# How to Make Trading Simple With a 9

A three-step 9:30 AM trading strategy: mark premarket levels, wait for the opening range break, then enter on the retest instead of chasing the first candle.

Source: https://eevhgwhx13p-3xg0.top/how-to-make-trading/ · based on the channel [Scarface Trades](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI7bfebbOWLqw3m4zW7XjIg) · Video: [Once You Master This Strategy, Trading Becomes Incredibly Simple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AXhoDnnSWw) · 2026-10-19

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## Key takeaways

- The strategy is built around the 9:30 AM New York open, when premarket range and prior-day high/low get tested.
- Step 1 is preparation: mark premarket high, premarket low, prior-day high (PDH) and prior-day low (PDL) before the bell.
- Step 2 is the setup: wait for price to break and hold outside one of those levels rather than trade inside the range.
- Step 3 is the entry model: enter on the retest of the broken level, not on the breakout candle itself.
- The method uses plain price action and one trend line, with no indicator stack, which keeps decisions repeatable.

Trading becomes simpler when you stop looking for a signal everywhere and instead trade one repeatable event: the 9:30 AM New York open, where price either breaks the premarket range or the prior day's high or low and then retests it. The approach popularized by Scarface Trades boils down to three steps — mark the levels, wait for the break, enter on the retest — and a free walkthrough of the framework is available through the [Scarface Trades Simple Trader Playbook](https://events.scarfacetrades.com/the-simple-trader-playbook-waitlist). Everything else, including most indicators, is optional noise.

## Why most traders make trading harder than it needs to be

Most traders lose not because they lack strategies but because they run too many of them at once. A chart loaded with two moving averages, an oscillator and a trend line will happily produce conflicting signals on the same candle, and the trader is left choosing which one to believe in the moment that matters. The alternative is to define a single context — the first minutes after the US cash open — and only act when price does one specific thing inside it.

The opening bell is useful because it concentrates liquidity and information. Overnight news, premarket positioning and gap fills all resolve in the first 15 to 30 minutes, which produces clean breaks of levels that were visible to everyone before the session started. You do not need to predict direction; you need to recognise when a level that was respected overnight stops being respected.

## Step 1: set up the trade before the market opens

Preparation happens before 9:30 AM, not during the session. Mark four horizontal levels on your chart: the premarket high, the premarket low, the prior-day high (PDH) and the prior-day low (PDL). These are the boundaries that define whether the session is trending or chopping.

1. Draw the premarket high and low from the 4:00–9:30 AM session on your instrument.
2. Add the previous session's high and low, which often act as the first real liquidity targets.
3. Note whether price opens inside the premarket range, above it, or below it.
4. Decide in advance which level matters most: the one closest to the open, because that is the one price will test first.

If price is sitting in the middle of PDH and PDL with no nearby premarket edge, there is no setup — that is a no-trade condition, not a reason to force a position. Futures such as ES and NQ, and liquid megacaps like TSLA, AAPL and AMD, all produce usable levels because their premarket ranges are widely watched.

## Step 2: the core strategy is a break and hold, not a guess

The setup is a decisive break of one of the marked levels followed by acceptance outside it. A single wick through the premarket high is not a break; you want price to close beyond the level and then stay there rather than immediately snapping back inside the range.

This is where most of the edge lives. Breakouts that fail are informative, but they are not entries — they are warnings that the level is still in play. The strategy deliberately ignores everything that happens inside the premarket range, because range-bound price action produces the choppy, low-quality conditions that eat accounts. One trend line drawn from the session's swing points is enough to keep you oriented; adding more indicators does not improve the read and usually creates a reason to override it.

## Step 3: the entry model is the retest

The entry comes on the retest of the broken level, not on the breakout candle itself. After price breaks and holds outside the level, wait for it to rotate back toward that level; the level that was resistance becomes support, and vice versa. Enter when the retest holds, with your stop just on the other side of the level.

This changes the risk profile in two ways. First, the stop is tight and defined by structure rather than by an arbitrary number of ticks. Second, you are no longer buying the top of an extended candle, which is the single most common way beginners give back gains. The trade is invalidated quickly if price closes back through the level, which keeps losses small and makes the setup repeatable across instruments.

## What the sceptics get right about this trading approach

Scepticism about open-range strategies is healthy, and several recurring objections deserve a direct answer. The most common is that these setups look obvious in hindsight and are far harder live — which is true, and it is exactly why the levels must be marked before the bell and the rules written down in advance. Backtesting the break-and-retest pattern on your own instrument is the only way to know whether it suits your session and your patience.

Another frequent objection is that trading off the one-minute chart feels too fast. It is fast, but the decision points are few: a break, a hold, a retest. If that cadence does not suit you, the same levels work on a five-minute chart with wider stops. Traders also ask about position size — the retest entry is designed to keep stops small, so the required size is a function of your risk per trade, not of the strategy. And if a trend line and two indicators disagree, the level and the price action around it should win, because that is the only thing the strategy actually reads.

## How to practise this trading strategy without risking capital

Replay the first hour of the session on your chosen instrument for twenty to thirty days and log every break of the premarket high, premarket low, PDH and PDL. Record whether price held outside the level, whether a retest followed, and what the result would have been with a stop beyond the level. This produces a sample you can actually judge, and it will quickly show you which instruments respect their opening levels and which ones chop through them.

Keep the journal brutally simple: date, level broken, time of the break, whether the retest held, and the result in R. After a few weeks the pattern in your own data — not someone else's screenshots — tells you whether to keep trading the 9:30 AM window or move to a different session.

## Useful links

- [Simple Trader Playbook waitlist](https://events.scarfacetrades.com/the-simple-trader-playbook-waitlist) — free course material on the framework.
- [The Accelerator](https://whop.com/scarfface-trades) — private Discord community and live trading.
- [Scarface Trades on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/scarfacetrades_)
- [Scarface Trades on X](https://twitter.com/ScarfaceTrades_)

## Final thoughts on keeping trading simple

The 9:30 AM strategy works because it removes choices: four levels, one break, one retest, one stop. It will not make every session tradable — many opens are pure chop — but it gives you a clear reason to sit out when nothing breaks and a clear reason to act when something does. Scarface Trades presents the framework as a starting point rather than a guarantee, and the honest version of the edge is patience plus a written record of your own results. If you want the free walkthrough, start with the [Simple Trader Playbook waitlist](https://events.scarfacetrades.com/the-simple-trader-playbook-waitlist) and paper-trade the steps before committing real capital.

## Questions & answers

**What timeframe should I use for the 9:30 AM opening range strategy?**

The levels are marked from the premarket session and the prior day, but the execution is usually read on the one-minute or five-minute chart. The one-minute chart gives tighter stops and more decision points; the five-minute chart is slower and more forgiving for beginners. Pick one and stay consistent so your journal data means something.

**Where exactly do I enter — on the breakout candle or after it closes?**

The entry model is the retest, not the breakout. Wait for price to break the marked level, hold outside it, and then rotate back to test that level; enter when the retest holds, with the stop just beyond the level. Chasing the first breakout candle puts your stop far away and your entry at the worst price of the move.

**Does this work on forex pairs like EURUSD, or only on futures and stocks?**

The logic — premarket or overnight range, prior-day high and low, break and retest — transfers to any liquid market, including major forex pairs. What changes is the session: EURUSD reacts most to the London and New York opens, so the levels should be built around those windows rather than the 9:30 AM equity bell. Test it on your pair before trusting it.

**What if price opens in the middle of PDH and PDL with no clear level nearby?**

That is a no-trade condition. If price is trapped between the prior day's high and low without a nearby premarket edge, there is no defined level to break and no clean place for a stop. The strategy depends on a level being tested, so sitting out is part of the plan rather than a missed opportunity.