Breakout Room Checker

Break bar · dollar room · acceptance — weighted by what the archive study measured

Tick what you can see on the M1 chart right now. The checker weighs the break bar (the strongest measured signal), the dollar room the sideways leaves, and acceptance after the break, then tells you whether to take the momentum entry, wait for a retest, or skip. Context items are deliberately light — the study measured them at ±2 points.

A · The break bar measured: the strongest signal

Body at least 60% of the bar's range

Study: 46% run vs 31% for bodies under 40%. A momentum candle, not a wick poke.

No rejection wick — closes in the top (bottom) 20%

A wick over a third of the range cuts the run rate to 36%.

RVOL 1.5× or more on the break bar

49% run vs 37% under 1.0×. Versus the box's 20-bar average.

RVOL 2.5× or more

55% run, 18% no-test. Tick this in addition to the 1.5× box.

B · Dollar room what the sideways actually changes

1.5 × ATR is at least 3× the option's bid-ask spread

A run of the average size has to clear the spread and theta. In a quiet box ATR shrinks; the run rate does not, but its dollar size does.

ATR is under half of what it was in the first hour

The SPY afternoon: bar range 0.29 → 0.16. Runs still come at the same rate; they are just too small to pay for.

A 2-hour range wall sits within 1.5 ATR ahead

Fixed target at the wall, no runner. (Odds of a run were unchanged in the study; the room for the runner is what this limits.)

C · Acceptance after the break if you are waiting

2–3 bars hold beyond the edge with small bodies (pause)

Buyers holding, sellers not re-offering.

A close leaks back inside the box (leak)

70% of all breaks do this within 10 bars, median 2 bars. Once it happens the setup is a retest at best.

D · Context measured: ±2 points — tie-breakers only

Box is tight (under 4 ATR)

44% vs 41% for wide boxes. Real, small.

Break is also beyond the 2-hour range extreme (open air)

42% vs 43% boxed — no edge on its own; +2 with a momentum bar.

Midday, no catalyst

43% — same as any other window. Penalised only for dollar room.

Edge already tested 5+ times

Weight 0. The study found no penalty (47%, n=158, wide interval) — the "known boundary" story did not survive measurement.

Weights follow the archive study in this article: 8,657 M1 breakouts, 5 tickers, 308 ticker-days. The break bar carries the signal; the sideways decides the dollar room, not the odds. Skip means skip — the next box is minutes away.