I want to warn you from the start: this is a difficult strategy. It takes time to study and time to practice. For me, SURGEON is one of the most precise strategies I know. It is worth every minute you put into it.
But any mistake in reading the entry points or drawing the level breaks the balance between winning and losing trades. Just as any mistake by a surgeon can cost a life. Be careful! I do not recommend this strategy for beginner traders.
Strategy features
- Timeframes: 1-hour and 5-minute charts (both are used!).
- Assets: any Forex or cryptocurrency instrument.
- Leverage: from 1:10 and up.
- Position management: stop loss, take profit, and moving to breakeven.
- Risk management: 1% of capital in crypto; 1 lot per $10,000 in Forex.
The logic of the strategy
For those who study my method in my private channel, the principle will be much easier to understand. The logic of the entry points is based on the “correct” impulse level and the “correct” pin bar. For the rest of the readers, I will try to show the principle at a basic level, so that you can also apply the SURGEON rules.
Entry from the impulse level
An impulse level is a price zone where large limit orders accumulate. They do not let the price move above or below their marks. It is a density of orders that we identify by price behavior, not by volume, because we do not know the volume of all exchanges at once. In Forex we do not know it even for a single broker (there you only have CFD contracts).
That is why, to detect the density of limit orders, we need a local extreme that meets the impulse level rule. That is, not just any local high or low, but only the extreme formed by a correct pin bar.
The correct pin bar
The correct pin bar is part of my TOP-3 group of patterns. You need to learn ALL of them in order to look for the entry afterward. But right now we are at the stage of defining the entry zone, so we need precisely the “correct pin bar”. Reading it is simple:
- the body of the middle candle is covered by the size of the first and third candles of the pattern;
- any of the 3 candles of the pattern creates a local extreme with its wick;
- the third candle of the pattern must close above/below the body of the middle candle.
The local extreme created by one of the candles of the correct pin bar lets us draw a line through the center of the middle candle’s body: that is the impulse level.
The foundation of the strategy
The idea is that the trader catches the start of the impulsive move on the first touch of the impulse level. And does it with precision, like a surgeon, on the 5-minute charts.
We define the impulse level on H1, the timeframe that conveys the cleanest information (no noise!). Then the trader drops down to the minute charts to look for a precise entry at the start of the move.
The step-by-step algorithm
With SURGEON you trade on H1 and M5, in that order.
First, on the 1-hour charts, the trader finds the nearest local extremes and filters them: the high point of the extreme must be formed by a candle that is part of a “correct pin bar” pattern.
Once you have 2–3 nearby impulse levels, you move to the 5-minute charts of the chosen instrument and wait for the level to be touched. One of the TOP-3 patterns must also form there. That confirms the level and gives you the right to a precise entry at the start of the newly born impulse.
Stop loss and take profit
In SURGEON, using a stop loss and take profit is simply vital. If you add averaging, you will turn it into a medium-term strategy that lets good trades pass by while you drag along a losing position.
DO NOT GAMBLE. Close the trade with the stop loss if the market did not go in your favor. SURGEON’s effectiveness comes from following all of its rules precisely. Let its very name remind you what a mistake can cost.
I recommend placing the stop loss immediately. As soon as you open the trade, the stop must go behind the edge of the pattern you used to confirm the level and enter. Add up to 50 points to the stop to account for market noise.
For the take profit, I recommend choosing between 2 variants:
- multiply the distance from the entry to the stop loss by 3 to get a 1:3 ratio;
- draw Fibonacci from the entry to the stop loss, so that the take profit lands at 423.6.
The second method lets you move the stop loss to breakeven when the price reaches the 161.8 Fibonacci level.
Summary: tips for trading SURGEON
I developed this strategy from my own methodology for growing a deposit quickly. In these systems it is very important to follow ALL the rules and understand exactly what you are doing: what the pattern should look like, with no ambiguous situations or “incorrect setups”.
That is why I called it SURGEON. Remember that any mistake can cost your deposit its life. Most people are not able to consistently study the rules and the reading of levels and patterns, or to maintain discipline during the hard phases of the market. And that is your opportunity!
I advise you to drop the strategy right away if you feel it is too hard for you. And at the beginning, choose just one instrument, for example EURUSD or ETHUSDT.
