What changes when you mark the chart before the trade

I entered the March cohort still relying on five-minute charts for SPX weeklies. Week four's assignment — mark the weekly only, then compare — showed me I had been buying calls into overhead open interest I never looked at.

Chart Lab on Wednesdays is where I actually practice. The instructor caught me drawing support through a gap I had ignored. Small correction, but I needed someone standing behind my chair.

Private review was blunt in a useful way. Twelve of my twenty trades had entries ahead of the level I had marked. I did not love hearing it, but the drill list afterward was specific.

Volatility weekend was heavier than I expected. I would have preferred one more half-day on term structure. Still, the Monday planning exercise is now my weekly routine.

My broker's IV rank indicator and Thao's hand-drawn skew notes finally clicked together during week five. I stopped selling puts into levels that the chart already flagged as untested.

I commute from Binh Duong for evening sessions. Parking near the classroom is tight on Thursdays — plan fifteen extra minutes. The instruction itself is worth the trip.