I trade ES full time and some of the tools that work best for are the following:
- being aware of intraday swing highs and lows
- increasing or decreasing volume in relation to the current trend(if any)
- RSI for overbought/oversold levels and divergence signals
those are just a few tools that I use in my arsenal...
no need to look at the VIX, or specific equities, currencies, etc bcuz too much data will confuse you. Think SIMPLICITY