A TO Z - Entry Tactics for Each and every set up that I trade..

ENTRY TACTICS: WHERE THE TRADE ACTUALLY BEGINS

Everyone obsesses over finding the right stock. Almost nobody obsesses over the exact price where they'll buy it — and the exact price that proves them wrong. That gap is where most trading accounts go to die.

An entry tactic is not a setup. The setup is the daily chart — the flag, the coil, the launchpad, the Day-1 gapper. The entry tactic is the surgical trigger inside that setup: a precise pivot to buy, and a precise invalidation level underneath it. Two numbers, decided before the trade, written down before the trade, and sitting in a pre-committed bracket order before the trade.

One rule governs everything below: keep the distance between trigger and stop TIGHT. If your pivot and your invalidation are 8% apart, you don't have an entry tactic — you have a hope.

Here's my full menu, organized by trade situation.

PART 1 — IPO & GAPPER ENTRIES

1) The Day-1 VWAP Reclaim

My favorite Day-1 tactic. The sequence:

The flush. A hot IPO opens, prints a big range bar, then flippers hit it. Price chops down and undercuts an obvious low — the shakeout that clears weak hands.

The reclaim. Price crosses back above VWAP and HOLDS. I want a full 30-minute bar closing above VWAP, not a wick-through. The wick is the trap; the close is the trigger.

Entry: buy the close of the reclaim bar, or the break of its high.

Stop: below the shakeout low.

Once the reclaim holds, the rising 10 SMA takes over as the rider. The best ones never touch VWAP again — they stair-step all day.

Why it works: everyone who shorted the flush is trapped below VWAP, and everyone who sold the flush has to buy back higher. The reclaim is the moment the tape flips from distribution to accumulation.

2) The 30-Minute ORB

Mark the high and low of the first 30 minutes. I use 30 minutes over 1- and 5-minute ranges deliberately — the short ranges are noise machines. Thirty minutes lets the opening auction actually finish.

Trigger: break of the opening range high on expanding volume.

Stop: below the opening range low.

Filter: only take the long if the range formed AT or ABOVE VWAP. An ORB break from below VWAP is a fight against the day's average buyer. Skip it.

3) The Intraday Base Break

After the opening move, price goes quiet and builds a tight shelf near VWAP or the morning high. That's an intraday flag. Buy the break of the shelf; stop under the shelf low. Quiet consolidation near highs on a Day-1 name means nobody wants to sell — the break is usually violent.

4) The IPO Base Breakout

The Day-1 trade is a sprint. This one is the campaign — and often the bigger money.

After the listing-day fireworks, most IPOs build their FIRST real base: two weeks to two months of sideways digestion. The first base is structurally special:

No overhead supply — nobody trapped above waiting to sell at breakeven.

Small float, motivated holders — flippers got shaken out during the base.

Fresh moving averages — a few weeks in, the 10 and 21 SMA finally mean something, and the best bases tighten onto them.

Quality look: range contracts left to right, volume dries up into the right side, higher lows pressing against a flat ceiling.

Trigger: break of the base high on clear volume expansion.

Stop: below the most recent swing low inside the base, or the 10/21 SMA band. NOT the base low if the base is deep — that turns a tight tactic into a wide hope.

Same name can pay you twice: VWAP reclaim on Day 1, first-base breakout weeks later. The second one is the hold.

PART 2 — CONTINUATION ENTRIES (DAY 2+)

Two prices become magnets: yesterday's close and yesterday's high. I treat them as a ladder, not separate trades.

5) The PDC Break — The Starter

Strong stock opens flat or slightly red, then reclaims the previous day's close. Earliest continuation signal available. You're still inside yesterday's range, so failure risk is higher — which is exactly why this is a STARTER position.

Trigger: reclaim of PDC with rising relative volume.

Stop: low of day.

Most powerful when the prior day closed at its highs on huge volume. That close is where institutions were still buying at the bell — trading back above it is confirmation, not speculation.

6) The PDH Break — The Confirmation

My bread and butter, and the trigger for the FLAG ON MA setup. Breaking the previous day's high confirms range expansion — the stock is doing something it couldn't do yesterday.

Best context: daily chart is a flag or tight coil resting on a rising 10 or 21 SMA. Not an extended stock five days out of its base.

The A+ version: PDH break AT the moving average. Trigger and support in the same price zone — the tightest risk you'll ever get.

Stop: below the flag low / below the MA.

The ladder: starter on the PDC reclaim, add on the PDH break. Same thesis, two triggers, average price still tight against the stop.

PART 3 — PULLBACK ENTRIES

Breakout entries chase strength. Pullback entries buy fear — but only fear that lands on a floor you identified in advance.

7) S1/S2 Pivot + 10/21/50 SMA Convergence

My highest-confluence pullback entry. A leading stock pulls back on DECLINING volume into S1 or S2 (standard floor pivots), and that level coincides with the 10, 21, and 50 SMA pinching together. Three moving averages compressing into one zone means trend traders on every timeframe agree on where value is.

Trigger: don't buy the touch — buy the REACTION. Lower wicks at the level, then volume returning on an up bar. First green reversal bar closing back above the 10 SMA is the go signal.

Stop: just below the convergence zone. Confluence entries give you an obvious, close, logical stop.

Warning: the first touch of a rising MA cluster is the high-probability one. By the third touch the pattern is exhausted.

8) Old Resistance, New Support

Stock breaks a multi-week horizontal level, later pulls back to it. The old ceiling becomes the new floor. Buy the bounce off the retest, stop just below the line. It works because of regret: everyone who sold at that resistance swears they'll buy the retest.

PART 4 — TRAP ENTRIES

My favorite entries psychologically — you profit directly from other people's stop-losses.

9) The Gap-Down Reclaim

Stock gaps down BELOW the prior day's low, sucking in breakdown shorts and panic sellers. Then it climbs back and reclaims yesterday's low intraday.

Trigger: the reclaim of the prior day's low.

Stop: the low of the current day.

Every short from the gap is instantly underwater — their covering is your fuel. Take it the moment the level reclaims. These moves are fast.

10) The Support Reclaim (Surfing the Shakeout)

Same psychology on the swing timeframe. Price breaks a level everyone is watching — the base low, the 50 SMA — flushing the stops parked underneath. Then it snaps back above within a bar or two.

Trigger: the close back above the broken level.

Stop: just below the shakeout low — the cleanest invalidation on the chart, because that's where the forced selling already happened.

The shakeout isn't a flaw in the setup. The shakeout IS the setup.

PART 5 — EARLY ENTRIES AND ADD-ONS

11) The Mini-Pivot

You don't have to wait for the breakout the whole world is watching. Inside every multi-week base, smaller pivots form — a tight two-week shelf, an inside downtrend line, a higher-low sequence against a flat market. Buy the mini-pivot, stop under the recent swing low. If the real breakout comes, you're sitting on a cushion. If it fails, your loss is a fraction of what breakout buyers take.

The strongest early tell: higher lows in the stock while the market makes lower lows. Relative strength before the move is the fingerprint of accumulation.

12) Pyramiding — Adding to Winners

Every add is one of the tactics above, executed on a position you already own:

Add on the pullback to the rising 10 or 21 SMA

Add on the re-breakout after a short, tight consolidation

Add on a fresh high with volume expansion

Two rules keep pyramiding from becoming oversizing. Adds get SMALLER — first buy biggest, every add a fraction of it. And the position has a hard ceiling, built in stages. You add because the trade is proving itself. Never to rescue an average.

EXECUTION: THE PART THAT ACTUALLY PAYS YOU

The tactic list is worthless without the discipline wrapper.

Every trade is written before it exists. Trigger, stop, size, add condition — on paper, before the open. If I can't write it, I can't trade it.

Bracket orders at entry. The stop goes in the moment the fill happens. Not "mentally." A pre-committed bracket is the only known cure for the freeze-then-chase disease.

Stops live at logical levels, not convenient ones. Below the shakeout low, below the MA cluster, below the shelf — wherever the thesis dies. A stop at "down 2% because that feels okay" is a donation with extra steps.

Fixed risk per trade. Size is derived from stop distance, never the other way around. Wide stop, smaller size. Tight stop, bigger size. Same dollars at risk every time.

Three names, maximum. Deep research on a few campaigns beats shallow triggers on twenty tickers.

Don't chase late. Every entry here happens early in a move or at a logical level. If you're 5% above the pivot, the trade is gone. There will be another shelf, another pullback, another reclaim. There always is.

Pick two or three of these tactics and drill them until the trigger-stop pair is reflexive. Mastery of a small menu beats familiarity with a big one.

Ride the Vertical. Short the Blowoff.

A TO Z - Entry Tactics for Each and every set up that I trade..

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