Catching Expansions
Putting it together: find the draw on liquidity, wait for a raid on a short-term high or low, confirm with an MSS on the lower timeframe, enter at an FVG, and ride the expansion to your target. This is where order flow, ERL/IRL, and the market maker model all combine.
An expansion is the big, fast directional move, the part of the market you want to catch. To catch it you follow a clear order of steps, and the first one is the most important of all.
- Find the draw on liquidity. This is your target, where price most likely wants to go.
- Wait for a raid on a short-term high (if bearish) or a short-term low (if bullish) on the higher timeframe.
- Drop to the aligned lower timeframe and wait for a Market Structure Shift (MSS).
- Enter at an FVG (or a breaker, or on the retracement).
- Ride the expansion to the draw on liquidity.
No target, no trade
The draw on liquidity is non-negotiable. Even a perfect-looking setup is useless without a clear target. The target can be an FVG, swing highs or lows, equal highs or lows, or any other PDRA. Even a relatively equal high (not perfectly level) is still a strong magnet.
A bearish expansion, step by step
Step 1: find the draw on liquidity. Here it rests below as sell-side liquidity, the target price wants to reach. Mark it first; without it, do not trade.
Spot it: Resting liquidity below in a bearish setup = your target.
The raid is the ERL takeout
The raid on the short-term high or low is exactly the external range liquidity (ERL) takeout from the ERL/IRL lesson. Once the ERL is taken, you drop down and enter the internal range liquidity (the FVG). And the short-term high being raided is what promotes it to an intermediate-term high, from the market structure lesson.
A bullish expansion
Step 1: the draw on liquidity sits above as buy-side liquidity. That is the target. Mark it first.
Spot it: Resting liquidity above in a bullish setup = your target.
This is everything combined
Catching expansions is not a new tool, it is your whole toolkit working together. The raid and target are the ERL/IRL draw on liquidity. The structure that forms is a market maker model. The push, pause, and push are the states of the market. You are simply reading all of it at once.
Enter at the second stage (patience)
Inside the model, prefer to enter at the second stage. It is closer to the draw on liquidity, so the stop is well placed and the trade is safer. The profit is a little smaller, but profit is profit, and safer entries win more often. Patience is what makes this work.
Keep the timeframes aligned
Read the bias on the higher timeframe, find the model and raid on the aligned middle timeframe, and enter on the lower one (for example daily, H1, then M5). Do not mix far-apart timeframes.
How pros apply it
- NZDUSD (H1 to M5): a sell model, raid on the short-term high, MSS down, second-stage FVG entry, expansion to the draw on liquidity.
- NQ (daily to 4H): a buy model with a relatively equal high as the draw on liquidity. The equal high was a strong magnet, so the expansion ran straight to it.
- A 15-minute sell model: after the raid and MSS, entries came from an order block and the FVG, both targeting the draw on liquidity.
Key takeaways
To catch an expansion: find the draw on liquidity first, wait for a raid on a short-term high/low, confirm with an MSS on the aligned lower timeframe, enter at an FVG (ideally the second stage), and ride the move to your target. It is order flow, ERL/IRL, and the market maker model all at once.
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