Week Ahead: ISM Services Monday and FOMC Minutes Wednesday (October 5-9, 2026)
This is a calendar and a preparation framework. It is not a forecast, and nothing here says which way price will go. The goal is to have your levels drawn before the week starts, so that when a scheduled release hits the tape you are reading price instead of scrambling for a chart.
The calendar, all times ET
Monday, Oct 5: ISM Services PMI at 10:00am, Medium impact, forecast 55.1 against a previous 55.4. Tuesday, Oct 6: FOMC member Bowman speaks at 10:45am, Low impact. Wednesday, Oct 7: FOMC Meeting Minutes at 2:00pm, High impact, with no forecast figure. Thursday, Oct 8: Unemployment Claims at 8:30am, Medium impact, forecast 200K against a previous 197K, and FOMC member Musalem speaks at 1:40pm. Friday, Oct 9: Preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment at 10:00am, Medium impact, forecast 47.6 against a previous 47.8, along with Preliminary UoM Inflation Expectations, Medium impact, previous 4.6% with no forecast, and FOMC member Collins speaks at 4:00pm.
Step one: put last week on the chart
SPY closed Friday, Oct 2 at 769.64. The day ranged from 767.15 to 772.65, and it opened with a gap up from the prior close of 763.99. The gap held, meaning price did not trade back down through 763.99 during the session. That gives you two edges worth marking: the gap edge at 763.99 and the Friday low at 767.15, plus the Friday high at 772.65 above.
One more line belongs on the SPY chart. The Sep 25 close was 771.35, which is higher than Friday’s 769.64. So Friday’s close sits below that earlier close, and the 771.35 level lands inside Friday’s range, between the close and the high. Whether price treats it as resistance, support, or nothing at all is for the bars to show, not for a preview to decide.
QQQ closed Friday at 749.58 with a range of 747.53 to 754.54, after gapping up from 742.03. Same routine: mark the gap edge at 742.03, the low at 747.53, and the high at 754.54. Seeing both charts side by side also lets you note whether they respect their levels in the same way or differently.
Monday: one Medium-impact print
ISM Services lands at 10:00am, thirty minutes after the open. That ordering is useful. By 10:00 you will already have seen how the first half hour behaved relative to Friday’s gap edge and Friday’s range. Did price open inside Friday’s range, above it, or below it? Is it holding the area near the Friday close at 769.64 or leaving it quickly? Those observations exist before the data does. After the release, the question becomes whether the reaction respects or breaks something you already drew.
Wednesday at 2pm: waiting for the bar to close
The FOMC Minutes are the High-impact item of the week, and they arrive at 2:00pm. Scheduled afternoon releases often show up as a sudden single-bar expansion: a candle that is far larger than the ones around it, with a long wick in one or both directions. That bar frequently reverses part of itself or gets retraced within minutes, which is why its first print is a poor guide to anything.
Waiting for the bar to close is a price-action habit, not a rule of the market. On a 5-minute chart, the 2:00 bar closes at 2:05. On a 1-minute chart, it closes a minute after the release. Either way, you let the bar finish, then look at where it closed relative to the levels you drew on Sunday: the gap edge, the Friday low, the Friday high, the 771.35 line. A close that finishes beyond a level and a wick that merely pokes through it are different pieces of information. Reading the closed bar tells you which one you are looking at. There is no forecast number for the minutes, so there is no surprise to compute. You only have price.
Standing aside through that bar is also a valid plan. Many people write down in advance that they will take no action in the first bar after a High-impact release, and revisit the chart afterward.
Which days are lighter
Tuesday looks lightest on paper: a single Low-impact speaker at 10:45am. Thursday has two items, claims at 8:30am before the open and a speaker at 1:40pm, so the middle of that session is open space. Friday carries the 10:00am sentiment and inflation expectations releases, but then the afternoon is quiet apart from Collins at 4:00pm, which falls inside the final stretch before the close. A lighter calendar does not guarantee a quiet tape, since price can move without a scheduled reason. It only means fewer known clock times to plan around.
Use the lighter days to study how your levels behaved after Monday and Wednesday. A level that was tested on a heavy day and held, or tested and failed, is more informative on the next day than the line you drew from last week alone.
A simple Sunday-night checklist
Draw the Friday gap edge, Friday high, Friday low, and Sep 25 close on SPY. Draw the equivalent gap edge, high, and low on QQQ. Write the five release times beside the chart. Decide ahead of time what you will do during the 2:00pm bar on Wednesday. Then let the week show you what price does. Trading involves risk of loss, and none of this removes it.
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