Time‑Based Trading Mentorship: Simple Bias Rules & Smooth Areas

This article is the first part of a detailed mentorship series designed to guide aspiring traders, particularly the author's son, Caleb, through the complexities of trading. The author advocates for a disciplined and realistic approach, contrasting it with common pitfalls and misconceptions prevalent in the trading community.

The Mentorship's Core Philosophy

The primary goal of this mentorship is to cultivate a self-reliant mindset in the author's children, empowering them to generate income independently. This approach aims to foster resilience and drive, preventing the complacency that can arise from inherited wealth. The mentorship is presented as a live, real-time demonstration of trading principles, directly addressing the author's children, which creates an empathetic teaching environment. While intended as an archived resource for his children, it also serves as a comprehensive guide for anyone interested in learning his trading methods.

Dispelling Trading Myths and Misconceptions

The author advises profitable traders against watching this series, as it might introduce unnecessary distractions. He emphasizes personal responsibility in trading, rejecting excuses for losing trades. Key points include:

• Mindset is paramount: Traders must have a clear, compelling reason to engage with the markets daily.
• Avoid "button pushing" without understanding: Rushing into trades without foundational knowledge is detrimental.
• Market replay is not true mentorship: Learning from past market movements, where outcomes are known, does not prepare traders for real-time, uncertain conditions. True learning comes from observing live price action.
• The market is algorithmic: Price movements are not solely driven by buying and selling pressure but are coded based on time. This algorithmic nature dictates when and why displacements, impulsive moves, or retracements occur.
• Simplicity over complexity: The author aims to simplify his concepts, making them accessible. Complication often arises from those who dilute or misrepresent his teachings for personal gain.
• No shortcuts to profitability: The idea of quickly learning to trade in a few days or weeks is a "grade A manure" lie. Consistent profitability requires significant effort, study, and journaling.
• Avoid codependency: Traders should develop their own independent understanding of the market rather than blindly copying others.

Addressing Common Trading Behaviors

The author identifies several common, often detrimental, behaviors among traders:

• The "gacha" mentality: Some individuals engage with the trading community primarily to criticize or find fault, often for social media engagement or financial gain.
• Misappropriation of content: The author explicitly warns against translating and re-uploading his mentorship videos without permission, citing copyright strikes against channels that have done so.
• The allure of funded accounts: While his son Caleb plans to use a funded account (Topstep) to document his journey, the author personally advises against relying on such companies due to inherent risks and the potential for promoting unhealthy trading habits (e.g., excessive leverage, frequent resets).
• The "I'll show them" mentality: While confidence is beneficial, overconfidence can lead to increased adversity, unrealistic time limits, and ultimately, failure.
• Unrealistic expectations: Many new traders expect immediate success without real effort, journaling, or understanding. This "candy bars and milkshakes" approach is unrealistic and leads to frustration.
• Emotional trading: The initial excitement of a winning trade or the anxiety of a losing one can be overwhelming. This emotional response indicates a lack of understanding and can lead to poor decision-making.
• Fear of losing: The desire for every trade to be a winner is toxic. Traders must accept the possibility of being wrong and manage risk appropriately.
• Over-leveraging: Trading with excessive leverage, especially in funded accounts, is akin to gambling and leads to quick account blow-ups. The author recommends starting with one micro contract to mitigate this risk.

Initial Steps for a New Trader

The mentorship outlines specific, actionable steps for beginners:

1. Determine your trading style: Understand whether you want to focus on long-term trends, intermediate retracements, or fading moves. This self-assessment is crucial for developing a consistent approach.
2. Identify "smooth" areas in price action: Look for obvious, undisturbed price levels on 15-minute, 5-minute, and 1-minute charts. These smooth areas, often represented by relative equal highs or lows, are where the market is likely to seek liquidity.
3. Understand relative equal highs/lows:
   • High probability relative equal high: When two swing highs are close, and the one to the left is slightly higher than the one to the right, it's highly probable the market will sweep above them. This "priming" creates a false sense of resistance, encouraging shorts to place stops above these highs.
   • High probability relative equal low: Conversely, a low followed by a slightly higher low (a "failure swing") indicates a high probability that the market will draw down and go below it.
4. Focus on specific times: The algorithm is most active at certain times. The author emphasizes studying price action between 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM New York local time, and again from 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM.
5. Journaling and screenshotting: Documenting price movements, including how long it took for price to reach certain levels, the number of candles involved, and your emotional state during the process, is vital for learning and self-awareness.
6. Prioritize one micro contract: Start with the smallest possible position size to remove the pressure of greed and fear. This makes it "physically impossible" to blow an account quickly.
7. Embrace adversity: Challenges and losing trades are normal "growing pains." They highlight areas for improvement and are essential for developing true skill.
8. Understand liquidity: The market moves to areas of liquidity (old highs, old lows, inefficiencies like fair value gaps). This is the "currency" of the market – your liquidity or mine.

Practical Application: Identifying Liquidity and Inefficiencies

The author demonstrates how to identify key price levels using a 1-minute chart alongside a 15-minute chart. He points out:

• New Week Opening Gap (NWOG): A gap between Friday's close and Sunday's open, serving as a draw on liquidity.
• Fair Value Gaps (FVG): Inefficiencies in price delivery. A down-closed candle with an FVG is a "CIV" (sell-side imbalance, buy-side inefficiency), while an up-closed candle with an FVG is a "BISSI" (buy-side imbalance, sell-side inefficiency).
• Order Blocks: A down-closed candle after taking out liquidity and followed by displacement (aggressive movement in the opposite direction) can act as an order block, especially if formed post-8:30 AM.
• Volume Imbalances: Gaps in price delivery where only one side of the market was active.
• Breakers: A series of up-closed candles after a market drop, where the last up-closed candle's range acts as a bullish breaker.
• Inversion Fair Value Gap: When a fair value gap is traded through and then acts as support or resistance.

The author stresses that these elements are not complicated but require diligent study and observation. He encourages students to look for areas where price delivery is "jagged" (indicating previous market activity and "cannibalism" of traders) versus "smooth" (indicating untouched liquidity).

The ultimate goal is to develop the ability to anticipate price movements and understand the market's "bias" by identifying these smooth areas and inefficiencies across multiple timeframes (15-minute, 5-minute, and 1-minute). This foundational understanding is crucial for building a robust trading model.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding price action and developing confidence in trading decisions. Many students, he notes, skip the crucial step of internalizing how price delivery resonates with them, instead seeking quick, "gimmicky" strategies. This approach is unrealistic, as trading involves numerous adversities that highlight shortcomings and teach resilience.

The Market as a Relationship

The speaker uses an analogy of a romantic relationship to describe one's interaction with the market. Ideally, one desires a harmonious, accepting relationship with the market, but often, it becomes a "toxic relationship." In such a dysfunctional dynamic, one party (the trader) must be reasonable and recognize when the relationship is unhealthy. This might mean stepping away from the charts or a particular market if it's not conducive to well-being.

Rule-Based Trading and Simplicity

To avoid unhealthy trading habits, the speaker advocates for rule-based, modular, and simplistic approaches. He highlights that his own trading methods are not complex, as demonstrated by his live streams where he outlines every step in advance, often on a one-minute chart. He suggests that these principles would be even more evident on a 15-second chart for those capable of analyzing such granular data.

The Significance of Time and Multi-Timeframe Analysis

A critical element of his strategy is the concept of time. The algorithm, he asserts, operates based on time. Without the correct time of day, trading strategies are unlikely to work. He dismisses "Mickey Mouse patterns" and "Romper Room theories" that don't prioritize time.

He also stresses the benefit of looking at three timeframes: the one-minute, five-minute, and fifteen-minute charts. If an idea about the market's likely draw to a high, low, or inefficiency is visible across all three timeframes, it signifies a strong signal. These timeframes, when in agreement, act as "stepping stones" within the overall market narrative.

Key Trading Times and Pre-Market Range

The speaker identifies specific key times for trading, particularly for the morning session, which starts at 7:00 AM New York local time. He suggests that even if personal schedules prevent trading at certain times, there are windows that can be utilized.

The key times are: * 7:00 AM to 7:30 AM: This is the "pre-market range." During this 30-minute window, traders should look for relative equal highs and lows that formed before 7:00 AM. * 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM: Another pre-market range. * 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM: The pre-market range for the opening bell.

The "opening range" is defined as the first 30 minutes after the opening bell, for example, 7:30 AM to 8:00 AM or 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM. There is no 15-minute opening range; it's always 30 minutes and algorithmic.

Identifying Bias: Smooth vs. Jagged Areas

The core of determining bias lies in identifying "smooth" areas in the market. Just as still waters invite rocks, smooth price action invites disruption. The market, like a dysfunctional family, will attack these smooth areas.

• Smooth areas: Represent relative equal highs or lows. These are targets for liquidity and will be disrupted.
• Jagged areas: Indicate that the market has already experienced disruption and liquidity has been taken. Trading into these areas is like entering a shark's feeding frenzy.

The speaker emphasizes that if both relative equal highs and lows are present, one should wait for the first one to be disrupted, as that will then establish the bias for the market to move towards the other.

The "Secret Weapon" and Its Application

The speaker reveals a "secret weapon" for trading: contrasting one side of the marketplace against another. In the pre-market range (e.g., 7:00 AM to 7:30 AM), traders should look for equal highs or equal lows that formed prior to the start of that range. Whichever side has these smooth areas indicates the market's bias – it will draw to that liquidity.

He illustrates this with an example: if there's a relative equal high and a relative equal low, wait for one to be disrupted. Once that happens, the market will likely move to the other. This method, he claims, is simple, scientific, and consistently accurate.

Avoiding Over-Leverage and Manual Intervention

The speaker warns against over-leveraging, especially given geopolitical tensions and the inherent risk of "manual intervention" in the market. Such interventions, which are unpredictable, can invalidate any trading strategy. Over-leveraging in these situations can lead to significant losses and even force traders out of the game. He encourages trading with small contract sizes, asserting that this approach can outperform many live streamers.

Mindset and Confidence

The speaker stresses the importance of confidence, not arrogance, in trading. He believes his methods are provable and can withstand scrutiny. He encourages traders to focus on making money rather than seeking popularity or validation. He also highlights the importance of enjoying the learning process, as it's crucial for long-term adherence to trading.

Foundations of Bias Determination

In summary, the foundations of determining bias are: * Simplicity: Not complicated. * Time-specific: Without time elements, nothing matters. * Rule-based: Few moving parts. * Smooth vs. Jagged: Where it's smooth, it's going; where it's jagged, it's moving away.

The framework begins at 7:00 AM (New York local time) by looking for relative equal highs or lows to form at or after that time, not before. This acts as a filter, preventing misinterpretations of London session movements. The speaker emphasizes that this method does not require higher timeframe draws, relying solely on the 15-minute, 5-minute, and 1-minute charts, framed by time.