Notes from the first half hour, without a forecast

The cash open in Seoul is a crowded half hour. The morning tape hour exists so that crowding is written down while it is happening, on a sheet that has room for about twelve lines. Bae Nari stops the room when a sentence starts to predict the close.

Three lines that fit

Line one names the prior day’s volume extreme, so the open has something to be compared with. Line two says whether the first ten minutes were heavier or lighter than that extreme’s typical opening burst — we keep a small handwritten range from recent mornings on the back of the sheet, updated by the room, not taken from a feed. Line three says where price sat inside the opening range when the burst faded.

That is enough. Students who add a fourth line about “what should happen next” are asked to fold it under. The sheet is a record of participation, and a forecast is a different piece of paper we do not hand out.

Urgent and quiet are both visible

Some opens print a tall column before 09:15 and then go quiet. Some opens stay moderate and steady through 10:00. The first is urgent participation that spent itself. The second is a crowd that kept arriving in smaller amounts. On the sheet those are two sentences. They lead to different questions at 10:30 — whether the early burst was absorbed, or whether the steady arrival is still the story — and the questions are allowed to stay questions.

If you cannot be in Seo-gu at 09:00, the same three lines can be practiced on yesterday’s open during a marked review. The live hour is stricter only because the pencil has to keep up.

Sittings that practice this kind of note are listed under clinics. The pace of the four-evening clinic is on the ledger.