Because SPY and ES track the same index, trading both doubles the same exposure. The same is true of QQQ and NQ. Most sessions one instrument sets up more cleanly than the others, and the rest are context. Every symbol page is listed under Levels by Symbol.

Free and Pro

The free plan gives you the next session's levels 5 minutes before the open, and every plan reviews how price behaved around the previous session's levels. That review lets you judge whether the levels are worth anything to you, because you are looking at a session that has already closed and can check it against your own chart. Pro gets the levels about 1 hour after the close.

Pro gives you the levels for the upcoming session, usually posted about 1 hour after the US close, with the resistance, pivot and support points, plus the MyLinedChart levels so you can turn your process into rules you run the same way every session. Details are on the subscribing page and pricing.

How a session works around the levels

The routine that gets the most out of a plan is deliberately boring:

  1. The evening before. Mark the pivot and the level either side of it for the one instrument you have chosen. Those three do most of the work in a normal session, because price has to travel through them before it reaches anything further out.
  2. At the level. Set alerts so you don't have to watch the screen. A level is a decision point. Price arriving at support gives you a clean place to find out whether buyers are there.
  3. On confirmation. Take only the setups your own strategy already recognizes, and skip the rest.
  4. After the close. Check whether you followed your process.

The most common mistake is entering the moment price touches a level, without watching how it behaves there. If the level holds and price turns, you have both a reference and an invalidation. If it breaks, that is information too, and the loss stays contained because the level gave you a defined place to be wrong.

Matching the plan to your holding period

These are day-trade levels, built from the regular session and intended for positions that open and close inside it. If you normally hold for days or weeks, the levels still mark real structure, but they turn over every session, so they are a poor fit for a decision you will not revisit until next week.

Pick based on how you actually hold. A trader using intraday levels to manage a multi-week position ends up reacting to noise that has nothing to do with the reason the position exists.

Why some sessions are marked sidelined

Some days the levels do not resolve into anything worth trading. The plan says so. A session with no clean structure is a legitimate outcome, and sitting it out is a position. The S&P pair in particular sidelines together, so SPY and ES appear less often than QQQ and NQ.

Where to go next

Is this financial advice?

No. Trade Plans publishes objective market structure and levels. There are no signals, no calls on direction and no recommendations. You make and own your trades.

Educational content only. Not investment advice.