Phrasing families

Each example below is a working phrase. The wording in bold is what the parser keys on, keep it and swap the asset, the numbers and the window. Every family has a ready-to-run card in the templates gallery under Windows & streaks.

"20% below the high" anchors on one extreme. "The bottom 20% of the range" anchors on the whole range: high and low. In an asymmetric range these are different conditions, and the parser keeps them apart. Say the one you mean.

"10 bars since RSI was above 70" does not mean RSI is above 70 now, it means it isn't, and hasn't been for a while. Use at least / more than for a cooldown and fewer than / within for freshness.

"the 10-bar ROC is positive" is a level (ROC > 0). "the 10-bar ROC is rising" is a direction. Adding "for 3 bars" to either one makes it persist; it does not turn one into the other.

"relative volume above 2" means twice the average, not two units, which would be true on every bar. If you want an absolute floor, say volume is above 1,000,000.

"Today's high" is the running extreme so far today; "yesterday's high" is a completed previous-day level. They are different conditions, and the parser keeps them apart. And if you name a session, "the New York session opening range", that anchors to the session open instead of the day open, which is a separate (also supported) level.

Until the first N bars of the day have printed, the range is undefined and the condition is false. That is deliberate: a breakout judged against a range still being built would be reading bars the strategy has not traded through.

"Fills the gap" says nothing about which way the gap went, so the condition fires when price touches the previous close from either side. Say "gaps down 2%" separately if you want to detect the gap itself as well.

"A round number" could mean 100, 1000 or 10000, the parser will ask rather than guess, so say which ("a round 1000 level", "multiples of 500"). And because the tolerance is a percent of price, it must be tighter than half the increment: at BTC prices, "within 1% of a round 1000 level" is wider than the gap between levels, so every bar qualifies.

Two assets that both trend up have a price correlation near 1 no matter how differently they behave, so a price-based answer would be meaningless. These conditions compare the return series, which is what the words mean to a trader.

"Beats the market" and "correlated with everything" have no series behind them, so the parser will not invent one. Say the symbol: outperformed BTC, beta to SPY, correlation between ETH and BTC.

"Exit after 10 bars" closes the trade no matter what, winners included. "Exit if it isn't profitable after 10 bars" spares the winner and cuts only the trade that failed to work. Both are supported; they are different strategies, so say the one you mean.

A trailing stop follows price by a fixed distance. A give-back is a fraction of the profit the trade has already shown, so it tightens automatically as the winner grows. It also arms only once the trade has genuinely been green, the peak is measured on closes, so a wick through your entry cannot turn it into a second stop-loss.

The engine's clock is bars. "A maximum of 5 days" on a 4-hour chart becomes 30 bars, but only because you said days. If you write "5 bars", you get 5 bars.

"This week's high" is the running high of the week you are in; "last week's high" is a completed level from a different week. Both work, they are different conditions, and the parser keeps them apart on exactly that wording.

"Down 5% this week" is measured from the week's open and starts again every Monday. "Down 5% over the last 10 bars" slides forward every bar and never resets. Pick the one that matches how you think about the trade.

"Price is above the 200 EMA on the daily" asks whether the daily bar is above its daily EMA, a trend filter, and the right reading. "Price is 3% below the daily 200 EMA" asks how far the price is right now from that level. Adding the distance is what tells the parser you mean the second one.

"Where it closed 3 daily bars ago" is an earlier value of the same series. RSI(3) is a different indicator entirely. The parser keeps them apart, but the wording matters.

Divergence works on obv, volume, cci, mfi, roc, williams %r and stochastic as well as rsi and macd. If you were told otherwise before, that guidance was out of date.

True cumulative volume delta needs tick data to know which side each trade hit. On bars, the standard approximation is each bar's volume signed by whether it closed up or down which is what these conditions use. It is a good proxy, not the real thing.

"Volatility below 40%" and "ATR below 40" are different conditions. ATR is measured in the asset's own currency, so 40 means something different for every asset and every year. Realized volatility is the annualised percentage every options desk quotes, write the % and you get the comparable one.

Both answer "is this trending or chopping". The efficiency ratio is bounded between 0 and 1 1.0 is a straight line, 0 is noise that ends where it started, so a threshold you pick on one asset transfers to another. ADX does not have that property.

"2 standard deviations below VWAP" is a band around VWAP, not the size of a move, the sigma points at a reference series. "a 2 standard deviation down move" is the size of the return. Both work; naming the reference series is what tells them apart.

"A long lower wick" and "a hammer" select different bars. A hammer additionally requires a prior downtrend and a small upper wick, so naming the pattern narrows the strategy. Say whichever one you actually mean, both work.

An outside bar takes out both extremes of the previous bar, it compares full ranges. A bullish engulfing compares bodies. Different conditions, both supported; say the one you want.

A gap is the open against the previous close, so it only exists where trading stops overnight, stocks. On 24/7 crypto the tape is continuous and every bar opens where the last one closed, so there is nothing to measure. Ask for a gap on a crypto pair and the phrase is read the way a crypto trader means it: the bar closed that far above the previous close.

"ATR above 3" and "ATR above 3% of price" are different conditions. ATR is quoted in the asset's own currency, so a bare number is a price: on a $60,000 asset, "ATR above 3" is three dollars: true on every bar. It also drifts as price moves, so a threshold tuned at one price stops working at another. Say the percentage and the filter travels.

A persistence filter can be written in calendar time: "for the last 3 days", "for two weeks", and the timeframe is accounted for: three days is eighteen bars on a 4h chart and three on a daily one. You don't need to do the conversion.

Two averages can be far apart and closing fast, or nearly touching and drifting apart opposite trades. "Converging" asks whether the gap is shrinking; ask for the spread if you want how far apart they are right now.

"Stop 1 ATR below entry" and "1% stop" are very different orders. Write the word ATR and the stop is sized to volatility; write % and it is a fixed percentage. You can mix them in one strategy, "3 ATR target and a 2% stop" keeps each one as written.

"The third touch" is not the same request as "a touch", it fires on different bars and far less often. A touch means the level fell inside the bar's range, so a bar that merely closed nearby does not count.

"Only when the daily candle is green" on a 1h chart reads the last finished daily candle. The day still forming is not used, because its colour is not knowable at the time the trade would be taken.