Ranges · Lab notes
A breakout study that starts with the expansion candle is already late. In the Phuket lab we freeze the chart while price is still travelling between two obvious sides, and we refuse to name a bias until those sides are written.
First we mark the last swing that everyone in the room can agree on. If two people argue the high, the high is not ready. Then we mark the opposite side. Only after both lines exist do we note whether the distance between them is shrinking.
Compression is a change in that distance over several tests, not a feeling. We count the tests. Four touches on a falling ceiling with higher lows underneath is a different story from two random wicks.
Volume is a second pass, never the first. If the range is unclear, activity notes will only decorate the confusion. When the box is honest, we ask whether participation dried up as the box tightened.
The written plan for that session is three lines: the level that would count as leaving the box, the close that would put us back inside, and the first area we would measure a move toward. Nothing in those lines is an order. It is a sentence you can defend when the replay continues.