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Once You Master This Strategy, Trading Becomes Incredibly Simple

Video: Once You Master This Strategy, Trading Becomes Incredibly Simple

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· based on the channel Scarface Trades

Trading becomes simpler when you stop hunting for setups all day and instead follow one repeatable routine around the 9:30 AM New York open: mark the key levels before the bell, wait for price to break and retest one of them, and only enter when a confirmation candle closes in your direction. That three-step process — setup, retest, entry — is the core of the approach Scarface Trades walks through in the video "Once You Master This Strategy, Trading Becomes Incredibly Simple", and the free Simple Trader Playbook course is where the channel puts the written rules.

Why most traders overcomplicate the 9:30 AM open

The opening bell is the single most information-dense moment of the US session, and that density is exactly what makes most traders lose money. Pre-market volume, overnight news, gap fills and the first five-minute candle all compete for attention, so beginners respond by stacking indicators on a one-minute chart until every signal contradicts the last.

A cleaner way to think about it: the open does not need to be predicted, it needs to be mapped. Before 9:30 AM you already know the levels that matter — the pre-market high and low, the previous day's high and low (PDH and PDL), and the prior close. Those four or five prices are where resting orders sit, where stops cluster, and where the first real liquidity test of the day happens. Everything else on the chart is noise until price interacts with one of them.

Step 1: Set up the trade before the market opens

The setup step is pure preparation and takes about ten minutes. Mark these levels on your chart before 9:30 AM:

  1. Pre-market high and pre-market low.
  2. Previous day high (PDH) and previous day low (PDL).
  3. The prior session close, which often acts as a magnet for gap fills.
  4. Any obvious overnight range boundary that price has already tested twice.

Then decide what would make you interested. A common version is a break of the pre-market range in the direction of the broader trend, with the broken level becoming support or resistance on the retest. If price opens in the middle of PDH and PDL with no clear edge, the correct action is no action — that is a valid outcome of the setup step, not a missed opportunity.

Step 2: The profitable part is the retest, not the breakout

The second step is where the strategy earns its edge: after price breaks a marked level, you wait for it to come back and hold that level instead of buying the breakout candle. Breakouts fail constantly at the open because the first push is often stop-running and liquidity grabbing; the retest is where you find out whether real buyers or sellers are defending the level.

Practically, this means you let the first impulsive move happen without you. If price breaks the pre-market high, you want to see it pull back toward that high, hold above it (or reclaim it quickly after a shallow dip), and then continue. If it slices straight back through the level and closes below, the breakout failed and you saved yourself a loss by doing nothing. This single rule — no retest, no trade — removes most of the impulse entries that wreck beginner accounts.

Step 3: Use a confirmation candle as your entry model

The entry model is a closed candle that proves the level is holding, not a guess in the middle of a move. A workable version for a one-minute or five-minute chart:

  • Wait for price to return to the broken level.
  • Look for a rejection candle — a wick into the level with a close back in your direction — or an engulfing candle that closes beyond the prior candle's range.
  • Enter on the close of that candle, with the stop just beyond the level or beyond the candle's wick.
  • Size the position from the stop distance, so a wider stop means a smaller position, never a bigger risk.

This is where the strategy answers the most common objection: you are not entering mid-candle or on the breakout tick, you are entering after a candle closes with the level confirmed. That costs you a few ticks of entry price and buys you a clear invalidation point, which is what makes the trade reviewable afterwards.

Position size, timeframe and instrument choice

A one-minute chart produces small moves, so the position has to be larger in share or contract terms to make the trade meaningful — which is also why the stop must be tight and mechanical. Traders who dislike the one-minute noise can apply the identical rules on the five-minute chart, where candles are slower but the level logic is unchanged; forex pairs such as EUR/USD work the same way, only the session times and pip values differ.

Instrument choice is a separate decision from the strategy. Concentrating on one or two liquid names you know well — a large-cap you have watched for months — usually teaches the pattern faster than rotating through a long watchlist, because you learn how that specific stock behaves around its pre-market high and PDH. Whatever the instrument, the time zone matters: all levels and session times in this style of trading are referenced to New York time, so set your platform clock accordingly.

Common questions and pushback from traders

The most frequent doubt is whether these setups only look clean in hindsight. They often do, which is precisely why the rules have to be tested on old charts before they are trusted with money: replay twenty or thirty sessions, mark the levels, log every retest and every confirmation candle, and count the wins and losses yourself.

The second recurring question is what happens when price sits between PDH and PDL with no clear level nearby. The honest answer is that the edge is thin there, and sitting out is part of the strategy rather than a failure of it. The third is about indicators: adding two oscillators that disagree with your trend line does not improve the trade, it just gives you a reason to override a rule you already tested. Keep the chart to price and levels, and let the retest do the filtering.

Useful resources

Bottom line

This strategy is not a secret indicator; it is a discipline problem solved with three fixed steps — map the levels before 9:30 AM, refuse the breakout until price retests, and enter only on a closed confirmation candle. The rules are simple enough to follow on a bad day, which is the only test that matters, and they are easy to backtest because every decision has a defined trigger. Scarface Trades presents the framework in the video and pairs it with a free playbook course, so the natural next move is to join the Simple Trader Playbook waitlist, replay past sessions against the checklist, and only then risk real capital.

Key takeaways

  • The strategy is built around the 9:30 AM New York open, when volume and volatility expand.
  • Three steps: mark the setup (pre-market high/low, prior day high/low), wait for a retest, then enter on a confirmation candle.
  • The core filter is patience: a breakout is not a trade until price holds the level on a retest.
  • Most losing beginner trades come from chasing the first candle of the session instead of waiting for structure.
  • Backtesting the rules on historical sessions is required before risking real capital.

Questions & answers

Do I need to trade the one-minute chart for this strategy to work?

No. The setup, retest and confirmation logic is timeframe-agnostic. The one-minute chart simply gives more frequent signals and smaller stop distances; the five-minute chart produces fewer, slower trades with the same level-based rules. Pick one timeframe and stay consistent so your backtest results mean something.

What should I do when price opens between the previous day's high and low?

Treat it as a no-trade zone until price reaches a marked level. The edge in this approach comes from reactions at pre-market highs and lows or PDH and PDL, so a chart with no nearby level offers no clear invalidation point. Waiting is a position, and skipping low-quality sessions is part of the strategy.

Which candle exactly do I enter on?

You enter on the close of a confirmation candle at the retested level — a rejection wick or an engulfing close back in your direction — not mid-candle and not on the breakout itself. The stop goes just beyond the level or the candle's wick, and position size is calculated from that stop distance.

How do I know the strategy actually works before risking money?

Backtest it manually on historical sessions: mark the levels, log every retest and confirmation candle, and record wins, losses and average risk-to-reward over at least twenty to thirty sessions. Setups always look obvious in hindsight, so the only reliable evidence is your own written sample collected before you trade live.

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