Most Breakout Traders Lose Before the Breakout Even Starts

I Still Like Trading Breakouts

Most people who follow this blog know I’m spending a lot of time building a funding rate arbitrage engine.

But that’s not the only thing I trade.

I also like simple breakout setups.

No fancy indicators. No machine learning. Just price, a clear horizontal level, and volume.

The only breakouts I’m interested in are long breakouts with strong volume. If price pushes above resistance but volume doesn’t increase, I usually ignore it. There will always be another setup.

Right now I’m watching MBL. It has been building below a resistance level around 0.000719. I’m not trying to predict whether it will break through. I’ll simply wait and see what the market does.

If price can close above that level with noticeably higher volume, it becomes interesting. If volume stays weak, I’ll move on and keep waiting. There is no shortage of charts.

I’ve tried adding more indicators over the years, but they rarely made the strategy better. Most of the time they just made decisions slower.

Lately I’ve been working on a scanner that checks hundreds of markets through exchange REST APIs and alerts me when a setup matches my criteria.

The goal isn’t to automate trading.

It’s to automate the boring part—watching charts all day.

I’d rather spend my time evaluating a handful of good setups than clicking through hundreds of charts looking for one.

I’m planning to write more about the scanner as it evolves, including how I measure volume confirmation and the filters I’m experimenting with.

RR is always 1:2. I must have > 33.33% profitable trades.

ItemValue
TokenMovieBloc (MBL)
Trading PairMBL/USDT
Current Price~$0.00069  
Resistance I’m Watching0.000719 USDT
SetupHorizontal breakout
DirectionLong only
ConfirmationStrong volume expansion
EntryWaiting for a confirmed close above resistance
InvalidationBreakout without meaningful volume
Status👀 On watchlist