Full transcript
0:00After nine years of trading, my simple
0:029:30 a.m. fair value gap strategy has
0:04been the simplest way for me to be
0:06consistent and repeatable in my trading.
0:08I spent a long time in my career trying
0:10over complicated trading strategies
0:12until I [music] landed on this approach.
0:14And this is one of the exact strategies
0:16and approaches I'll be using for the
0:18entirety [music] of 2026 to see if I can
0:20have an even better year than I had last
0:22year. And what I love about this is that
0:23it makes sense with the [music] market.
0:25And it's literally so simple and
0:27repeatable. So, in this video, I'm going
0:28to literally show you why you don't need
0:30to over complicate [music] your
0:31strategy, and instead the simple
0:33checklist that I use that helps me
0:35identify daily opportunities, increase
0:37my win rate, and really only need to
0:38work for about 1 to two hours each day.
0:40And after I show you the complete
0:42strategy, I'm going to show you exactly
0:43[music] how I implement it into the
0:45markets, some examples of me actually
0:47doing it in real time, and then finally,
0:49I'm going to reveal us testing [music]
0:50these exact rules over three full months
0:53in over 300 trades, so we can see
0:55exactly [music] how this framework
0:56performs over a duration of time. All
0:58right, so let's dive in. So, this is a
1:01strategy that I've been trading for
1:02quite some time now. This is my 9:30
1:04a.m. New York Stock Exchange session
1:07open fair value gap strategy. And as I
1:09document in my live trading series,
1:11following this framework, I'm able to
1:13get really solid results, focusing on
1:15consistency and risk management. But it
1:17took me a pretty long time to figure out
1:20how simple it actually can be after
1:22sifting through a ton of different
1:23information, a ton of different
1:24strategies, like I said, for my entire
1:26career. And it allowed me to realize the
1:28reason that most people and strategies
1:31end up losing money. And it's actually a
1:33lot simpler than you think. But we have
1:34to understand trading from the right
1:36frame, which is something that most
1:37people are not going to do, which is why
1:39most people aren't able to actually
1:40navigate this game. The ones that do are
1:43able to have the upside and the
1:44opportunity. And there's a few big
1:45reasons why trading is challenging and
1:47it doesn't work out. Like I said, for
1:49most people, the biggest single thing
1:51that I've seen is having a strategy that
1:53is either too simple or too abstract.
1:55Meaning, it's all emotion. It's how you
1:57feel, how you're interpreting, where
1:58it's not repeatable at all. Some of the
2:00best athletes in the world, some of the
2:02best people who are professionals in
2:04their area always talk about consistency
2:06and repeatability. If you're able to
2:08master those mechanisms, you can get
2:10really, really good at doing that to the
2:11point where when the pressure is on,
2:13when it's high stakes, you're able to
2:14actually execute on that. If you're
2:16constantly trying to rely on your
2:18discretionary decision-m and different
2:20ideas every time, you're walking
2:22yourself into a trap. Strategies need to
2:23be simple and repeatable, but also the
2:26strategy needs to actually work that
2:28isn't actually statistically effective
2:30over time, then no matter how simple it
2:32is or how well you execute, you're not
2:34going to be able to allow that edge play
2:36out. And weirdly enough, taking profit
2:38too early is probably the third biggest
2:40reason that I've seen for my entire
2:42career as to why a lot of times trading
2:44strategies or traders are not
2:46successful. So my goal was to basically
2:48remove all of this, make it easy,
2:50simple, repeatable, and a strategy that
2:52allows winners to run while keeping the
2:54losers contained and small. Because
2:56without these things, jumping around on
2:58the internet, trying different
2:59strategies, not staying consistent,
3:01which is something that I did on my own
3:03for years starting off left me spinning
3:05tires, no progress. This is sadly where
3:0890% of people attempting trading are
3:10going to end up because they're missing
3:12that simple repeatability that leads to
3:14consistency over time. It literally took
3:16me about 3 to four years of wasting time
3:19effectively wasting money to fully
3:20understand the key principles of trading
3:23because firstly you need something to be
3:24simple enough for it to happen often and
3:26to find examples. Then like I said it
3:28needs to be repeatable so that you can
3:30find these and execute on it
3:32consistently over time. The third thing
3:34is we need to be able to measure the
3:36data. We need to be able to measure the
3:38outcome. So the average riskreward and
3:40the winning percentage for us to figure
3:42out if this is going to be sustainable
3:44and profitable over time. And this is
3:46literally the blueprint to be consistent
3:48and repeatable in the market. Because
3:49falling into the traps of using a
3:51million different indicators and trying
3:53to expect to be consistent over time is
3:56effectively going in completely blind,
3:58completely random. This is the approach
3:59that many people take who don't
4:01understand trading fully. And it's an
4:03easy trap to fall into if you have too
4:05many options. And this is sadly the
4:07reality for most people who don't have a
4:09simple proven trading strategy because
4:11all we're trying to do is take a bunch
4:13of information and effectively filter it
4:15down. Find times where that filtered
4:17information is going to give us the most
4:19high impact probabilities. Then we're
4:21executing on that with a repeatable
4:23strategy. So for my 9:30 a.m. New York
4:25session open fair value gap strategy.
4:28That's exactly what I'm doing. So let's
4:30dive into how this strategy actually
4:32works. So, first thing that I'm doing is
4:33I'm focusing primarily on the New York
4:36session open. And with this strategy,
4:38what I'm trying to do is find a clear
4:40direction that the market could
4:42potentially move in. Find clear and
4:44obvious entry signals once we have that
4:46indication of the direction. And then
4:48effectively, we're just managing the
4:50trade and allowing the winners to run
4:52and containing losses if we're wrong. If
4:54you're newer to trading, you may not
4:55know this. If you're experienced, you
4:56probably do. You're going to lose a lot
4:58in trading. It actually doesn't matter
5:00at all as long as you are calculating
5:02and containing your risk and making sure
5:04that your risk stays uniform each time.
5:06That's the only way you're going to make
5:08things consistent and measurable. And
5:09what I'm doing with this strategy is
5:11focusing on 930 because that is where we
5:14are going to see the highest amount of
5:15volume. So we see these candle bars
5:17here. As 9:30 opens, you see a big
5:20influx in volume. And what this is
5:22showing us is market participation. And
5:23this is going to allow us to find moves
5:25and play into the high impact areas in
5:28the market. And you can see this is
5:29where primarily almost all of the
5:31trading activity is happening. All
5:32right. So after 9:30 opens, you can see
5:34this is from me personally trading the
5:36strategy. There's a heavy amount of
5:38trades. Almost all of the trades are
5:39happening during this exact 2ish hour
5:42window. And you'll notice we either have
5:44zeros or we have around or $1,000 losses
5:47all staying really evenly inside this
5:50threshold. Because I'm risking $1,000
5:52each time I place one of these
5:53strategies. I'm either getting out for
5:55break even or I'm losing a contained
5:57$1,000. But you'll notice of the wins,
6:00the average is coming between 3 and
6:034,000 with some outliers that come up to
6:05these levels. So, you can see just from
6:06data, this is where the opportunities
6:08are coming in. This strategy allows me
6:10to contain my risk and allow winners to
6:12run while maintaining enough
6:14consistency. And there's a bunch of
6:15different opportunities in the market.
6:17There's Asia session, London session,
6:19New York session. They're all going to
6:20move a little bit differently. What I
6:22found is right around 9 9:30 is going to
6:24open up the best opportunities
6:26regardless of the market. And just
6:28focusing on that one time frame allows
6:29you to once again be repeatable. So now
6:31let's get into the exact steps of the
6:33strategy. First thing I'm doing is going
6:34between a 1 and 5 minute time frame. And
6:37I'm finding my important levels before
6:39the 9:30 open. So I'm basically
6:40scrolling out and finding before 9:30
6:43where price cannot repeatedly break
6:45through. And all I'm doing is
6:47identifying that with a simple trend
6:49line. And this step is going to be
6:50important in a second. Step number two
6:51is I'm waiting for something called a
6:53change of character. Now, and what a
6:55change of character is is basically a
6:57directional change. So, if we have a
6:58trend where we have a low, a lower high,
7:00lower low, lower high, and then price
7:03comes to here, fails to break a new low,
7:05and then pushes and creates a new high,
7:08that is a change of character indicating
7:10the potential of a brand new trend. And
7:12now, it's our job to time an entry into
7:14that potential to be able to get in
7:16early on that trend and hopefully ride
7:18the trend up. So in this example, we
7:19have a downtrend leading into New York.
7:21And this will work in both directions.
7:23We've identified a high and a low
7:25period. And then you can see we have a
7:26candle here that is significantly
7:29breaking out of that area. The third
7:31step is finding the first what's called
7:33high impact fair value gap. And what a
7:35fair value gap is is a sequence of 1,
7:37two, three candles where the high wick
7:40of the first candle here does not
7:41overlap with the low of the third wick.
7:44And the same is true if it's flipped for
7:46a bearish fair value. So once we have
7:47the change of character, I'm waiting for
7:49the first high impact fair value gap to
7:51form. And step four, I'm waiting for
7:54price to retrace into the midpoint. So
7:57the 50% of that fair value gap as price
7:59is reattempting to contact the opposite
8:02side of that previous broken level. Step
8:04number five is setting up the trade and
8:06managing the trade. The first thing that
8:08I'm always trying to do is to reduce
8:10risk as soon as possible in the event
8:12that I'm wrong. And so when I'm entering
8:13the position, I'm setting up my entry at
8:15the midpoint of this actionable fair
8:18value gap. And what I'm doing is placing
8:19my stop loss, so my risk outside of the
8:22fair value gap producing candle. What I
8:25also want to do is make sure that this
8:26stop-loss level here is safely outside
8:29of this previously broken level because
8:32if it pushes through with force, the
8:34likelihood of price retesting that and
8:36continuing to move higher is there. I
8:38don't want to set my stop loss so that
8:40it can still come in contact with this
8:42level. but also trigger my stop loss. So
8:44once I have my position set up, the next
8:46thing that I'm looking for is the high
8:47that was produced before retracing into
8:49the fair value gap. I want to mark off
8:51that level and wait for a candle close
8:54over that produce high. So this is not
8:56an example. This is not an example. This
8:58is an example cuz we got a candle close
9:00over that high. And what that's going to
9:02do is confirm something called a break
9:04of structure. Basically confirming that
9:06this uptrend is continuing to move. And
9:08all I'm doing out of the gate is setting
9:10a one to four riskreward. So I'm making
9:13this a 4x multiple of my 1R. And all I'm
9:17doing is targeting key areas on a higher
9:19time frame as my take-profit. But I want
9:21to allow my trade to basically run at
9:23least up to that 1 to4 area. And
9:24effectively what this is doing is
9:26allowing us to find key areas, reduce
9:28risk right away, and allow potential new
9:31moves to run and our profit to be
9:33open-ended. And that's really it.
9:34Obviously, we can add more things to
9:36this to filter and get the win rate
9:38higher, which I will show you in a
9:39second. But the strategy doesn't have to
9:41be overly complicated. Find your key
9:43area. You find an actionable fair value
9:44gap. You set the position up. You reduce
9:46risk and you let the winners run. So, on
9:48the day, I have my levels. We see the
9:49930 opens. We see that same level being
9:52attempted again. Price pushes up above
9:54it. Get a big push above. Say I wanted
9:56to risk $100. I can set the position up
9:58at the midpoint. Price taps into it.
10:00Now, I'm watching this level to be
10:02broken.
10:04we get a break here. This is where I can
10:05reduce my risk to break even. So now a
10:08loss is completely off the table and
10:09we're just trailing this to allow the
10:11trend to continue. And for me, sometimes
10:13these can run like crazy. But I'm at
10:15least going for an initial but 1 to four
10:17and that could be that. Now, like I
10:18said, there are ways to allow this to
10:20run further. And I can show you how I
10:22target things on a higher time frame.
10:24I'll show you with some examples in a
10:25second. So now let's take a look at
10:26another example that happened just a few
10:28days ago. Actually, this time on the
10:30futures market. We have our 9:30 open.
10:32We're getting this level established.
10:34You can see it breaks it with force. We
10:36have the change of character level over
10:37here. And you'll see if I put my stop
10:39loss underneath this candle here where
10:41I'm expecting price could come down,
10:43recont this trend level, and end up
10:45coming in contact with that stop loss.
10:47So, I want to make sure that my stop
10:49loss is safely outside of that retest
10:51area. So, I'll go underneath this next
10:53candle here, set my takeprofit to 1 to4,
10:55can set up a contract entry. Price
10:57enters. You can see price comes in
10:59contact with this trend level before
11:01making a response. Now we're waiting for
11:03this high to be breached. We have a
11:04candle close over this high. I'm
11:06reducing my risk. All right. And this
11:07trade took a little bit longer. It was
11:09about 3 hours. Sort of just trailing
11:11this up. Close out of the position. It
11:12can literally be that simple. So I'm
11:14going to show you a full sequence of
11:15trades that I took over a trading
11:17session. I recorded all of this live. So
11:19this is not a hindsight thing. So you
11:20can see step number one, I identified my
11:23level. Step number two, waited for my
11:24930 open. I identified my fair value
11:27gap. that was aligning with the retest
11:29of this area. You can see I put my stop
11:31loss wider over this area, allowing for
11:33price to safely come up, make contact
11:36into my key area before flipping. So, I
11:38set up my order. You see price came in,
11:40responded perfectly off of that area.
11:42Then, we immediately got our rejection.
11:44We got candles to close below this area
11:46where I would reduce my risk to break
11:48even. I have another video that I'll put
11:49at the end of this one where you can
11:50watch a little bit more in detail of how
11:52I do this, but what I do is go out to a
11:5415minute time frame. I'm effectively
11:56finding key fair value gaps that I think
11:58price could end up trading into. So you
12:00can see in this circumstance, I'm
12:01already in my position. I want to find
12:03where price is likely to have a
12:05response. And you can see after what led
12:07into this big move up is this fair value
12:09gap right here. So once I saw price
12:11starting to respond off of there, that's
12:13where on my current time frame, I was
12:14like maybe this could drop lower. This
12:16is a beautiful trade so far to be able
12:17to lock in profits. You can see that's
12:19exactly where price responded off of
12:21temporarily. Again, just so that you
12:22guys can see, this is me executing the
12:24trade in real time. Took my entry,
12:26stop-loss, trading down at this
12:28consolidation. I took the trade off. All
12:29right, so the next trade that I took was
12:31off of this level. Price was coming
12:33down, contact, contact, contact, failed
12:35to break underneath this low again. We
12:37got an actionable fair value gap in the
12:39bullish direction. So, I took a trade
12:41off of this area. You can see the candle
12:42came perfectly into that area, tried to
12:44flip, but ended up returning bearish. I
12:47didn't have the confluence of
12:48reattempting this trend level, so it
12:49wasn't a perfect trade setup. ended up
12:51coming down and stopping me out for a
12:53full contained loss. Once again, this is
12:55not a perfect going to win every time
12:57strategy. That doesn't exist. What does
12:59exist is allowing winners to run,
13:01keeping your risk contained, and keeping
13:02a uniform structure in approach that you
13:05can once again measure the outcome over
13:07time. So once that failed, I was
13:08watching these lows, seeing where my
13:10consolidations were. I saw that this
13:12area was a high impact sell area. So, I
13:14marked off my zone into this previously
13:17important area that flipped, took my
13:18entry, set up my 1 to4. At this point, I
13:21could reduce my risk to break even. And
13:23then price ended up coming up to retest
13:25that area. But because my risk was at
13:27break even, it was a zero loss, zero
13:29win. So, if it continued to move in my
13:31direction, great. The fact that it
13:32didn't, okay, I had no win, no loss.
13:34Onto the next trade. So, I let the
13:36market develop a little bit further. I
13:38identified this key area. Price retested
13:41the opposite level of here into this key
13:43area. I took my entry here. Price
13:44continued up. Hit my 1 to4. Another
13:47beautiful trade. So, so far I had my
13:49plus 7R. I had my loss here. Break even
13:52here. Plus 4R here. So, by 4:00 at the
13:55end of the day, I've been able to net
13:57out 10 risk factors. If I was risking
13:59$100 per trade, this would be the
14:01outcome of just one good trading
14:02session. Now, of course, there's going
14:04to be days where you find no setups or
14:06basically it's just all losses. That is
14:08all part of the trading game which can
14:10throw a lot of people off the beaten
14:11trail because people don't understand
14:13the significance of testing things over
14:15time which allowed us to actually build
14:17based off of data our own custom
14:20indicator which can actually give us
14:22direct signals on key opportunities. You
14:24can see I have this diamond here. This
14:26is the exact entry for the day. I see a
14:28diamond. I take the trade. That's the
14:29big R trade of the day. On the previous
14:32MEES example, you can see we have our
14:34long indicator here. first trade
14:36opportunity full winner. So studying the
14:38data can add what are called confluences
14:40which can give you higher conviction of
14:42the area. This is all stuff that we're
14:44working on on the private side of our
14:45trading team. Just so that you
14:46understand what I mean by the data
14:48findings. When we were first designing
14:50this model, this is the 3month
14:52technically 303 trade data back test
14:54where we actually went through all of
14:56these signals, managed the trade exactly
14:59how we said, which gave us an indication
15:01that even though we have back and forth
15:03up and down slightly, this was a
15:04positive equity curve over time. Now,
15:06this is a model. Everything is going to
15:08look better theoretically and then as
15:10implementation in real life actually
15:12happens, the result is obviously going
15:13to be less glamorous. You can see there
15:15was a significant amount of losses. The
15:17data showed us that this was about a 36%
15:19win rate, which is showing us that
15:21effectively 64% of the trades that we're
15:23taking are statistically likely to be
15:25losers. And just to be clear, this
15:26doesn't indicate the expected
15:28performance. This is just a model for us
15:30to understand how this is going to look
15:32over time and if it's worth pursuing
15:33with consistency and risk management.
15:35But this is exactly what led us to have
15:37conviction in this model to actually
15:39take it to the next stages of testing it
15:41in real time, which as professional
15:42traders saves us a ton of time because
15:44we're not executing guessing hoping that
15:46something works long term. We can
15:48actually look at models to give us a
15:50good starting point. If you want this
15:51930 open marker as well as a bunch of
15:54other tools and resources, follow me on
15:55Instagram, DM me the word tools, and
15:57I'll send it over to you. You can kind
15:58of get started from there. If you want
16:00to watch another helpful video where I
16:01explain the higher time frame targets,
16:04I'll put it here. You can check out this
16:05playlist to watch me trading in real
16:07time. If you're still here, make sure
16:08you hit the like button, subscribe to
16:09the channel if you want to know when I
16:10put other videos out. If you want to see
16:12a video on the higher time frame
16:14targets, I'll put it right here. You can
16:16check out our team right here. But until
16:17next time, I will see you all in the
16:19next