What this driver is
Equity futures trade around the clock. When futures are up meaningfully before the regular session opens, institutional investors and international participants have been net buyers overnight. This creates a positive starting position for the day's session.
The driver is tactical and short-lived by nature. It reflects the overnight and pre-market price signal, not a multi-week trend.
What activates it
The engine fetches ES (S&P 500 futures) five-day returns. When ES is up by a threshold amount, the futures risk-on driver activates. The threshold is calibrated to filter out noise and capture moves that are likely to affect the day's session.
What it connects to
Positive futures create a constructive backdrop for:
- High-beta equities — the stocks most sensitive to the direction of the broad market
- Cyclicals — sectors that outperform when general risk appetite is positive
- Opening hour momentum — stocks that gapped overnight tend to continue in the direction of the gap through the first hour
The advisory nature of this driver
Futures are advisory. They set up expectations. The cash market does not have to follow them. The engine labels this driver as advisory only and does not use it to override the conviction scoring of individual candidates. It is context, not instruction.
How Decifer tracks it
ES five-day returns are fetched from the futures data layer. The driver activates when returns clear the positive threshold. Proximity warnings are added when the return is marginal (within a few basis points of the threshold) so readers know the signal is borderline.