Roadmap - A Way To Read Markets

Price action’s been pretty frustrating lately, itfeels like every move happens fast and then just drifts back into chop. Still managed to get trades off on OIL and AC.

AC was the reversal setup I’ve been focusing on the past few weeks. Price pushed through a multiday downtrend line, but I missed the spike entry and had to watch it reverse. Still, the setup’s been working well overall since it tends to have momentum so even if fails, the losses are usually small or breakeven.


OIL is something I’ll need to think through more this weekend. Took an early partial, probably too early, but it gave me some profits if price didn’t drop further. I closed the rest once it reacted at prior lows. It dipped a bit more after that before reversing.

Been swamped this past month and it'll stay that way through August, but I've been using what trading time I have to identify my main blockers right now.

Issue 1: With limited chart time, I'm realizing I catch setups as they happen rather than anticipating them. Makes it tough when you can't watch constantly.

Issue 2: Quantifying and scaling setups has been tricky. Built a simple indicator to flag double channel cross failures off SMA, worked decent on NQ 1min, but realized that's missing the point. At least in my opinion this strategy needs way more context around each setup.

Still working on visual helpers to make chart scanning easier. This weekend I'm implementing gradient EMA lines that change colors based on time spent above/below SMA. Hoping it gives better insight and I can iterate from there.

Also created a dashboard for EMA/SMA crosses and price-to-SMA relationships, but there's so much more that goes into finding good setups. Haven't made it useful enough yet.

Anyone else trading this strategy found tools or approaches that help with setup monitoring? Would appreciate any input.

Yesterday's miss on Gold:

Had a rough session on XAUUSD. Was looking for continuation after the 5min break of 200 SMA but made two mistakes:

1. First trade - jumped in too early, didn't wait for the trendline break
2. Second trade - position was too big, made it harder to hold through the noise

Price clearly continued higher after some accumulation at the 5min SMA, so the read was right but execution was off. Should've sized smaller to make it easier to ride out the chop.
1 minute:

5 minute:

Composite RSI for Metatrader 5
Settings for Forex:

1. Tframe1 = 4 Hours
2. Tframe2 = 1 Day
3. Tframe3 = 1 Week
4. Tframe4 = Current (disables the 4th timeframe)

Settings for Indices:

1. Tframe1 = 15 Minutes
2. Tframe2 = 1 Hour
3. Tframe3 = Current (disables the 3rd timeframe)
4. Tframe4 = Current (disables the 4th timeframe)

Boy had to search back 4 pages to find this gem of a thread!

Put this on my thread but thought why not put here too...

RoadMap using VWAP
When price is above the 5m and 1m 200MA and it bounces off
both...ADD VWAP etc... You have a high probability setup.

1m and 5m 200MA alignment

The 200 MA is a staple for scores of traders.....big and small...
We all know of the Death Cross and the Golden Cross heck the analysts on TV will
even talk about it at times...

Truth of the matter is there are endless ways of trading and finding edge especially
when you factor in the human factor...

What really matters is that we each find our own path and what resonates and works for us
as individuals...Even with what Laura has published here ,,,there are endless variations one can
use to make "this" work for themselves.

Ive traded RoadMap on a 30sec chart 1m 2m 3m 5m 15m.... They all work..Others use larger TFs
they all work... Trick is having a repeatable laid out clear process that you repeat over and over again.

Whats on my chart is listed.

MT4 by default does not include VWAP in its standard indicators

VWAP and VWMA are not the same... Completely different actually.
Try using Tradingview VWAP I believe is free on there

Typo fixed VWAP..
Good luck.

Golden Gold

Roadmap and vwap Kevin?
OOPS - forgot to mention - Nasdaq one minute UK time chart

New York am open - 5 minute chart UK time
Roadmap short, even a 5 min ORB and comfy vwap lines ( still getting used to them.

Just follow the 8ma channel and levels drawn pre open from the left.

Ignore other lines ( vwap)
Dax UK times

Wow, our move extended my break more than I thought. But I'm back at it like I never left. Well, not really... I feel like for me, a big part of the edge from roadmap was really just the time monitoring the markets and getting a sense of how each instrument moved.
I've been monitoring the markets for a while, but it's clear that the market moves differently from May-June and I feel very out of touch with it.
I don't know if others trade it with a more systemized look with clear setups, but for me the context around the setup is almost more important than the channel crossover or whatever setup it might be.

I took two trades today. First was EU after the retest of SMA and move to daily new highs. I wasn't super confident of the setup as Friday was more of a sideways day with close below open even though it wasn't a trend day. So I ended up closing the trade for a minor loss at the literal low of the next swing high that eventually got close to PDH. Also, I forgot to display comprsi on the chart which was against me.


Second trade was a break of early trading range at US market open on SP500. This was a lot better trade obviously, as price took off pretty fast and gave me an easy trade to manage. I had to jump off the monitor so I closed the trade when it got closer to ADR high, but nevertheless a good trade.

I was also more confident of this trade as the previous day's drop had retraced price from the sideways market and there weren't clear resistances before the ADR on the drop. I know others also treat these sometimes as gaps, but to me I usually like to take these trades as I feel like price tends to fill them before turning around, so it usually gives nice retracement momentum.

Not the greatest day today. Had a hard time finding the rhythm to the market and ended up closing TV after a few lossess.

Took a small loss on DAX after London open inside the initial trading range which was just a stupid trade.

Another one was gold which had broken above resistance from the last 3 days and held. Today it came back to retest reacted by moving back up. Saw a 1min channel cross + break of daily open so I went long.


I knew I was jumping the gun a bit if I'm being honest. Previous day closed strong bullish and we had small break in structure. Thought it could continue higher fast so took a trade with smaller size.

Moved stop below the range after the sideways movement and got clipped when that Ukraine peace deal news hit. Though looking back, price was probably heading down to daily lows anyway and news just accelerated it.

I'm doing the same thing as the first trade, just trying to predict moves instead of reacting to what's actually there. There was no real momentum, I was just hoping it would show up after I got in.


My third trade was similar. I jumped in after price cleared SMA + daily open + PDH but again, no momentum confirmation. Just anticipation.

I think until I get my feel back for how the market's moving right now, I need to focus on trades that already have strong momentum behind them. Even if it feels like I'm late or the RR isn't perfect. These inside range setups where I'm trying to call the direction just aren't working for me at the moment.

Took a long in gold after monitoring for quite a bit.

Price broke above a zone that had rejected it 3 times during the session. Waited for the retest, then entered when a candle broke the upper EMA line. Yesterday was range-y but the day before trended, and we were trading above PDH at daily highs.


Waited while price failed to hold above the previous resistance and dropped back below both the 1min SMA. Closed it when price closed below PDH.


Came in on this trade with already not optimal RR, and anticipating that the break of highs would result in momentum continuing higher without any bigger conviction. More screentime needed to identify these setups. I've been going through the past 4 months of my main instruments but still lack a bigger picture like I had before my break.

Avoiding gold like the plague this period. I'm sticking with indices after I modified Laura's Original strategy. Sticking to more or less fixed R multiples. Forever fleeing from Gold tho