Entry gates - candle, pullback, VWAP, EMA9 and volume candle
Gates do not start a trade. They refuse one that does not look right. Each one is a tick box, saved with the profile, and each side has its own. Candle gate: the current sixty-second candle is green, for a long, with a solid body and little wick against the trade.
In this video
The 30-second version
The same topic in thirty seconds, made for a phone screen.
Both videos use the desk in paper mode with made-up symbols and prices.
Read the transcript
Gates refuse
Gates do not start a trade. They refuse one that does not look right. Each one is a tick box, saved with the profile, and each side has its own. Here are the candle and trend gates.
The candle gate
Candle gate: the current sixty-second candle is green, for a long, with a solid body and little wick against the trade. Tune it with Candle body percent and Wick max percent. On the short side, it wants a red candle instead. Candle body percent is how much of the candle's range must be body. Wick max percent caps the wick against the trade.
Pullback entry
Pullback entry is bull-flag timing: after a red pullback candle, enter on the first candle to take out that candle's high. Never in the middle of a drop. For shorts, it is Bounce entry, mirrored.
VWAP and EMA 9
Above VWAP: price is on the trade's side of the session VWAP. Consol above EMA 9: price is holding the one-minute EMA 9 on the trade's side, and the forming minute has started to move that way. Below VWAP and Consol below EMA 9 are the short versions.
The forming candle
Green candle: the forming one-minute candle is moving with the trade. Candle bigger than previous: its body is already bigger than the last one's by a percentage. Volume candle GREEN only enters while the forming candle's volume bar is up, and Volume candle RED, the opposite. Tick both, and it never fires.
Stack them carefully
Every gate you tick must agree, so each one makes entries rarer. Add one at a time, in paper, and read the refusals in the order log to see which gate is doing the work. Gates on the short side mirror these, with the red candle and below VWAP.