How to Make Trading Simple When You Master a Three-Step 9

Video: Once You Master This Strategy, Trading Becomes Incredibly Simple

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Oct 19, 2026 · based on the channel Scarface Trades

Key takeaways

The framework is built around the 9:30 AM New York open, when premarket levels get tested.
Step 1 is marking premarket high and low plus the prior day's high and low before the bell.
Step 2 is waiting for a break of a level and a retest instead of chasing the first candle.
Step 3 is a 1-minute entry model with a stop beyond the swing and a target at the next level.
The setup fails in the middle of a range, so location matters more than the entry trigger.

Trading becomes simple when you stop hunting for setups everywhere and instead trade one repeatable pattern at one repeatable time: the 9:30 AM New York open. The approach in the Scarface Trades video «Once You Master This Strategy, Trading Becomes Incredibly Simple» is a three-step routine — mark levels, wait for a break and retest, then enter on a 1-minute trigger with a stop that defines your risk. The free breakdown of the method is available through the Simple Trader Playbook course.

Why most traders make trading harder than it needs to be

Most traders lose not because they lack indicators but because they stack conflicting signals on top of each other. Two oscillators say sell, a trendline says buy, and the trader freezes or takes a position with no clear invalidation point. The video's opening argument targets exactly this: the problem is not a shortage of information, it is too much of it and no fixed decision process.

A second, quieter problem is hindsight bias. A break-and-retest looks obvious on a finished chart and much less obvious in real time, when the candle is still forming and the level has not yet been confirmed. Any strategy has to survive that gap between the clean chart and the live one, which is why the framework below is built around fixed, pre-marked levels rather than a feeling about direction.

Step 1: Setting up the trade before the opening bell

Preparation happens before 9:30 AM, not during the first minute of trading. The setup requires a small set of reference prices drawn on the chart in advance:

The premarket high and premarket low.
The prior day's high (PDH) and prior day's low (PDL).
Any obvious higher-timeframe level that price has already reacted to, such as a swing high or low from the previous session.

These levels matter because they are where resting orders sit. Premarket extremes and the prior day's range are visible to every participant, so a break through them tends to produce movement rather than noise. Marking them ahead of time also removes the temptation to invent a level after the fact to justify an entry.

One practical caveat: if price opens in the middle of the prior day's range, far from both PDH and PDL, there is no edge in forcing a trade. The framework depends on price being near a level it can break or reject; in the middle of the range, the honest answer is to wait.

Step 2: The core strategy is a break and a retest

The strategy is a breakout with confirmation: price breaks a marked level, then comes back to test it, and only then does the trader act. Chasing the first candle through the level is what the method explicitly avoids, because the initial push is where late entries and poor risk-to-reward ratios come from.

The retest does two jobs. First, it confirms that the broken level is now acting as support (in an upside break) or resistance (in a downside break). Second, it gives a tight, logical place for a stop — just on the other side of the level — which is what makes the trade worth taking at all. A break with no retest is treated as unfinished business, not as a signal.

This is also where most of the patience lives. The setup may not appear in the first five minutes, and on some sessions it never appears at all. Treating a no-trade day as a normal outcome rather than a failure is part of the method, not a departure from it.

Step 3: The 1-minute entry model and where the stop goes

The entry model is executed on the 1-minute chart, which is the part of the approach that divides viewers most. The trigger is a candle that closes in the direction of the break after the retest — the entry is taken on that close or on the following candle, not in the middle of a still-forming bar, and not blindly at the level.

Risk placement follows from the structure:

Stop: beyond the swing that formed the retest, so a failed retest takes you out quickly.
Target: the next marked level in the direction of the trade — the opposite premarket extreme or the prior day's high or low.
Position size: calculated from the distance between entry and stop, so the dollar risk stays constant regardless of how wide the stop is.

Because the stop sits close to the level, the reward-to-risk ratio on a clean retest can be large relative to the risk taken. That is the mechanical reason a modest win rate can still produce a positive result — and the reason a single well-located trade can outweigh several indicator-driven ones.

What the method does not solve

The framework is a location-and-timing filter, not a prediction engine. It does not tell you which direction the market will go before the level is broken, and it does not remove losing trades; a retest that fails is a loss by design, taken quickly and cheaply. Expect a meaningful share of attempts to fail, especially on choppy sessions where price oscillates across a level instead of holding it.

It also does not transfer automatically to every instrument or session. Traders applying the same logic to forex pairs or to markets outside the New York open need to rebuild the level map for their own session and confirm the behaviour with backtesting before risking money. The video's examples are drawn from US equities and index futures, and the timestamps assume a New York clock.

Common questions traders raise about this setup

Several recurring doubts are worth addressing directly. The first is timeframe discomfort: many traders dislike acting on the 1-minute chart because it looks noisy. The answer is that the 1-minute chart is used only for the trigger — the decision about direction comes from the higher-timeframe levels marked in step one, so the noise is filtered by location rather than by the entry chart.

The second is position size. Because the stop is tight, the position must be larger than a trader used to wide stops would expect in order to produce a meaningful result; the correct approach is to size from a fixed dollar risk, not to widen the stop to allow a smaller position.

The third is instrument selection. Concentrating on one or two names you know well — a single high-liquidity stock plus one index future, for example — makes the level-marking routine faster and the behaviour more familiar than rotating through a long watchlist.

The fourth is hindsight. A setup that looks clean after the close still has to be tested bar by bar, and the only way to know whether the retest rule holds up is to log the trades and review them.

Useful links

Final takeaway

Simple trading here means one location, one pattern and one trigger: mark the premarket and prior-day levels, wait for a break and a retest, and enter on a 1-minute confirmation with the stop behind the level. The discipline is in skipping the middle-of-range sessions and accepting that a failed retest is a normal cost of doing business. Scarface Trades presents this as a repeatable routine rather than a secret, and the free Simple Trader Playbook course is the place to start if you want the full walkthrough before testing it on a simulator.

Source: Once You Master This Strategy, Trading Becomes Incredibly Simple · Markdown version

Questions & answers

What time zone does the 9:30 AM strategy use?

The 9:30 AM reference is the New York cash open, so the premarket levels are drawn from the session that precedes it. Traders in other regions need to convert that time to their own clock and, for non-US markets, rebuild the level map around their own opening bell.

Do I need a large position for this strategy to work?

The stop sits close to the retested level, so the position size needed to risk a fixed dollar amount is larger than with a wide stop. Size from your risk per trade rather than from the number of shares, and remember that a tight stop can be hit quickly on a failed retest.

Exactly which candle do you enter on?

The entry comes after the retest, on a 1-minute candle that closes in the direction of the break — not in the middle of a forming bar and not on the first candle through the level. Waiting for the close is what keeps the stop logical and the entry reproducible.

What happens if price opens in the middle of the prior day's range?

There is no trade. The framework depends on price interacting with a marked level, so an open far from both the prior day's high and low offers no clear break-and-retest structure. Sitting out is part of the method rather than a missed opportunity.