**The 3 Step A+ Strategy I Use Everyday — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/3-step-a-strategy-everyday/

A trading educator outlines a three-step A+ framework, focusing on forming a daily bias from higher time frames, identifying liquidity targets, and setting invalidation levels.

## Key Takeaways

- Form a directional bias before the session using higher time frame structure, and sit out when conditions are conflicting or neutral.
- Use untaken daily highs or lows as profit targets, and reduce size or skip trades when the target has already been reached.
- Predefine an invalidation level and stop trading for the day once it is hit rather than flipping bias impulsively.
- Psychological discipline and sticking with one framework through drawdowns matter more than switching strategies.

## What the video covers

- The video opens by describing a common trader loop: switching strategies every few weeks after losing streaks and failing to sit through drawdowns.
- The presenter argues the core problem is emotional discipline rather than the strategy itself.
- Step one is forming a daily bias (bullish, bearish, or neutral) before the session, based on higher time frame structure such as the daily, 4-hour, or 1-hour chart.
- Bias is read from higher highs/higher lows versus lower highs/lower lows, and from inside versus outside candles indicating neutrality or strong participation.
- Step two identifies untaken liquidity targets: previous daily highs or lows that serve as default targets for the session; if a target is already taken, position size should be reduced or the trade skipped.
- Step three sets a predefined invalidation level (stop loss); once it is hit for the day, the trader stops and does not flip bias on impulse.
- Visual cheat sheets illustrate strong and weak bullish and bearish setups using two-candle sequences and outside bars with closes beyond prior highs or lows.
- Lower time frame execution should align with the higher time frame bias; counter-trend setups are ignored until alignment appears.
- The presenter discusses swing failure patterns and session liquidity as entry triggers after a bias is established.
- A worked example shows roughly $3,500 of risk targeting about $17,000 in reward, with discussion of tightening risk-reward on lower time frames.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Why Traders Keep Switching Strategies
2. 01:02 Forming Your Daily Bias
3. 02:20 Determining Bias with Higher Time Frames
4. 03:34 Bullish and Bearish Candle Setups
5. 04:49 Inside and Outside Candles
6. 06:06 Identifying Liquidity Targets
7. 08:40 Worked Trade Example and Risk-Reward
8. 11:20 Accountability and Closing Thoughts

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the first step of the framework described in the video?

The first step is forming a daily bias, a directional lean (bullish, bearish, or neutral) determined before the session by reading higher time frame structure. The presenter emphasizes that bias is a lean rather than a prediction and is used to filter trades.

What should a trader do if the daily highs have already been taken while bullish?

According to the presenter, if the previous daily high has already been taken, the bullish target has been met, so the trader should either size down the position or skip the trade entirely.

Should a trader change their bias in the middle of a session?

The presenter generally advises against it, noting that flipping bias mid-session can lead to revenge trading, tilt, and oversized positions. Once the invalidation level is hit for the day, the trader should stop rather than flip on impulse.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

You've been trading for a year, maybe two. Every 3 weeks, you're back on Twitter looking for a new strategy because the last one hit a losing streak and you couldn't sit through it. Sunday night, you print fresh rules. Monday

00:11

Speaker A

morning, you break them by 10:00 a.m. You've probably spent five, maybe 10 grand on courses trying to fix this. But that's not the fix because the problem was never the strategy. The problem is you can't sit through the losing streaks

00:21

Speaker A

that come with every real one. And every 3 weeks you switch to a new strategy that hasn't hit its losing streak yet.

00:27

Speaker A

That's the whole loop you're stuck in. and that's what's actually been costing you the account. So, in this video, I'm going to do two things for you. I'm going to give you the three-part framework I've been running for the past

00:35

Speaker A

five years that made me millions of dollars. And more importantly, I'm going to tell you why you're going to struggle to stick to this one, too, and exactly what fixes that. But first, let's talk about what you need to understand before

00:45

Speaker A

you take another trade this week. Starting off with daily bias, which is the direction institutional flow has already decided the market wants to deliver price today. Bullish, bearish, or neutral. And here's the thing that most retail traders never accept. The

00:58

Speaker A

direction was decided before you sat down. Now, your job is not to guess it.

01:02

Speaker A

Your job is to read it. And you form this bias before the open using two questions I'll walk you through in just a second. Now, if you come to a conclusion of which direction you're trying to trade before you start trading

01:12

Speaker A

for that session, that's going to be your side and you should stick to it. If you have conflicting information or the market is more neutral, then you should sit out. There is no option where you should be trading because you wanted to

01:22

Speaker A

force it. Now, our daily bias is a lean. It's not a prediction. Developing a bias is only answering one question. Which side am I willing to be on today? And you form this based on a higher time frame or what you're analyzing before

01:36

Speaker A

the session starts. It's going to help you filter your trades, but it doesn't generate them. And one thing that's helped me a lot is not switching my bias in the middle of a session. Now, if you're an intraday trader and you like

01:46

Speaker A

trading the AM session and the PM session, let's say if you get the bias wrong in the morning, then maybe in the afternoon you can decide to flip your bias. But I typically would not recommend doing it in the middle of a

01:56

Speaker A

session because you can get into a lot of bad situations. It causes revenge trading. It causes tilt and sometimes it makes you oversize the position trying to make back the initial loss. And because markets are probabilistic in nature, being wrong about your bias is

02:10

Speaker A

totally normal. But if you're not comfortable admitting you were wrong, then it ends up being an expensive mistake. Now, how do I determine my actual bias? Well, first it's going to start top down, meaning I have a higher

02:20

Speaker A

time frame that I'm trying to read, whether that's the daily, the 4 hour, or the 1 hour. And I'm trying to analyze if the market is making higher highs and higher lows, or lower highs and lower lows. And also, do we have a target in

02:32

Speaker A

mind that the market should trade to? So, I ask myself three questions. Which way is the daily or the higher time frame delivering? That could be the 4 hour or 1 hour, whatever your highest time frame is going to be for that

02:42

Speaker A

specific trading session. Is it creating higher highs and higher lows or lower highs and lower lows? Are we getting inside candles showing us the market is neutral or are we getting outside candles showing us strong participation in the market? Question number two, what

02:54

Speaker A

has not been taken yet? So, I'm looking for untouched highs and lows above or below depending on which direction my bias is. So, if I have a bullish bias coming into the day, I prefer the previous daily highs are not taken yet

03:06

Speaker A

because that gives me a target to reach for. And if I'm bullish, but the previous daily highs already been taken, then I either size down or I don't take a trade because my target's already been met. And finally, number three, I always

03:18

Speaker A

have a point of invalidation, meaning my stop loss. I always pick this level in advance, and it's my invalidation level.

03:24

Speaker A

So if price trades through it and holds, my bias is dead because my stop goes in a place where the trade idea is no longer right. And the best protocol that I found is once my invalidation level is

03:34

Speaker A

hit for the day, then I'm done. I do not flip on an impulse. So, everybody talks about bias, but a lot of traders have a hard time actually implementing it and what to look for. So, let's walk through

03:44

Speaker A

a couple cheat sheets that I put together. In both of these examples, they're showing strong bullish moves.

03:49

Speaker A

So, in this top example, we have a higher low and higher high, and the close of this candle closes above the previous high. So, we have two candles in sequence that create a higher low and higher high, and it's closing above the

04:02

Speaker A

previous candle's high. This is showing us that bulls are in control. Now, we also have outside bars where the second candle takes out the previous candle's low and also closes above the previous candle's high. And we can see that the

04:14

Speaker A

second candle fully engulfs the previous candle. This is another strong indication that bulls are fully in control of this market. So, we have two examples of strongly bullish scenarios where we only need two candles to try and predict what that third candle is

04:27

Speaker A

going to try and do. This gives me a strong conviction that the market is bullish. So, what I'm trying to do is only look for buying opportunities. And you've probably noticed this in your own trading. You see bearish setups when the

04:38

Speaker A

higher time frames are telling you it's bullish and all of those bearish setups fail and you end up taking losses. So when I have that conviction coming from the higher time frame, whether it's the daily, the 4 hour, or the 1 hour, I want

04:49

Speaker A

to make sure I'm aligned with that. So when I drop down to my execution time frame, whether that's the 15minut, the 5m minute, or the 1 minute, that I'm trading in alignment with that higher time frame. Now the next one is going to

04:59

Speaker A

be a weak bullish setup. And in this case, we have a higher low and higher high. But in this case, candle number two fails to close above the previous candle's high. While this specific pattern is still bullish, I'm much more

05:10

Speaker A

cautious because we could see some type of retracement. Even though this example is still bullish, I am much more cautious because I am weary of a deeper retracement prior to seeing those buy signals appear. So again, you're trying

05:22

Speaker A

to long but with caution. Next, we have strong bearish. And in this example, you could see that the market is creating lower highs and lower lows. and we are also closing below the low of this previous candle. Now again, this all

05:34

Speaker A

depends on the higher time frame that you're using for your trade ideas. If you're using an hourly chart for your higher time frame and you're executing on the 5minute, you really only care what happened in the last couple hours.

05:44

Speaker A

So let's say leading up to the open, we have this specific setup coming into the open, we're anticipating some small retracement. We're trying to position ourselves short for another expansion lower on that third candle. And in pattern number two, we also have a

05:56

Speaker A

bearish outside bar where it's taking out the high and closing below the low. And you could see again that this specific candle is engulfing or outside of the previous candle. So both of these examples give me a strong conviction for

06:09

Speaker A

bearishness. So even when I drop down on those lower time frames, I'm only looking for reasons to short the market.

06:14

Speaker A

If I drop down to a lower time frame and I'm seeing bullish setups, well, I'm just going to wait until a bearish setup appears. Next up, we have weak bearish.

06:21

Speaker A

So this market is creating lower highs and lower lows, but this second candle fails to close below the low of this first one. Now I'm only shorting this with caution because there is the chance that this market is going to provide a

06:33

Speaker A

deeper retracement prior to finding that short signal. Then we have caution candles and these signal either a reversal or retracement is underway. So, as you can see in this top example, the market did create a higher low and

06:45

Speaker A

higher high. But you can see that the second candle closed bearish, meaning it failed to continue higher and it gave us a bearish rejection. And in our bullish example, we can see the market is creating lower lows and lower highs, but

06:57

Speaker A

the market failed at the previous candle's low and gave us a bullish closure. So, for our conviction, it's low for a continuation. Meaning, if we get a higher low and higher high, my conviction is very low that the market's

07:09

Speaker A

going to continue higher. and it's actually higher for a reversal or retracement. These two examples give us our early warning signs of a possible turn in the market. And lastly, we have our neutral candles or inside candles.

07:21

Speaker A

So, in this top example, we see that this candle closed inside of the previous candle and did not create a higher high or a lower low. It's the same thing if you see a bullish inside candle. It failed to create a higher

07:34

Speaker A

high and it failed to create a lower low. This two candle pattern is telling us that the market is indecisive in that current moment. And what we're trying to do is wait for a break. Now, a break can

07:43

Speaker A

come in the form of a fake out, meaning it takes out the candles high and then reverses, or we might get a break to one side in a continuation. But usually, when these candles appear, I'm sitting on my hands waiting to see what happens.

07:55

Speaker A

Now, knowing the bias is just step one because the market doesn't just go where we want in a straight line. It has to run something first. And when you understand what that is, every losing trade you took the last month is going

08:05

Speaker A

to make sense in about 30 seconds. And that's because your stops are what the market is chasing. So every visible swing high on your chart, that's where buy stops are resting. And every swing low, their sell stops sitting below

08:16

Speaker A

that. Those are our pools of liquidity. And the professionals know exactly where every single one is. And they need to know this because they need counterflow to enter their positions. So for every buyer, there's a seller. And for every

08:28

Speaker A

seller, there's a buyer. What professionals are trying to do is position themselves where the most transactions are occurring. So if the market is bearish, they're going to use buy stops to try and enter their positions because they know above old

08:41

Speaker A

highs, there's going to be a lot of liquidity and trading activity occurring above that old high. So professionals are using that flow to fill their orders and then reverse it and go the actual direction they want to take the market.

08:52

Speaker A

So yeah, that move that stopped you out this morning before it ran to your target, that's because you were the counterparty to their trade. So when we think about a market, we have all of these pending orders that are being

09:02

Speaker A

placed in the market. Whether it's traders that are sidelined trying to get into the market or traders that have active positions using stops and limits to protect their position and take profit. So above obvious highs sit buy stops and below obvious lows sit sell

09:16

Speaker A

stops. Again, a large order needs someone to take the other side. Now, equal highs and equal lows are the clearest pools because as that market approached its previous high and didn't take it out, more and more liquidity is

09:30

Speaker A

being built up above that high. And same for equal lows or double bottoms. As the market approach that level, it didn't take out this liquidity on its first visit. So, when it rallied away, more and more orders are being built up below

09:42

Speaker A

those lows. Now, if you're having a hard time spotting where liquidity is, it can be very simple. All of these orders stack at very obvious levels, meaning previous weekly highs and lows, previous daily highs and lows, and previous

09:54

Speaker A

session highs and lows. Now, you would have noticed this if you study this for any meaningful time. Often times when we take out weekly highs and lows, there is a very, very strong reaction at those levels. Either we get a reversal or we

10:06

Speaker A

get a breakthrough in a continuation. Then we have daily highs and lows. And these are our default target for the session. Meaning, if I'm bullish, I'm targeting a previous daily high. And if I'm bearish, I'm targeting a previous

10:17

Speaker A

daily low. I'll mark them every morning. And again, if I'm bullish and we've already taken out a previous daily high, I'm much less likely to put on excessive risk because my targets already been met. And then finally, we have session

10:29

Speaker A

highs and lows. So, we have Asian session, London session, and New York session. These are typically the intraday levels that we're trying to hunt for our setups. Now, once you see this, you can't unsee it. But that leaves one question. How do you know in

10:40

Speaker A

real time the sweep is done and the reversal is on? Because if you enter too early, you get chopped up. And if you enter too late, the trade's already gone. Now, there's one specific candle pattern that tells you it's a good

10:50

Speaker A

trade. And that is the swing failure pattern. And it's exactly what it sounds like. Meaning price approached a swing point. It took the swing point out, but failed to displace any further. That characteristic is all you need to

11:01

Speaker A

understand the previous two concepts we just talked about. It's showing you that the bias is in play, and it's showing you where liquidity was taken and the counterparty stepped in. So, what is a swing failure pattern? I'm going to give

11:12

Speaker A

you guys a bearish example. So, we have a prior swing high that's being raided and closed back below. So, here we can see we have this prior swing high. We take it out, but then failed to close above that specific level. Now, it's

11:24

Speaker A

telling us two things. That buyers were given the breakout, meaning as price traded above this high, there were a lot of people trying to buy long on a break of this previous swing high. But also, there were previous sellers that may

11:35

Speaker A

have gotten short on one of these candles that put their stop-loss above this specific high. So, we have early shorts being stopped out of the market and we have buyers being trapped in the market. And that's enough liquidity to

11:46

Speaker A

send the market the opposite direction. So, what we're looking for in a bearish scenario where our bias is bearish, we're looking for a previous swing high to be taken out, a failure at that previous swing high, and a closure back

11:57

Speaker A

below it. Now, what separates a good swing failure pattern from a coin flip? Well, first of all, it happens at a level that actually matter. So, a weekly swing high, a session swing high, equal swing highs, not just some random swing

12:09

Speaker A

high that happened midday. Number two is the direction. Is it pointing in the direction of our bias? So, if you get a bearish swing failure pattern, but your bias is bullish, it's very likely that it's going to fail. And finally, the

12:20

Speaker A

reaction. Did it reject quickly or did it kind of take out that level and just drift? What we're looking for is a strong quick reaction after taking out these swing highs and lows. So, now, how do we put all of this together and

12:31

Speaker A

actually trade it? Well, let me show you right now. So, the first thing that I do when I sit down in front of my charts is I go over my higher time frame to find my bias. And in this specific example, I

12:40

Speaker A

can see the daily time frame was an inside candle. So, if we just zoom in here, we can see that this specific candle closed inside of the range of the previous candle. So, this one candle right here is an inside candle. It

12:52

Speaker A

didn't create a higher high or a lower low. So, right now, the market is neutral. And as I mentioned, what we're looking for is either a run on either of these levels to give us an indication that the market wants to continue lower,

13:04

Speaker A

or we might break out of this high and continue higher. So, right now, the market is neutral. Now, what I'm going to do is plot out my previous daily high and my previous daily low. So, our first two steps are out of the way. That took

13:15

Speaker A

me literally 2 minutes to do. Now, what we're looking for is a swing failure pattern at one of these levels and targeting the opposing level. So, we're going to drop down here and see what we get as we scroll forward towards the

13:26

Speaker A

next day. All right, we're still within the range of that previous day and we are approaching New York session. Now, here we can see that we've taken out the prior day high and closed back below it.

13:37

Speaker A

This here is our swing failure pattern. So, we have a swing failure pattern at the previous daily high and not only that, the hourly candle is giving us a bearish outside bar. So, you can see that we took out the previous candle's

13:49

Speaker A

high and we took out the previous candle's low. Now, for it to be an outside bar, it doesn't need to close below the low. All it needs to do is take out the previous high and the previous low. That way, these upper and

14:00

Speaker A

lower wicks are outside of the previous candle. Now, I do want to note that the body of the candle should be pretty big.

14:07

Speaker A

It should not close near the open. So, what we're going to do here, because this is our confirmation, it's telling us that people that were short got stopped out and anybody that tried to go long on a breakout is now trapped,

14:18

Speaker A

right? So, what I like to do is actually just draw a rectangle here and visualize all the participants that were transacting above this old swing high.

14:26

Speaker A

Right? There are a pool of traders that are up here that are either getting stopped out or trapped in long positions. Now, yes, you can be the person that's in here trying to act as the counterparty, but I'm not trying to

14:37

Speaker A

do that. I'm trying to get on side with the bigger players. So now that I know there's bigger players operating above that high, what I can do because I'm leaning more bearish because if I go to the daily time frame, we're trading also

14:49

Speaker A

into a daily fair value gap. My target is then the previous daily low. So what I'm going to do is put on a short position and put my stop above the high that created the swing failure pattern.

14:59

Speaker A

What I'm going to do is target the previous daily low. So I'm going to sell short here. Put my stop at 30,14450 and my target at 29,108.25.

15:10

Speaker A

We can see that I'm taking $3,500 of risk to make $17,000. Now, I don't know if I'm going to hold this trade all the way down to the previous lows, but if it gets close enough, you could also

15:20

Speaker A

partial and adjust your stops. So, now that we have the position on, let's play this forward and see what happens. So, we get a very large expansion lower.

15:27

Speaker A

Now, because my target is again previous daily lows, I'm just going to hold this one and maybe move my stop closer to break even. And I'll use this previous hourly high as my stop loss. So, I have most of the risk off the table. And

15:38

Speaker A

there we go. Now, this trade moved extremely quickly, and I don't want you guys to anticipate that this is going to happen on every specific trade, but the framework we talked about is there. When you get an inside candle, you're waiting

15:49

Speaker A

to see what happens at the extremes of that inside candle. Here, we get a swing failure pattern and then we're targeting the previous daily low. We get a very strong expansion down towards our target in the next couple hours. Now, let's

16:00

Speaker A

just walk through the next day. Here we can see we have a bearish outside bar because we took out the previous day's high and the previous day's low and we got a bearish closure. Although it's not the best bearish closure cuz I typically

16:12

Speaker A

like to see a closure through the open of the previous candle. This one is pretty sufficient because we traded into a daily fair value gap and rejected. So what I'm looking for is more bearishness coming into the next day. And what am I

16:22

Speaker A

looking for again? I'm looking for another swing failure pattern. And when markets are really bearish, I don't anticipate the previous day's high to be taken out. So, in this case, I'm going to look for session liquidity. So, at

16:33

Speaker A

midnight, we have our Asian session high. So, I'll mark that out and see if we get a swing failure pattern here.

16:38

Speaker A

Now, we're just going to skip forward to our New York session and see what the market gives us. Right, we don't have a raid on that session liquidity just yet, but we'll keep playing it forward. Now, here's our PM session window. This

16:48

Speaker A

candle closes at 3 p.m. And this candle is also a swing failure pattern. So, we have another swing failure pattern here.

16:54

Speaker A

And as I mentioned on those bias cheat sheets, what I'm looking for in a two candle pattern, this is a caution and reversal because we take out the previous candles high and close bearish.

17:04

Speaker A

So what I'm going to do during the PM session is go short. Maybe I'll put my stop loss right around here and aim for a 2R. So I'm going to go short. I'm going to put my stop at 29457 and my

17:14

Speaker A

takeprofit at 28656. Because it's so late in the day, I don't know if we're going to get that run to the previous daily low, but let's sell short and see what happens. So, here's about 4 p.m.

17:23

Speaker A

where the market is typically closing. Now, if you wanted to tighten up the riskreward a little bit, you could drop down to the 5minute and see if we get a swing failure pattern or something in here to position yourself short. Now, if

17:33

Speaker A

you're trading with prop firms, they don't allow you to hold overnight. But what you can do is wait out the hour rollover and just put on another position exactly where you had your stop and your takerit initially as long as

17:43

Speaker A

the market doesn't gap too much. So, let's say I had to close this trade on my futures prop firm accounts. I could reopen it at 6 p.m. We get more continuation to the downside and eventually we hit the target. Three

17:52

Speaker A

things: bias, liquidity, swing failure patterns. That's the whole framework. You form the bias before the open. You wait for the market to run the opposing liquidity. When the sweep prints an SFP, you take the trade with your stop above

18:04

Speaker A

or below the wick, and you target the next opposing pool. But here's the actual reason I made this video. In 1983, two commodities traders ran an experiment to see if trading could be taught. They took 23 novices off the

18:15

Speaker A

street, gave them all the exact same mechanical rule set, put them in the market with real money, same rules, same markets, same time period. Some of those traders made 100% a year for 3 years straight, while others washed out

18:27

Speaker A

completely. Same rules, wildly different outcomes. Which brings me right back to what I told you before. Knowing the framework and running the framework for the 100 trades it takes to prove the math are two completely different games.

18:38

Speaker A

And that's the game you're going to lose if you do this alone. The traders who made money and the traders who washed out weren't split by intelligence or talent. They were split by whether they had someone holding them accountable to

18:48

Speaker A

running one framework long enough for the math to show up. That was the difference. And that's the trap that most retail traders never get out of.

18:55

Speaker A

It's not a knowledge gap. It's an accountability gap. And that's why I created the trading apprentice. You get to trade this exact framework with me live. You get access to me to ask me any question you want. And more than any of

19:06

Speaker A

that, you get held accountable to actually stick to the plan long enough to prove the edge. Now, most traders quit at trade 30, but we don't let you.

19:13

Speaker A

So, if you're interested, I'll leave a link in the description to apply. Some of our students have gotten results like this and this, and some of them have even made $100,000 in a single month.

19:22

Speaker A

But, I want to be very clear. We don't just accept anyone. So, if there are spots available, just submit an application, and we'll see if you're a good fit. But if you decide that's not for you, I hope this framework that I've

19:31

Speaker A

shared will get you on the right path to success. Don't forget to like and subscribe and I'll see you guys in the next

Topics: day trading daily bias price action higher time frame liquidity swing failure pattern trading psychology risk management inside bar outside bar

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