Breakout Catagories

I am curious to know that too, surprise bars for me so far has been those that are about x3 or more of the current day ATR in the context where it actually changes the context ... 😮 we all know about give up bars, exhaustion bars ... but those that "trap" (aka surprise) bars .. 

Could be all wrong

I could be wrong, but my 2 cents is that  ALL breakouts can be classified into one of those 3 categories.  Anything XL/Climactic/Dominant Feature is Major.  Anything medium is Minor.  And a series of smaller/medium can be BTC/STC.  What else is there?

Update

4 types of Surprises:

• Give-Up Bars
• Breakout *
• Reversal *
• Exhaustion

*note- a reversal is a breakout

3 Sizes of Surprises:

• Major Surprise(s)
• Minor Surprise Bar(s)
• Series of Smaller Bars

BTC/STC is an way to enter breakouts/reversals.  Minimum requirement is 2+ Minor Surprise or Series of Smaller.

Experts, is this accurate and does this cover everything?

thanks

Hey w,

Don't count me as an expert but it doesn't matter what you call a BO, because any trend bar is a BO anyway.

There are also weak BOs which start, well, weak as in bad follow-through and overlapping bars. Instead of a spike, you get a channel right from the start of the BO. This can happen on trending TR days and the BO from a TR (to the next TR) can happen weakly like this.

Other than this, your list looks complete, though I would add "Climax" too to be explicitly clear.

Respondido por: Khan

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Don't count me as an expert but it doesn't matter what you call a BO, because any trend bar is a BO anyway.

I'm just trying to make sense of the different categories that Al created. I think they all trade a bit differently.  BTC/STC you want to get in ASAP.  Climactic breakout can get very deep PBs, so maybe wait.

Respondido por: Khan

↑

There are also weak BOs which start, well, weak as in bad follow-through and overlapping bars. Instead of a spike, you get a channel right from the start of the BO. This can happen on trending TR days and the BO from a TR (to the next TR) can happen weakly like this.

Yes, I saw this exactly on Friday's MNQ.  I was trapped out until pullbacks bar 45 and 64.  Maybe an 'always in' trader buys bar 2 or 5 and holds until the end.

Respondido por: w

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I'm just trying to make sense of the different categories that Al created. I think they all trade a bit differently.  BTC/STC you want to get in ASAP.  Climactic breakout can get very deep PBs, so maybe wait.

In that case, your list is correct I'd say and I'd add that as long as you are fairly certain that you have a successful BO of any kind (any one on your list), you want to get into the market ASAP in that direction. That's why I said that there is no difference between BOs even though you trade them slightly differently depending on the type and strength of the BO and the context.

Respondido por: w

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Yes, I saw this exactly on Friday's MNQ.  I was trapped out until pullbacks bar 45 and 64.  Maybe an 'always in' trader buys bar 2 or 5 and holds until the end.

When you feel you are trapped out and getting anxious, I suggest you look at the chart and find a reason to enter. In this example, the market was in a tight bull channel, therefore you can buy for any reason between bars 9-38. After 38, the character of the market changed (tight channel got wider with consecutive big-ish bear bars), but then you caught a bull flag at bar 46 at the MA, which is great.

Not to mention that you could/should have entered at the close of bar 2 or above it. You have a gap up, so bullish, and bar 1 is ok because it has a tail above but closed around the midpoint, and bar 2 is the follow-through bar, which is a trend bar but has tails. These 3 reasons make higher prices more likely anyway. Bar 4 is big because many traders probably had reservations about the BO due to the reasons I stated but it looks like many of them added on around 50% PB anyway.