Spring Pre-Plan Generator
A spring is a poke under the range low that comes back inside. You won't know how deep it goes until it's over, but you can know today what each depth means: the stop, the R to the midpoint, the size, and the point where the poke stops being a spring and becomes a breakdown. Enter the range and the ATR and the generator writes the whole ladder before the bar prints, with the deepest undercut that still pays 1R at the midpoint. The grades follow Richard Wyckoff's numbered springs as Robert Evans taught them in the 1940s and Hank Pruden set them out in The Three Skills of Top Trading (2007), with the same cutoffs the Spring & Upthrust Analyzer uses after the fact.
Depth, stop buffer and the grades are all in ATR, so this one is required.
With all 3 filled in, every rung gets a contract or lot count.
No ladder yet
Enter the range high and low and the ATR, then hit Write. Or load an example.
How it writes the ladder. Each rung is an undercut of the range low measured in ATR: 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.25 and 1.5. At each rung the spring low is the range low minus that depth, the entry is the first close back above the range low (priced at the low itself for planning), the stop sits 0.25 ATR under the spring low, T1 is the midpoint and T2 is the far edge. Risk = depth + 0.25 ATR, so R to the midpoint = (width / 2) / risk and R to the far edge = width / risk. Grades. Depth 0.5 ATR or under is a #3: buy the reclaim close, as long as price is back inside within 2 bars and the break volume is 1.2x average or less. 0.5 to 1.5 ATR is a #2: don't chase the reclaim, wait for the secondary test to hold on lighter volume, then buy the first close back above the low. 1.5 ATR or deeper, or 30% of the range or deeper, is a breakdown, not a spring. Stand aside. Volume isn't known before the event, so the ladder assumes normal volume; a break on 1.8x volume or more is a #1 at any depth. The deepest spring that pays is the depth where R to the midpoint hits 1: width / 2 minus 0.25 ATR. If that's 0.5 ATR or more, every #3 spring pays at least 1R at the midpoint and the plan is live. Between 0.25 and 0.5 ATR only the shallow ones pay. Under 0.25 ATR the range is too narrow against its ATR to spring-trade to the midpoint. Upthrusts at the range high are the mirror image: sell the first close back under the high, stop 0.25 ATR above the upthrust high. Keyboard: Enter writes, S and U switch edge, 1 to 3 load the examples, C copies the plan.
Educational tool only, not financial advice. The ladder is the plan you write while the market is calm. The spring happens while it isn't, so the only rung that counts is the one you follow with the stop in place.
Built by Jason Parker, founder of Trading Ranges.
Built by Jason Parker, founder of Trading Ranges.