1 · Pick the side from the open
Yesterday's value area is where the market agreed on price. Where today opens against it tells you who is in control before the first bar prints:
Above VAH
buyers' day
Mostly buys. Buy pullbacks to the levels under price (VAH, the overnight low, the stack). Sell only at a named ceiling with a top-rule answer — and treat it as a scalp. Never short the first pullback.
Inside value
rotation
Both sides, edges only. Buy the VAL / support edge, sell the VAH / resistance edge, nothing in the middle. The card marks the day "rotation" and writes C and B as the two trades.
Below VAL
sellers' day
Mostly sells. Sell rallies into the levels above price (VAL from below, the broken overnight low, the stack from below). Buy only at a ★★★ support with a bottom-rule answer — a scalp back to the first ceiling, never a runner.
Why it works: above VAH every trader who sold yesterday is losing; their covering is your fuel and the dips are shallow. Below VAL every buyer from yesterday is losing; their selling into every bounce is why the bounces fail. You are trading with the trapped crowd's pain, not against it.
"Mostly" is deliberate. On Oct 30 price opened below VAL and the one long of the day — the bottom rule at 7650 — paid 14 points. It was a scalp to the ceiling and it was over by 10:00. Every long after that lost. The side rule does not say never; it says the other side is a scalp with the first level as the target.
2 · The levels that count
Not every number on the chart is a level. These are, in roughly the order they matter, and the card stars them for you:
| Level | What it is | Typical behaviour |
|---|
| VAL / VAH | the edges of yesterday's 70% value | the day's primary decision lines; a close through one with follow-through changes the side |
| POC / VPOC | the price with the most time / volume yesterday | a magnet inside value; price returns to it on rotation days, pauses there on trend days |
| ON high / ON low | the overnight extremes | the first levels tested after 9:30; the ON low is where the overnight sellers already won or lost |
| Prior high / low | yesterday's range | outside it there is no value to rotate back to — gap rules apply |
| Naked VPOC / VAL / VAH | a level never touched since it formed | reacts on the first touch almost every time |
| Stack ◆ ★★★ | two or more of the above within a few points | the day's best location — the only place the counter-trend scalp is allowed |
Between levels there is no trade. A big print in the middle of nowhere is noise, whatever its size.
3 · What to wait for at a level
Price arriving at a level is not a signal. Price has to do something there, and it has to do it in the next one or two bars. The three questions, applied at a level, give three possible outcomes:
| Outcome | What you see at the level | Trade |
|---|
| Hold (the level works) | At support: a big red prints, price gets less than ~4 pts below the level, a green of ≥ +500 answers within two ticks, the bar closes back above the edge. At resistance: the mirror — a big green at the top of the bar, no progress, a red answers. | Enter on the close of the answering bar, stop just beyond the bar's extreme, first target the next level on the card. Take most there. |
| Break (the level fails) | A 5-minute close beyond the level on big prints with progress (price 4+ pts through) and no answer, with the VIX moving the same way. | Don't chase the breaking bar. The trade is the retest: price comes back to the level from the other side, the opposite colour prints at the top (or bottom) of the bar and gets answered. That is the entry, stop beyond the retest high / low. |
| Nothing yet | Prints are small, both colours, no progress either way; or a big print has arrived but the next bar has not closed. | Wait. Most losing trades at levels are entered here — on the arrival, before the answer. |
First hit, second hit. One big red at a support with no follow-through is a warning, not yet a hold. Only call the level held when the next test holds too. Oct 29: −944 at 7748 at 8:40 held for 50 minutes, then −2,651 went through. Oct 30: −597 at the ON low at 7:55 held for an hour, then the 9:30 bar took it on −5,000.
Side + level together. On a sellers' day (below VAL) you are only looking for the resistance outcome at the levels above and the break-then-retest at the levels below. The hold at support is the one scalp. On a buyers' day, the mirror.
4 · A broken floor is a ceiling
When price closes through a level with progress and no answer, the people who bought that level are now losing. The next time price comes back up to it, they sell to get out — that is why a broken support becomes resistance, and a broken resistance becomes support. The card writes this into every D′/D setup: after the break, the old floor is the first target of the bounce and the place to sell the bounce.
Oct 30, 2026 in one picture: 7664–67 held twice overnight, broke on the 9:30 bar, and sold the 10:00–10:05 retest to the tick.
The same flip works upward. Oct 26: the 7694–97 ceiling absorbed four buyers, broke up on the fifth with the VIX falling, and the first pullback to 7697–7701 from above was the long.
Examples from the live sessions
Below VAL, sell the retest — Fri Oct 30
Open 7671, 65 pts under VAL 7736. Side: sells. 9:30 broke the ON low 7664 (−5,000, 15 pts, VIX rising) — D′. 9:35–9:40 the bottom rule at the 7648–54 ★★★ stack gave the one allowed long, a scalp to the broken floor: +689 answered, close back above 7654, ran to 7668 and stopped. 10:05: +436 at the top of the bar at the old floor, −343 under it in the same bar — the retest sell. Everything after followed the side.
At VAL from above, the hold — Tue Oct 27
Open inside value, pulled back to the 7713–15 stack (prior VAL + naked level). Reds got no progress, +500s answered, the bar closed back above — buy the close, target the VAH side of value. Inside value, both edges, nothing in the middle.
Above VAH, buy the dips — Mon Oct 26
Price held above Friday's value all morning with the VIX falling 19.2 → 18.4. Four buyers were absorbed at 7694–97 — on a falling VIX a ceiling hit four times is a breakout candidate, not a fade. The fifth buyer broke it; the pullback that held 7697–7701 from above was the long. Shorting the ceiling on the third touch was the losing trade that day.
First hit is a warning — Thu Oct 29
Gap down under Wednesday's value; side: sells. −944 at the 7748 floor at 8:40 with nothing under it looked like a trapped seller. It was the first hit. The second, −2,651 at 9:35, went straight through to 7733. The card's D at the ON low 7747 was the trade; buying the first hit was not.
The rules, short form
Side: above VAH mostly buys, below VAL mostly sells, inside value both edges only. The other side is a scalp at a ★★★ stack with the first level as target.
At a level: never trade the arrival. Hold = big print fails (< 4 pts progress) + opposite ≥ 500 answers within two ticks + close back beyond the edge → enter on that close. Break = 5-minute close through with progress and no answer, VIX agreeing → trade the retest from the other side, not the breaking bar.
Polarity: a broken floor is a ceiling; a broken ceiling is a floor. The old level is the bounce target and the retest entry. First hit at a level is a warning; the second, bigger print through it is the break.
Referee: when the side rule and the level disagree (a ceiling tested on a falling VIX, a floor tested on a rising one), the VIX direction decides.