Journal
London reversal, New York continuation
When London reverses cleanly, its extreme usually holds as the day's high or low for the New York move.
Some days move in two acts. London takes one side of the range first, often hard, often convincingly, and then reverses. New York picks up the other direction and actually runs with it. I call this the London reversal, New York continuation day, and once I can name it, half my job for the session is already done.
The London leg is not wrong, it is manipulation. It is designed to look like the move. Traders who bias off the London range get the sense confirmed, load up, and then watch it fail right as New York opens. I am not trying to predict which day does this before it happens. I am watching for the tell as it forms: a London push that runs a clean level, stalls, and starts closing back through it before New York even opens.
The London leg is not wrong. It is manipulation, designed to look like the move.
02 / The overnight extreme holds
A ceiling set hours earlier.
Here is the part that makes this profile tradeable instead of just interesting after the fact. When London reverses cleanly, the extreme it prints usually holds for the rest of the day. If London ran up and failed, that high tends to stand as the day's high. New York's continuation move is the real move, and it is happening beneath a ceiling that was already set hours earlier.
That matters for how I frame risk. Once I have a London high or low I trust, I am not guessing at where invalidation sits. It is the extreme that already got rejected. If price takes that level out again with any real displacement, my read is wrong, not adjusted, wrong. I mark the overnight range and the London extremes before New York opens, same as I would mark the prior day's high and low. They go on the chart as fixed reference, not something I redraw once price starts moving.
03 / Framing the New York entry
The entry lives in the pullback.
The entry itself lives in the pullback New York gives after it starts continuation. I do not chase the reversal candle. I wait for price to push through the London extreme, then come back for a retracement into structure that formed on the move away, an order block, an untested fair value gap, some handle that gives me a defined risk point instead of a market order into strength.
The draw on liquidity for the day is whatever sits on the other side of that London extreme, the prior day's high or low, an untouched equal high, whatever pool is next in line once New York commits. I want that draw identified before I take the entry, not discovered afterward. If continuation is real, it should be reaching for something specific, not just moving because it is moving.
04 / What invalidates the read
A trend day wearing a costume.
This profile fails in one obvious way: London does not actually reverse, it just consolidates and then extends the same direction into New York. That is not a reversal day, that is a trend day wearing a costume, and treating it like a reversal gets you shorting strength or buying weakness at exactly the wrong moment.
The tell is displacement. A real reversal closes back through the level with force, real range expansion on the move back. A fake reversal chops back through on small candles and stalls. If I do not see that closing displacement before New York opens, I do not have the profile yet. On a day like this, patience is not optional, it is the entire edge. The London leg clears out the wrong side. My job is to recognize it happened and let New York pay for it.