28 Intraday Reversals in 3 Months. The S&P Is Breaking Every Trend-Following System I Run.

I run three trend-following strategies on S&P futures. Two are momentum-based, one is a breakout system. All three have been getting chopped to pieces since January. I thought it was me. Bad entries, late exits, position sizing too aggressive. Spent two weekends backtesting different parameter sets. Nothing helped. Then I pulled the actual data on intraday reversals and it clicked. The S&P 500 has reversed intraday direction 28 times in the last 3 months. That's the highest count since 2015 and the second highest since the 2008 financial crisis peak of 35. Nearly half of all trading sessions in this window erased the opening gap or opening move entirely. My systems weren't broken. The regime changed. What an "Intraday Reversal" Actually Means I'm defining it the same way most quant desks do: a session where the market opens in one direction (gap up or strong first-30-min move), then closes in the opposite direction by end of day. Gap up, close red. Gap down, close green. 28 out of roug