One third of the trade closes at each target, and the stop moves to the entry after target 1.
This is a mechanical trade from the "Post-news drift" rule, which sells when the 15-minute candle containing a high-impact release closes down. The candle tracking Nonfarm Payrolls opened at 27053.8 and closed at 26982.1, triggering a short. While the daily and four-hour trends for the Nasdaq 100 are down, the market is heavily oversold with a daily RSI of 25.4, and the index has already bounced almost 500 points today. The trade targets a continuation of the initial news reaction, but will be stopped out if price reverses above the candle's high at 27077.6.
ChartPrice structure on the chart: trend, levels, volatility.
Trade the first reaction. When the 15-minute candle that contains a high-impact data release closes, buy at market if it closed up and sell if it closed down, with the stop at the other end of that candle (at least half an ATR away). Targets 1R, 2R and 3R; trades close after six hours at most.
Caveat: -0.08R per trade over 599 trades in the last year (gold +0.02R, EUR/USD -0.06R, USD/JPY -0.07R, Nasdaq 100 -0.23R). Our 2023-2026 study found the same rule positive in every year on gold for US jobs and Fed days only (14-18 trades a year), but negative when all release types were included.
The idea, explained: Trading the news
The trade expected a bearish continuation following the initial downward reaction to the Nonfarm Payrolls release. Instead, the market immediately reversed higher and triggered the stop loss without moving in the trade's favor.
This is a mechanical trade from the "Post-news drift" rule, which sells when the 15-minute candle containing a high-impact release closes down. The candle tracking Nonfarm Payrolls opened at 27053.8 and closed at 26982.1, triggering a short. While the daily and four-hour trends for the Nasdaq 100 are down, the market is heavily oversold with a daily RSI of 25.4, and the index has already bounced almost 500 points today. The trade targets a continuation of the initial news reaction, but will be stopped out if price reverses above the candle's high at 27077.6.
Filled at 26999.5 at 13:46 UTC, the short position experienced no favorable excursion. Price immediately rallied against the trade, climbing to a bid of 27070.4 in the entry bar and reaching 27075.6 during the 13:50 UTC bar. With the 2.5-point spread, this crossed the ask-based stop loss at 27077.6, closing the trade for a -1.008R result within four minutes.
The entry was based on a mechanical rule targeting the continuation of a bearish 15-minute news candle. By the close, this downward momentum had completely failed as price reversed above the anchor candle's high, invalidating the trade's premise.
Lesson: No clear lesson: the setup was valid and the stop was hit by normal volatility.
When this signal was published, its fixed fields were written to a record and fingerprinted with SHA-256. The fingerprint also contains the one before it, so a change anywhere breaks the chain. You can check it in your browser.
{"v":2,"symbol":"US100","side":"sell","order_type":"market","timeframe":"15m","strategy":"news_drift_15m","source":"data","oco_group":null,"entry":"27000.1","zone_lo":"26991.7","zone_hi":"27008.5","sl":"27077.6","tp1":"26922.6","tp2":"26845.1","tp3":"26767.6","created_at":"2026-11-06T13:46:02Z","expires_at":"2026-11-06T14:01:02Z","max_close_at":"2026-11-06T19:46:02Z","risk":"high","prev_hash":"cf78254f3f3a24bc859626bc0ebcb793033d63707226e51c02fc34cbbd57bda7"}
Its rule was not profitable after costs in every period we tested.
News trade: prices can jump when the numbers come out, and orders can fill worse than their price.
A high-impact release is due while the order waits or early in the trade: Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index on 6 Nov at 15:00 UTC.
The spread is a small share of the stop distance (under 10%).
High Risk means at least one check flagged this trade. Size it smaller, or skip it if you only follow Cautious signals. The tag was set when the signal was published and is part of its signed record.
The strategy has a notably negative tested record on the Nasdaq 100, and the tight stop is vulnerable to post-NFP volatility.
Not enough closed signals scored 30-39 yet (16 of 20 needed), so there is no measured hit rate to show.
Confidence is a score from 0 to 100 given by an AI model. It is checked against how signals in the same band really ended, so treat the measured rate as the evidence, not the score. Reading a track record