A word on how to take them. These are impersonal, educational reads. CutlassEdge interprets the day's structure the same way for every user looking at the same market, and frames it as an informed opinion, not a signal to follow and not personal advice. The app names what it sees in the auction and what that structure has tended to mean. What you do with it is yours.
How the session opened
The open leads the read, because it sets the morning's lean. CutlassEdge can read the open two ways, and you choose which in Settings > Opening framework:
- Pirate (the default): Charles's own framework.
- Traditional: the classic labels below.
- Both: the Pirate read first, the traditional label beside it.
The traditional open types
These read only the first hour (the first two 30-minute periods) and lock once those complete, so a later reversal never relabels the open.
- Open-Drive. The strongest open. Price leaves the opening level in one direction and does not come back. Often the start of a one-sided day.
- Open-Test-Drive. Price tests a level first to see that it holds, then drives away from it with conviction.
- Open-Rejection-Reverse. Price pushes one way, gets rejected, and reverses to trade the other way. A more two-sided open.
- Open-Auction. Price opens inside the prior day's value and auctions both ways, with little early conviction.
Before two periods finish, the open reads Open developing.
The Pirate framework
The default adds Charles's own opening reads:
- Chop zone. When the day opens inside yesterday's range, the app marks a chop zone, bounded by the nearby overnight and prior-day highs and lows. It lasts until price breaks out and stays out, or the first hour completes.
- Gap clocks. When the day opens beyond yesterday's range (a gap of two ticks or more), the app puts a clock on it: Gap-and-go (still unfilled when the first hour completes), Gap-fill-and-go (fills, spends under 30 minutes back inside the range, then pushes back through the opening price in the gap's direction), or Gap-and-chop (neither). While it is live you will see it read unfilled or filling.
- Overnight inventory. Whether the overnight session left the market leaning net long or net short into the open, or roughly balanced.
What shape the day finished in
The day type is the session's overall structure, read from the finished profile. CutlassEdge gives one label per session, and it settles at the close. While the day is still developing you will see the pieces (like unfilled single prints), not a final label yet.
- Balance Day. A bell-shaped, two-sided day, a tug-of-war around fair value. Little directional lean into tomorrow.
- Range-Extension day (up or down). Price broke out of the first-hour range and stayed, a one-sided, momentum day. Of all the shapes, these tend to carry the most follow-through.
- Neutral day. Price extended on both sides of the first hour, or held inside it. A two-sided fight with no clear winner.
- Normal-variation day. An ordinary session that does not fit the stronger shapes.
- P-shape. A fat bulge of time near the highs over a thin tail below, the shape of a letter P. Traditionally called short covering. A P left with unfilled single prints reads as upward momentum that may be running out of steam, which is not the same as a reason to be bearish.
- b-shape. The mirror: a fat bulge near the lows over a thin tail above, the shape of a letter b. Traditionally called long liquidation.
- Double or triple distribution. A day split into two or three separate value areas joined by thin spines of single prints, as if the market traded "another day" each time it relocated. The spines often act as support or resistance later.
- Inside day. A session that stays entirely inside the prior day's range. Often a sign momentum has paused.
Reading them together
The open sets the morning's lean, and the day type is the story the session finished telling. CutlassEdge lines both up for you in the Read tab. What each has tended to lead to the next day, with the actual historical odds and how many days those odds are based on, is the job of Base rates and sample sizes.
The framework is yours
By default CutlassEdge reads the open with Charles's Pirate framework. Prefer the classic labels? Switch Settings > Opening framework to Traditional, or to Both to see them side by side.