We continue with the combination of two Footprints, but now on setup 2 — "attack, then hold." As a reminder from the theory: the first pattern is a trend candle in the direction of the reversal, and the second candle tries to continue the prior trend and can't.
Same instrument as before — S&P 500, we're looking at clusters in Footprint, Bid Ask mode from lesson 2.2, no profile. All the arrows, boxes, and zones are my own manual markup; the POC and the Bid×Ask excess per level come from Footprint itself.
M15, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. Setup 2 on the higher timeframe. The orange arrow marks the setup's second candle: price went down, but didn't close below the POC. Green marks the buyer's volume zone.
The first picture shows setup 2 on the higher timeframe. There was an impulse up, and the buyer took back the initiative: trading concentrated around the POC area, and price closed high — above the cluster group of the previous falling candle. The candle marked with the orange arrow also traded lower, there was an attempt to go down, but its close is notable in that it ended up no lower than the POC level. The seller wasn't allowed to hold on and take control. This candle has a wick, and it's essentially a stopping pattern: price went down and closed bearish, but closed very weakly for the seller. Let's see what was happening on M1.
The one-minute chart: entering right off the signal
M1, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. The blue line marks the candle that closed the setup on M15; that same candle forms a long pattern. Stop-loss is behind the signal candle, under 10 ticks.
The blue line marks the candle whose close formed the higher-timeframe setup. Notably, this same candle also produced a long pattern. The previous candle was a stopping one on the move down: price tried to go down, the seller tried to hold control at the POC level, but couldn't, and the close ended up above the POC. The next candle is already under buyer pressure, with a buy excess visible in the cluster and an upward move. This is essentially the signal candle, and buys could have been opened right after the setup formed.
💡 Tip: Set the stop-loss behind the signal candle — in this case it was even under 10 ticks.
The risk-to-reward ratio here is definitely good: the next two candles immediately deliver roughly a 1-to-1, and you can quickly lock in part of the position to remove risk.
The higher timeframe: the green zone doesn't give in
M15, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. A candle made a new low with a wick down, but closed solidly on the buyer's side. The green zone, marked across several candles, is never closed below.
On the higher timeframe, the next candle again put out a wick down and made a new low below the previous candle, but the close was again on the buyers' side, and a strong one at that. You can see buyer dominance in two zones, and in the wick, buying had a slight excess — but the buyer started acting aggressively right from the wick, and by the candle's high, they're fully in control. An important detail: the green zone, marked across several candles, never once saw a close below it. This whole time, price action on the higher timeframe favored the buyer. Now let's see in more detail what was happening on M1.
The one-minute chart: a break, or a test?
M1, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. A volatile bearish candle sweeps out the stop of the first buy. Then the buyer breaks through two cluster levels — setup 1 forms; the red line is the second entry's stop.
On M1 you can see how a very volatile short-side candle, with total dominance of market sells, sweeps price through roughly where the first buy's stop sat, and closes lower. In the moment, this can look like a trend break.
⚠️ Important: Remember the rule — check the higher timeframe first. This was essentially a test of the previous candle's large cluster on
M15, and clusters like that usually deliver at least a short-term bounce on a test. So globally, the dynamic hadn't changed.
Then on M1, after the impulsive drop, the next candle tried to break through the POC level but couldn't, even though buyer dominance was present across almost the whole candle — only a couple of levels had a seller excess. The buyer started acting very aggressively, but hadn't yet formed a buy pattern.
The next candle is bearish, but again a stopping one: there's a cluster at the bottom with buyer dominance, meaning the buyer is fighting back right at market and not letting price go lower. The rightmost candle closes bearish, but the clusters again show full buyer dominance. After the sharp downward sweep, the seller couldn't even establish a real presence, and the buyer aggressively breaks through two cluster levels, marked as zones.
This is essentially the same setup 1 from the last lesson — a stopping pattern first, then a trend candle in the opposite direction. This is the second buy entry point; the red line below marks the approximate stop location.
Let's see what happened next.
The higher timeframe: a retest and a continuation up
M15, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. After the rally — a retest of the green zone and a test of the cluster, with a bearish close; the entry and stop stayed below, and the upward move continued.
On the higher timeframe, after the candle moved up and closed, the next one gave a retest of the green zone and a test of the cluster, but the close was bearish. Our entry and stop-loss stayed below, and this rally continued.
Panorama of the first case
M1, #ESU6 — an overview candlestick chart. The overall picture: the first entry got stopped out, the second signal delivered a ratio of about 1-to-3.
In the M1 overview you can see where the first buy was — the first signal, which got stopped out — and then the second signal, which delivered a ratio of roughly 1-to-3. On this trade, the stop was bigger than you'd want, but the 1-to-3 ratio still held up.
After the first impulse up, which ran out of steam at around 1-to-1, you could have locked in part of the position. That's usually how the market does it: a first impulse around 1-to-1 on patterns like this, and it's convenient to use that to remove part of your risk while holding the rest.
Second case: when the setup isn't perfect
M15, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. A mixed setup 2 for a short. Orange arrows mark candles with buyer absorptions; yellow marks the resistance zone, which we'll use later as a filter.
The second situation with this setup is trickier. Here, the setup didn't form in the fully classic way — no clean stopping bar, more of a blend. You could call the first bar either a stopping candle or a reversal candle — the orange arrow points to it. You can clearly see how buyers up top got caught in a trap: an absorption happened.
The next candle is small, but its high shows another buyer absorption. Price action and the clusters show that limit sellers are absorbing aggressive buying, and the close is bearish — so this setup can be considered for looking at sells. I marked the resistance zone specifically so we can understand where the key level is: we'll need it later as a filter.
The one-minute chart: staying in the market, and the price of that choice
M1, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. The blue line marks the candle that closed the setup; number 1 marks the first sell opportunity. The green zone marks the buyer's volume, which the earliest signals still haven't broken.
The blue vertical line marks the candle that closed the setup; after that, an upward move began — a correction — and the number 1 marks a spot that could have been considered for a sell. There's an important nuance here: what's your tactical goal.
⚠️ Important: If your goal is to stay in the market no matter what, because the higher timeframe shows a reversal and the trade's potential is large, then it makes sense to squeeze the maximum out of the market and try any pattern, even one showing signs of weakness. If you choose to filter out the weaker signals, there's a risk that precisely the weak signal turns out to be your only chance to enter before a sharp move.
You can't be sure in advance, but in most cases the market forms a pattern that lets you enter with reasonable risk, and if not in the ideal zone, then after the impulse there'll be another correction, and that one's also worth trying.
I'm mentioning this because there are going to be a lot of signals ahead, and some of them are ambiguous. The first signal is exactly that kind, with two signs of weakness:
- A bearish candle pushes price down, but its close stops at the previous rising candle's cluster. That cluster is marked with the green zone, and the close ended up above it — meaning the volume level from which price impulsed upward hasn't been broken, and we haven't gotten full confirmation of buyer weakness.
- The next candle is bearish, but a stopping one — price got pushed back from the wick, the seller couldn't get through the volume, and the fought-over zone is still holding.
Purely by price action, price does break the green zone, and after this second candle, sells can be considered. But if you're looking for a perfect pattern, there are plenty of questions about this situation, and it could be filtered out — this is a genuine 50/50, up to the trader's judgment.
The second situation is already more clear-cut. The first candle is rising, arrow up — there's a stopping pattern there: the buyer couldn't hold price above the volume. The next candle is bearish, volume in the wick, downward impulse, a strong bearish close. This is already a clear short pattern, and it can be considered for a sell. But the following candle continues the rally and moves toward the stop-loss — meaning the second trade's stop will get hit.
The higher timeframe: a signal to slow down
M15, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. The green zone (the setup's wick and volume) gets broken by a bullish candle under buyer control: two of three signs the short is breaking down.
Now we need to go back to the higher timeframe, because something unfavorable for selling happened: our wick and the volume marked in that zone got broken by a bullish candle with every sign of buyer control. It has a cluster in the middle, a strong close — above both the previous cluster and this candle's own cluster. It's missing just one thing — a new high.
Two out of three signs are present that the buyer is close to breaking the short setup. At this point, it's genuinely a good idea to stop looking for sells: continuing to hunt for a short is very risky — it's trading against the trend, and that always carries elevated risk.
An important caveat: you can only draw this conclusion after the higher-timeframe candle closes. As long as the candle hasn't closed, price action can still go down, and all of this could turn out to be a wick — one more stopping pattern. But in our case the candle has already closed, so the signal to pause selling should be taken seriously.
Let's see what happened next on M1.
The one-minute chart: a series of ambiguous patterns
M1, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. The blue arrow marks the trigger candle that closed the break on M15. A third pattern had already formed before it, followed by a fourth and fifth; only the fifth worked.
By this point, a third pattern had already formed on M1 — even before we got confirmation of the break in the form of the higher-timeframe candle close, marked with the blue arrow. This third pattern has both signs of seller strength and signs of weakness:
- Strength: two short-side candles in a row, with the second one jumping past the previous volume — the seller manages to push through the zone where the fight was heaviest.
- Weakness: both candles are stopping ones, the seller is trying to go down but bogs down inside the range the buyer keeps imposing; plus the previous cluster, the one price impulsed up from, is marked with a green zone — and price still can't hold below it, even though that would matter, since the buyer won there.
Meanwhile, pure price action favors the seller: sell excess dominates at most of the levels, candles close bearish.
A borderline situation, again a genuine 50/50: for a perfect pattern there are plenty of objections, but if your goal is to enter no matter what, this chance was probably worth taking.
In the end, price makes a new extreme again — if a sell had been opened here, that would have been the third stop. After the candle marked with the blue arrow pointing down, two more patterns formed, and I've marked them to make it clear: opportunities to sell existed, but all of them were risky. The fourth pattern has two short-side candles, but both close as stopping candles: their wicks carry a lot of market-sell excess that someone is absorbing, and they can't develop any further.
With careful trading, the fourth and fifth patterns wouldn't be worth considering. But the fifth turned out good: essentially, it's a combination of two buyer absorptions in the POC levels and the candle wicks, and after it, already below the green zone, a bearish candle with the seller winning — price jumped past the cluster. If you'd persistently kept selling, this fifth attempt is exactly where you'd have opened a sell that started developing almost immediately, even without a retest.
The higher timeframe: a false break and a reversal
M15, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. A bearish close with a large buyer cluster right at the high (swept stops) and a seller excess at the POC — the false break turned out to be a reversal.
Here's how it looked on M15. The candle closed bearish: a wick at the top and a large buyer cluster right at the high — someone triggered other traders' stop-losses and absorbed the resulting aggressive buying. And in the cluster at the POC level — a concentration of aggressive seller excess and a move down. With this candle's close, the market gives the green light again to look for sells: it becomes clear the previous move was a false break, meant to shake out traders and produce a deep retest.
So all told, we went through five patterns, four of them losers, and only the fifth started to move into profit — but as we'll see next, that exact push turned out to be a false break too: the fifth also got wiped out, and only the sixth pattern worked cleanly, already after confirmation on the higher timeframe. This is how traders squeeze the maximum out of positions, even though the setup, from the start, was showing that a reversal was brewing with buyer absorption — and it all ended up as a manipulation.
⚠️ Important: While trading actively within the day, taking four losses in a row and still going through with a fifth trade is psychologically very hard: you need to be confident in what you're doing. Or, alternatively, it would've been more sensible to skip the fourth and fifth trades.
Let's see what happened next on M1.
The one-minute chart: a clean entry after confirmation
M1, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. The orange box marks a setup (a stopping candle and a breakout up). The blue arrow marks the candle that closed the long setup; after it, a short entry point forms.
On M1 you can see how price shot down: the seller took control of the market very actively. The orange box shows a setup — a stopping candle and a breakout up — and the blue arrow marks the candle that closed the long setup, meaning it also marked the close of the bearish candle on the higher timeframe. After it closed, we understand we can look for sells again, and at the same time we see the market has just formed a long setup on M1 and is about to correct. So we start hunting for a sell pattern again.
After the trigger candle marked with the blue arrow, three candles produce a move up — a trend pattern — then the fourth tries to break it and moves below the level, but the cluster volume in this candle still gets in the way. The fifth breaks through the defense: the group of three clusters is broken, the seller dominates completely and closes below the cluster — a standard, classic trend candle. The next candle gives a retest of the green zones, after which the decline resumes. If you hadn't entered on that pullback, where the fourth and fifth patterns were, here, after confirmation, would be another chance to resume selling — this stack of five candles gives exactly that entry point.
The higher timeframe: the short finally gets going
M15, #ESU6, Footprint Bid Ask. Short-side dynamics develop; price no longer returns to the entry's stop-loss after the downward candle (orange arrow).
On the higher timeframe, short-side dynamics are now developing. From here on, price no longer returns to the stop-loss of that sell we were looking at after the downward candle closed, marked with the orange arrow.
Panorama: what all the persistence was for
M1, #ESU6 — an overview candlestick chart. The overall panorama: five pullback patterns where the market squeezed out sellers, and a sixth that worked on the first try.
On the M1 overview you can see why it was worth trying to catch this short. You can clearly see those five pullback patterns: the market was openly squeezing sellers out — every candlestick pattern shows the seller trying to take back the initiative, only for the high to get renewed again and again after that. And only the sixth pattern, on the first try, with no further sweeps, began to actually reverse the move.
The risk-to-reward ratio on the sixth pattern is roughly 1-to-6, 1-to-7, and if you count from the high with the fifth pattern, it's easily around 1-to-10.
I picked this example on purpose, because the situation is genuinely difficult. From time to time there'll be simple, easy trades — like the first case in this lesson, or the examples from the last one. But when it comes to genuinely good opportunities, the market often creates problems and difficulties, to avoid carrying passengers and having to share the profit.
This closes out the Footprint block of the course: 3.6 gave the theory of both setups, 3.7 and 3.8 gave the cases for each. Next up: Module 4 — risk and money management, position-size calculation, the Market Replay simulator, and going through homework assignments — where we'll finally calculate everything we've been putting off here.