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In this interview, pro trader and educator Chris Capre dives into his playbook—live—sharing how he evolved from neuroscience and yoga into running SecondSkies and trading FX for nearly two decades. You’ll hear Capre explain why he anchors decisions in price action and order flow rather than debates about fundamentals vs. technicals, and how his institutional background shaped a practical, rules-first style that retail traders can actually use.
Read on to learn how Chris Capre reads impulsive vs. corrective structure to infer order flow, where support/resistance truly matters, and when the Ichimoku Cloud adds edge to his price-action core. We’ll also unpack his risk parameters, execution discipline, and mindset training—why goals should target process, not monthly P&L—so you can adopt a cleaner framework for setups, sizing, and steady account growth.
Chris Capre Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core philosophy: price action first, everything else second
Chris Capre builds decisions around what price is doing now, not what it “should” do. He reads structure to infer where orders likely sit and uses a few confirming tools only when they add clarity. This section lays out the principles that keep his trading simple, repeatable, and focused on the edge.
- Trade what you can see: if the structure is unclear, do nothing.
- Classify legs: impulsive (fast, wide bars) = control; corrective (overlapping bars) = pause.
- Anchor bias to a higher-timeframe structure; execute on a lower timeframe.
- Prefer confluence of structure + level + trigger, not opinions or headlines.
- If a concept doesn’t improve entries, exits, or risk control, remove it.
Market selection & timeframes
He prefers instruments with clean trends and enough liquidity to avoid slippage. Time compression is key: he frames context on one chart, times entries on another, and manages risk on both. Here’s how to pick markets and line up timeframes so signals actually mean something.
- Focus on liquid majors/indices first; avoid thin or news-whipped tickers.
- Use HTF (e.g., daily/4H) to define bias; LTF (e.g., 1H/15m) to trigger.
- Only take LTF setups aligned with HTF impulsive leg direction.
- If ATR is unusually high/low versus its 6–20 period baseline, adjust size or skip.
- Keep a “clean list” of 6–12 instruments that historically trend well for you.
Reading structure: impulsive vs. corrective
Capre treats trend legs and pullbacks as different species. Impulsive legs show who’s in charge; corrective legs reveal where entries and invalidations hide. These rules help you label swings quickly and act without second-guessing.
- Impulsive leg rules: wide bodies, little overlap, closes near extremes = momentum control.
- Corrective leg rules: overlapping bars, smaller ranges, whipsaw wicks = digestion.
- In an uptrend, buy from the first supportive stall inside a corrective pullback.
- In a downtrend, sell from the first failure to hold a corrective bounce.
- If a “pullback” becomes impulsive against your bias, your trend thesis is wrong—stand down.
Levels that matter (and how to draw fewer of them)
Too many lines equals no line that matters. He marks only the levels with demonstrated participation: swing highs/lows that launched impulsive legs, and prior failed break points. Here’s how to keep your chart clean and meaningful.
- Mark the origin of the last two impulsive legs (demand/supply).
- Use prior failed breaks as battlefield zones; expect reaction, not magic.
- Delete any level that hasn’t produced a reaction in the last 30–60 sessions.
- Respect round numbers only if the structure has already reacted there.
- One rule in/one rule out: when you add a level, remove a less useful one.
Entry triggers: from idea to order
Ideas don’t pay; executions do. Capre waits for the price to “show its hand” with a specific trigger pattern at a pre-planned level. Use these triggers to stop guessing and start standardizing.
- Trigger the entry on: rejection wick + body close back into direction, or inside-bar break with HTF bias, or break-retest that holds on a second probe.
- Enter on the close of the trigger bar or on a limit into its midpoint—never mid-bar chase.
- If the trigger forms >2 ATRs away from your level, pass (risk/reward erodes).
- One attempt per level: if it fails decisively, wait for a new structure.
- No trigger by your cutoff time? Cancel the idea and re-assess.
Using Ichimoku as a decision filter (not a crutch)
He treats Ichimoku as a structure visualizer, not a signal machine. The cloud helps see equilibrium and trend strength quickly, but price action still leads. These rules keep the tool helpful and out of the driver’s seat.
- Trade with price on the “right” side of the cloud aligned to HTF bias.
- Stronger setups when Tenkan > Kijun (up) or Tenkan < Kijun (down) and both slope.
- Use Kijun as a pullback mean only if structure supports it; never on its own.
- Ignore “cloud twists” unless they coincide with real support/resistance.
- If Ichimoku conflicts with clean price action, defer to price and stand aside.
Order flow tells without a DOM.
You don’t need the tape to infer participation. Capre reads who’s trapped and who’s in control via bar sequences, failed breaks, and where closures occur. Here’s how to turn the chart into an order-flow proxy.
- Consecutive strong closes through a level = absorption and control; trade with it.
- Failed breakout + fast rejection back inside = trapped traders; fade to the other side of the range.
- Wick-heavy stalling at your level signals responsive flow—enter only on decisive follow-through.
- Measure “who won” the last battle by where the session closes relative to the level.
- If follow-through dies within 2–3 bars, assume mean reversion and tighten risk.
Risk sizing and protective stops
Edge means nothing without sizing. He normalizes position size to volatility and places stops where the idea is logically broken, not where the P&L feels comfy. Use this packet to keep losers small and winners survivable.
- Risk is a fixed fraction per trade (e.g., 0.25–0.75% of equity).
- Convert ATR(14) to distance: position_size = (risk $) / (stop_distance in price).
- Place stops beyond the invalidation of structure: past swing + buffer of 0.5–1.0 ATR.
- If spread + expected slippage > 15% of stop distance, reduce size or skip.
- Never widen a stop after entry; exit and re-enter on a fresh trigger if needed.
Take-profit logic and scaling
He prefers partials at objective structure and lets a runner work when trend behavior persists. The aim is to bank risk quickly and give asymmetry a chance. Here’s the hierarchy.
- First target at 1R or the nearest opposing structure—whichever comes first.
- Move stop to breakeven only after either 1R is banked or a new impulsive leg prints in your favor.
- Trail below/above swing pivots or Kijun on the execution timeframe when the trend remains impulsive.
- If momentum wanes (smaller bodies, overlap returns), tighten to last swing and accept the stop-out.
- No adding to losers; add only on fresh triggers in the direction of an established winner.
Session planning & execution checklist
Great trades start before the open. Capre maps bias, levels, and scenarios so execution is almost mechanical. Adopt this pre-trade workflow to reduce randomness.
- Pre-market: mark HTF bias, 2–3 actionable levels, and preferred trigger types.
- Define invalidation before you look for entries; write the stop location in your plan.
- Set alerts at levels; avoid staring and forcing trades.
- If two instruments offer similar setups, take the cleaner structure and skip the other.
- Cap daily attempts (e.g., 3 setups or 2R net risk) to avoid tilt.
Handling news and volatility spikes
He respects event risk but doesn’t worship calendars. The idea is simple: you get paid for clarity; if news muddies structure, step aside. Use these rules to keep randomness out of your P&L.
- If a high-impact event is due within one bar of your timeframe, don’t enter a fresh trade.
- In open trades, reduce size or tighten stops to structure just before release if unrealized R < 1.
- After a spike, wait for two bars of post-event structure before considering new entries.
- If the spread widens beyond your threshold, cancel pending orders.
- Re-draw levels after events; pre-news zones may be stale.
Playbook for common patterns he trades.
Patterns are just structured ways to express the same logic: impulse, correction, and continuation or reversal. Here are the workhorses, defined so you can act without debate.
- Break-retest-go: break of key level → retest holds with rejection close → enter; stop beyond retest low/high; first target 1R or next structure.
- False break fade: brief push through range extremity → fast close back inside → enter toward opposite bound; stop outside the failed break; scale at mid-range.
- Continuation pullback: strong impulsive leg → shallow corrective pullback (30–50% of impulse) → trigger bar; stop beyond pullback low/high; trail behind new swings.
- Mean-reversion pop: extended move into HTF level with exhaustion wicks → inside-bar break against extension; quick 0.5–1.0R target; no runner unless structure flips.
Mindset, journaling, and metrics
Process beats prediction. Capre emphasizes tracking what you control and turning data into behavior. This is how you close the loop between intent and results.
- Journal three things: context plan (before), execution notes (during), and outcome review (after).
- Tag trades by setup, market condition (trending/ranging), and trigger type.
- Review weekly: cut the bottom 20% setups by expectancy; double down on the top 20%.
- Grade process (A/B/C) independent of P&L; only A-grade behaviors can scale.
- Set goals you can execute daily: number of planned alerts hit, number of valid triggers taken, and zero off-plan trades.
Anchor bias to price action; trade mechanics, not predictions
Chris Capre keeps the compass simple: let price action set the bias, then execute the playbook without debating narratives. When candles print wide bodies with clean closes, he reads that as control and lines up with it; when overlap creeps in, he assumes digestion and waits. Forecasts and hot takes aren’t part of the edge—structure is. The job is to react to what buyers and sellers actually did, not what we hope they’ll do next.
In practice, that means mapping the higher-timeframe swing structure, then taking entries only when the lower-timeframe gives a clear trigger back in line with that bias. If the market invalidates the idea—say a supposed pullback turns impulsive against you—Chris Capre treats that as information, not a personal attack, and stands down. By centering mechanics over predictions, he trades fewer opinions and more repeatable setups. That shift keeps the chart clean, the rules crisp, and the P&L tied to execution rather than guesswork.
Size positions by ATR volatility; cap daily risk and attempts
Chris Capre sizes positions off current volatility, so the same idea risks the same dollars in calm or chaos. He converts ATR into stop distance and then into position size, keeping risk per trade fixed—think somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.25–0.75% as conditions warrant. If ATR expands, size contracts; if ATR compresses, size expands slightly, but never beyond the max risk cap. He also sanity-checks slippage and spread: if they consume more than a set slice of the stop distance, he cuts size or skips the trade.
To prevent tilt, Chris Capre caps total daily risk and the number of attempts. A typical rule might be a hard 2R daily drawdown or no more than three valid shots—even on A+ setups. After any losing streak (e.g., three losses in a row), he halves risk until a green trade prints, then steps back up. Stops sit beyond structural invalidation plus a volatility buffer, and he never widens them after entry—reset on a fresh signal or stand down.
Define entry triggers and invalidation; place stops beyond the structure
Chris Capre keeps entries simple: wait for the price to tip its hand at a pre-marked level, then act. A rejection wick that closes back with the trend, an inside-bar break aligned to higher-timeframe bias, or a clean break–retest that holds on a second probe—those are his green lights. If the trigger forms too far from the level or after the move has already run, he passes. The invalidation is decided before clicking: if the price trades and closes beyond the structure that justified the setup, the idea is wrong.
Stops live where the thesis dies, not where the P&L feels comfortable, and Chris Capre adds a volatility buffer so normal noise doesn’t knock him out. He prefers to place the stop beyond the swing plus a fraction of ATR, then let the market do the sorting. If the trigger fails immediately or morphs into an impulsive move against the bias, he exits without negotiation. No widening stops, no averaging down—just wait for the next valid trigger and re-engage on fresh information.
Diversify by instrument, strategy, and duration; avoid correlated bets.
Chris Capre spreads risk across instruments that don’t all move to the same drumbeat, so one theme can’t sink the day. He also diversifies by strategy—trend continuation, false-break fades, and break–retest—so his edge isn’t tied to a single market regime. Duration matters too: mixing intraday and swing positions reduces the chance that every trade is exposed to the same short-lived shock. Before adding a new setup, Chris Capre asks whether it truly brings new exposure or just more of the same correlation in disguise.
He keeps practical guardrails: limits per asset class and per narrative, and he avoids stacking look-alike trades like EURUSD long, DXY short, and gold long at the same time. When correlations spike, he trims size or selects the cleanest chart and discards cousins. He’s ruthless about overlap—if two positions share the same risk driver, he treats them as a single bet and sizes accordingly. This turns diversification from a buzzword into a concrete control on drawdowns and a smoother equity curve.
Prefer defined risk setups; scale winners, never add to losers.s
Chris Capre builds around defined risk, so the downside is fixed before the upside is chased. He commits only when the stop lives beyond objective structure and the initial reward makes sense relative to that cost. Once price proves the idea—by hitting a first target or printing a fresh impulsive leg—he locks progress by adjusting stops to reduce give-back. Adding comes only after confirmation, not to rescue a bad entry.
When a trade is working, Chris Capre scales in on fresh, independent triggers that align with the original thesis, keeping each add-on sized smaller than the core. He never averages down into weakness, and he never widens stops to “give it room.” If momentum stalls or structure degrades, he tightens to the last swing and lets the market take him out. By keeping risk defined and pyramiding only into strength, he protects the account from tail events while letting compounding do the heavy lifting.
In the end, Chris Capre’s edge isn’t a single indicator—it’s a tight loop between structure, risk, and discipline. He reads price action to decide who’s in control, treats impulsive versus corrective legs as different beasts, and waits for clean triggers at pre-marked levels. Ichimoku is a lens, not a crutch; the cloud and lines help visualize balance only after price has spoken. He sizes by volatility, so every trade risks roughly the same, no matter the market mood, and he places stops where the thesis truly dies, not where the P&L feels comfortable.
What makes this repeatable is the way he manages exposure and behavior. Chris Capre diversifies by instrument, strategy, and duration to avoid one narrative dominating his book, caps daily risk and attempts to prevent tilt, and scales only into strength while refusing to add to losers. He journals the plan before, the execution during, and the results after—then cuts the bottom 20% of setups and doubles down on what actually pays. If you adopt his flow—price-led bias, volatility-led sizing, structure-led execution—you’ll trade fewer opinions, take cleaner shots, and give winners the room to do the heavy lifting.
