I can only comment from my own personal background and trading style which is different for everyone.
You made a choice to go long only which could have worked great with a 85 point
gap to fill and a test of yesterday's
vpoc magnet. It's often wise to go only long or short to prevent from being whipsawed. But we have to be flexible and be able to change our mind on a dime (think Druckenmiller 1987). Besides trend up (going long only) or trend down (going short only) we have ranges. And that's what we had May 23th for the first three hours after
RTH open. Price was consolidating before trending down and when you were still playing only long you probably would have had a hard time market making.
Eventually we come to the point to ask how do we know upfront price is going to trend up/down or sideways? We can't, but we can observe and perceive what the market is doing and we can establish rules to determine trend up/down or
range. For instance price didn't break the
value area and kept coming back to the vpoc. This allows for
mean reversion trading, buy break downs and sell break ups. Price was also below yesterday's value area low and below
vwap, not very
bullish. This was all clear to see at that moment.
After noon price broke the value area low and couldn't get back into value. It also broke yesterday's low, RTH open and the first 30m low. Now we should change our
bias from long to short and sell rallies. We need to be flexible and adapt. There are many ways to make or lose money in the markets, some with a tight stop and some with huge
drawdowns.