Trading Framework

Profitable trading is not a product of pattern recognition alone. It is the consequence of a disciplined, structured methodology — one that places every decision within a precise and verifiable context. The trader who operates without such a framework is not analyzing markets; they are reacting to them.

The Where — What — When Framework is a universal decision-making model designed to eliminate ambiguity from the trade selection process.

No trade is valid unless all three conditions are satisfied simultaneously. A setup that satisfies only one or two pillars is incomplete — and incompleteness is the origin of most trading losses.

Each pillar serves a distinct and irreplaceable function:

• Where → The precise area of the market in which institutional participation is probable.

• What → The observable behavior that signals institutional intent at that location.

• When → The temporal context in which the setup carries its highest probability of follow-through.

Where — Market Location

"The quality of a trade is determined before it begins — by where you choose to engage."

The first pillar establishes the spatial context of the trade. Before any signal is considered, the trader must identify the precise price area in which a high-probability reaction is structurally justified.

Entering a trade away from a meaningful structural level is not a low-probability trade — it is speculation without edge.

Location is not defined by proximity to recent price action. It is defined by structural significance. A level carries weight because institutions have previously acted at it, because it represents an unresolved imbalance, or because it sits at a natural boundary of macro price delivery. The trader's task is to identify these areas in advance — not to react to wherever price happens to be.

Support & Resistance Levels

Historical price areas where supply or demand has previously manifested in a significant and measurable way. These levels represent institutional memory encoded into the market structure. The more times a level has been tested and respected, the more participants are aware of it — and the more consequential a violation of it becomes.

NPOCs — Naked Points of Control

High-volume nodes from prior sessions that price has not revisited. They represent unresolved institutional interest and exert a gravitational influence on future price delivery. Markets have a demonstrated tendency to return to these areas before resuming directional movement.

Key Opens & Closes

The opening and closing prices of significant timeframe candles — daily, weekly, monthly — function as structural anchors that institutional participants actively reference, defend, or target. They represent the beginning and end of institutional delivery cycles and are therefore among the most reliable reference points available to the trader.

Premium & Discount Arrays

Defined relative to the equilibrium of any given range. Optimal long positioning is established within the discount; optimal short positioning within the premium. Engaging at extremes rather than at midpoints is the structural foundation of asymmetric risk management.

The governing question of WHERE: Is price delivering into a location where institutional activity is historically concentrated and structurally justified? If the answer is not clearly affirmative, no further analysis is warranted.

What — Behavioral Confirmation

"Location creates opportunity. Behavior creates conviction."

The second pillar defines what the trader must observe at the identified location before committing capital. A price level in isolation carries no directional implication — it is the behavior of price upon arriving at that level that reveals whether institutional participants are present and what their intention is.

The trader is not searching for arbitrary patterns or visual formations. They are searching for evidence of three specific and interrelated market behaviors — each of which reflects a structural imbalance of participant positioning that institutions exploit.

Trapped Positions

A failed breakout, an engineered stop run, or a sharp liquidity sweep that leaves a segment of market participants positioned incorrectly. When the market reverses after triggering these stops, those participants are forced to exit — and their exits become the fuel for directional movement in the opposite direction.

Trapped participants are not a side effect of institutional activity. They are frequently the purpose of it.

Recognizable through sharp wick rejections from key levels, false breaks of prior session highs or lows, and rapid price reversals that close back within the prior range.

Market Structure Change

A decisive shift in the sequence of price delivery — the moment at which the market demonstrably changes from one directional delivery to the other. This is the structural confirmation that the identified level has been defended and that the prior delivery mechanism has been interrupted.

Structure change is not a single candle or a single close. Until structure changes, a reaction at a level is a pause — not a reversal.

It is the point at which the market's own sequence of highs and lows reverses — where the evidence of directional commitment becomes unambiguous.

Volume Anomaly & Inter-Market Divergence

Elevated volume at a specific price level indicates the presence of large-order participants transacting in size. This anomaly, when occurring at a structurally significant location, is a meaningful signal of institutional positioning.

Inter-market divergence — where two correlated instruments fail to confirm each other's extreme — provides further evidence that one instrument is being used to absorb or distribute while the other is being manipulated to facilitate order flow.

The governing question of WHAT: Is price exhibiting observable institutional behavior — trapped participants, structural change, or inter-market divergence — at the identified location? Behavioral confirmation is required. A compelling location without behavioral evidence is not a setup — it is a hypothesis.

When — Temporal Precision

"The same setup in the wrong session is not the same setup."

The third pillar establishes the temporal boundaries within which a trade is considered valid. Institutional participation — the activity that produces sustained directional delivery — is concentrated within specific sessions and specific windows within those sessions.

Trading outside of recognized institutional participation windows does not merely reduce probability — it fundamentally changes the nature of the market being traded. Price movement during low-participation periods reflects retail activity and algorithmic noise, not the deliberate order flow that produces meaningful follow-through.

Asia Session — 20:00 to 00:00 EST

Characterized by reduced volatility and predominantly range-bound behavior. Asia frequently functions as a liquidity engineering phase — quietly constructing the structural extremes that London and New York will subsequently exploit. High-probability directional trades originating exclusively within this session are comparatively rare.

London Killzone — 02:00 to 05:00 EST

Among the highest institutional participation windows in the trading day. London frequently establishes the directional range for the European session and often creates the high or low of the day that defines the reversal point for subsequent New York delivery. Structural shifts initiated during this window carry elevated probability of sustained follow-through.

New York AM Killzone — 08:30 to 11:00 EST

The primary confluence of European and North American institutional participation. The highest volatility, deepest liquidity, and most significant directional delivery of the trading day is concentrated here.

The 90 minutes following the New York open represent the most consequential period of the session and historically the highest-probability window for trade execution.

New York Lunch — 11:00 to 13:00 EST

A period of institutional withdrawal and diminished directional conviction. Volume contracts, spreads widen, and price movement becomes increasingly erratic and unreliable.

Setups forming exclusively during the New York Lunch window carry a materially higher rate of false confirmation and reduced follow-through.

New York PM Session — 13:00 to 16:00 EST

Secondary institutional participation resumes. This window frequently serves to extend the morning's directional delivery or to position price at a structurally significant closing level in anticipation of the following session.

The governing question of WHEN: Is the setup forming within a recognized institutional participation window, and does the session context align with the expected nature of the directional delivery? Temporal misalignment does not weaken a setup — it disqualifies it.

Pre-Trade Standard

Before capital is committed to any position, the trader must be able to affirm each of the following without qualification. Partial affirmation is not affirmation.

WHERE

• A structurally significant price location has been identified and mapped in advance — not discovered after price has already arrived.

• The location aligns with the prevailing macro directional bias.

• Price is delivering into a premium area (for short positioning) or a discount area (for long positioning) relative to the macro range.

WHAT

• Observable evidence of trapped participants is present at or near the identified location.

• A demonstrable shift in market structure has been confirmed — not anticipated, not assumed.

• Volume anomaly or inter-market divergence is present as additional confluence.

WHEN

• The setup is forming within a recognized institutional participation window.

• The session context is consistent with the expected nature and direction of the delivery.

• There is sufficient time remaining within the session for the move to develop with meaningful follow-through.

If any condition cannot be affirmed with confidence, the trade is not taken. There is no exception to this standard.

Common Errors

Entering at Location Without Behavioral Confirmation

The identification of a significant price level is a necessary condition — it is not a sufficient one. Traders who enter solely on the basis of location, without waiting for observable behavioral evidence, are anticipating institutional activity rather than confirming it. Anticipation is indistinguishable from guessing. Confirmation is the product of patience and discipline.

Trading Outside of Recognized Sessions

A structurally compelling setup that forms during the New York Lunch or in the pre-market hours is not the same setup that would form during the London or New York AM Killzone. The mechanics may appear identical — the probability is not. The framework is only as strong as its weakest pillar.

Trading Against the Macro Directional Bias

Seeking short entries in a macro discount area, or long entries in a macro premium area, is a structural contradiction. Counter-bias trades can produce returns — but they carry materially higher invalidation rates and demand a degree of confluence that is rarely present.

Accepting Ambiguous Behavioral Evidence

A single wick at a key level is not evidence of a trapped position. A single candle closing against the prior trend is not a structure change. Confirmation requires that the evidence be unambiguous — clearly and definitively satisfying the criteria of its pillar. Accepting ambiguous evidence is not a judgment call; it is a lowering of standards.

Abandoning the Framework After a Losing Trade

A framework that produces a losing trade has not failed. Markets are probabilistic environments — no methodology produces certainty. A losing trade taken with full framework alignment is a cost of doing business. A losing trade taken outside the framework is a discipline failure.

Closing Principle

The Where — What — When Framework does not generate trades. It qualifies them.

Its purpose is not to surface more opportunities — it is to ensure that every opportunity acted upon meets an uncompromising standard of spatial, behavioral, and temporal alignment. The trader who applies this framework consistently will take fewer trades. That is not a limitation. It is the intended outcome.

Selectivity, exercised with discipline, is the mechanism by which edge is preserved over time. The market will always offer more setups than any disciplined framework will permit. The trader's task is not to take every setup the market offers — it is to take only those the framework confirms.

In markets, as in all domains of precision, less is more — provided the less is better.