Strategy playbooks
Every playbook follows the same skeleton: what it is, who is on the other side, the setup rules, entry, stop and target with the arithmetic, sizing, what breaks it, and how to test it.
None of them are promises — they are starting points to test with a real backtest. New here? Read Risk Management first. Sizing is the strategy.
Intraday
- Opening Range Breakout (ORB)Trade the break of the first 5 to 30 minutes of the session in the direction of the break, with the range itself defining the stop.
- VWAP Reclaim and RejectUse the volume-weighted average price as the day's line in the sand: buy reclaims with volume, short rejections, and let the other side of VWAP define risk.
- Initial Balance ExtensionMarket-profile playbook that uses the first hour's range as the initial balance and trades extensions and failed extensions out of it.
- Gap and Go / Gap FillTwo opposite playbooks for opening gaps: ride a catalyst-driven gap that holds its first pullback, or fade a gap that fails and fills back to the prior close.
- ABCD and Measured MovesTrade the second leg of a two-leg move by projecting the first leg from the end of the pullback, with the pullback low as the stop.
- Failed Breakout ReversalWhen a breakout closes back inside its range within a few bars, trade the reversal against the trapped breakout traders, targeting the far side of the range.
- Scalping the DOMOrder-flow scalping using the depth of market and time and sales to trade a few ticks around large resting orders and absorption, with very high frequency and very small stops.
- Momentum Ignition with VolumeEnter on the first high-volume expansion bar that breaks structure, in the direction of the impulse, and exit fast when the volume disappears.
- Afternoon ReversalFade an extended morning trend into the afternoon session when volume dries up and price fails to make new extremes, targeting VWAP.
- News and Event Trading ProcessA process, not a signal: how to prepare for scheduled economic releases, decide whether to trade the reaction, and avoid being the liquidity for the first print.
Swing trading
- Pullback to the 20/50 EMA in a TrendBuy the first orderly pullback to a rising 20 or 50-day EMA in an established uptrend, with the stop under the pullback low and the target at a new high or a measured move.
- Breakout from Consolidation (Base Breakout)Buy the breakout from a multi-week tight base on above-average volume, stop under the base's last pivot, and hold for a measured move or a trailing exit.
- Mean Reversion to the 20 MA in RangesIn a sideways market, fade stretched moves away from the 20-day moving average back toward it, using a volatility band to define the stretch and the average as the target.
- Earnings Drift and the Post-Earnings GapTrade the multi-week continuation after a large earnings gap in the direction of the surprise, entering on the first pullback rather than the gap day itself.
- Sector Rotation and Relative StrengthHold the sectors or stocks with the strongest 3 to 6-month relative performance versus the index, rotate monthly, and step aside when the index itself is below its long-term average.
- Weekly Inside-Bar BreakoutsAfter a weekly candle forms entirely inside the prior week's range in a trending name, buy the break of the mother bar's high with the stop at the inside bar's low.
- The 3-Day PullbackIn an uptrend, buy after three consecutive lower closes (or lower lows) into a rising 20-day average, and exit on the first close above the entry day's high or after five days.
- Gap-Fill SwingMulti-day version of the gap fill: fade non-catalyst gaps in liquid names or indices that fail to extend within the first two days, targeting the pre-gap close over the following week.
Position and long-term
- Trend Following with the 200-Day AverageHold a broad index (or any liquid asset) while it is above its 200-day moving average and move to cash or bonds when it closes below, checked monthly to limit whipsaws.
- Dual MomentumEach month, hold whichever of a small set of asset classes has the highest 12-month return, but only if that return beats cash; otherwise hold bonds.
- Dividend Growth as a Trader's CoreHold a diversified core of companies with long records of rising dividends as the stable base of a portfolio, so that active trading is done with a smaller, defined satellite.
- Dollar-Cost Averaging with RulesInvest a fixed amount on a fixed schedule into a diversified fund, with written rules for what to do when the market falls, when it rises, and when you are tempted to stop.
- Rebalancing bandsTrigger levels around each target weight; you only trade when a holding drifts outside its band, which cuts turnover versus rebalancing on a fixed date.
- Factor Tilts Explained HonestlyOverweight the value, size, momentum, quality or low-volatility factors through index funds, understanding that the premiums are small, slow, cyclical, and may be partly gone.
Options
- The WheelSell cash-secured puts on a stock you are willing to own; if assigned, sell covered calls against the shares until they are called away, then repeat.
- Covered Call ManagementSell calls against stock you already own to collect premium, with rules for strike selection, rolling, letting shares go, and knowing when the call is costing more than it earns.
- Credit Spread ProgramA repeatable program of selling defined-risk vertical credit spreads at a fixed delta and duration, managed by mechanical profit-take and loss-close rules, sized by maximum loss.
- Iron Condor in High IVSell an out-of-the-money put spread and call spread on the same expiration when implied volatility is elevated, collecting premium from both sides and managing early.
- Calendar and Diagonal SpreadsSell a near-term option and buy a longer-dated one at the same (calendar) or a different (diagonal) strike, profiting from faster time decay in the front month and from rising implied volatility.
- Earnings IV-Crush PlaysStructures that sell the inflated implied volatility before an earnings report and profit from its collapse afterward, with a clear-eyed view of how often the move exceeds what was priced.
- LEAPS as Stock ReplacementBuy deep in-the-money long-dated calls instead of shares to get most of the stock's exposure for a fraction of the capital, with defined maximum loss and a time-decay cost that must be accounted for.
- Hedging with Puts and CollarsHow to buy downside protection on a stock or portfolio with protective puts or zero-cost collars, what it actually costs over time, and when a hedge is worse than simply reducing the position.
Futures
- Trend-Day PlaybookIdentify a trend day early from the open's structure and volume, then hold with the trend using pullbacks to VWAP and the 20-period average, exiting only into the close.
- Range-Day PlaybookOn sessions that establish a balanced two-sided range early, fade the range extremes toward the point of control with tight stops beyond the extremes, and stop trading once the range breaks.
- Pairs and Spread Trading BasicsTrade the relationship between two related instruments rather than their direction: long one and short the other when the spread is stretched, exiting when it returns to normal.
Forex
- London Session BreakoutTrade the breakout of the Asian session range in major forex pairs during the first two hours of the London open, when volume arrives and the overnight range resolves.
- Carry-Aware Swing Trading in ForexSwing trade currency pairs in the direction of the interest-rate differential when the technical setup agrees, so that overnight swap works for you instead of against you.
Crypto
Systematic and quant
- Simple Systematic Momentum with RulesA complete, rules-only cross-sectional momentum system for stocks: universe, ranking, entry, exit, sizing and rebalance schedule, with the drawdowns stated plainly.
- Walk-Forward TestingThe protocol for testing a rules-based strategy honestly: optimise on one window, validate on the next unseen window, roll forward, and judge the strategy only on the stitched out-of-sample results.
- Expectancy-Based System EvaluationHow to judge any strategy, discretionary or systematic, by its expectancy in R, its distribution of outcomes and its sample size, rather than by win rate, recent results or a single equity curve.