How to trade trendlines with a simple top-down system that needs no indicators
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· based on the channel Tori Trades
Trading with trendlines means marking the direction of a market with straight lines drawn through swing highs or swing lows, then buying or selling only when price returns to those lines. The system described by Tori Trades in her video breakdown keeps it boring on purpose: no indicators, one top-down read of the chart, an Action Line as the entry trigger and a Safety Line as the stop. You can join the waitlist for her full training through the Tori Trades waitlist page.
What a trendline actually is in this trading framework
A trendline in this framework is not decoration; it is a drawn boundary of the trend that tells you where buyers or sellers have repeatedly stepped in. An uptrend line connects successive higher lows, a downtrend line connects successive lower highs, and the line is only valid while price respects it.
The practical consequence is that the line gives you two pieces of information at once: the direction you are allowed to trade and the price area where a setup can form. If price is above a rising line, you look for longs; if it is below a falling line, you look for shorts. Nothing else on the chart is needed to define bias.
Tori Trades frames the whole method as repeatable rather than clever. The same rules apply to futures, forex and any other liquid market, which is why the approach has survived more than a decade of use in her own account.
Running top-down analysis before you draw anything
Top-down analysis means you start on a high time frame and only drop lower once the bigger picture is clear. The sequence is simple:
- Open the monthly or weekly chart and identify whether price is making higher highs and higher lows, lower highs and lower lows, or nothing at all.
- Draw the single most obvious trendline on that high time frame, connecting the cleanest swing points.
- Move to the daily chart and repeat the exercise inside the structure you just found.
- Only after the daily picture agrees with the higher time frame do you look at intraday charts for execution.
If the weekly is trending up but the daily is breaking down, there is no trade; conflicting time frames are a filter, not a puzzle to solve. This is the part most beginners skip, and it is the reason so many of them end up taking counter-trend entries that get swept.
Rules for drawing trendlines that two people would draw the same way
The quality of the whole system depends on the line being objective, so the drawing rules matter more than the entry trigger. A trendline should touch at least two swing points, and the more times price has respected it without breaking through, the more weight it carries.
Use wicks or bodies consistently rather than switching between the two to make a line fit. Avoid forcing a line through minor noise; if you have to squint and adjust the anchor three times, the structure is not clean enough to trade. Steep lines that would require a near-vertical move to be respected tend to break quickly, while lines at a moderate angle tend to hold longer.
Once a line is drawn on the higher time frame, you can refine it on a lower time frame for execution, but the refined line must not contradict the original. If the lower-time-frame version of the line points somewhere completely different, keep the higher-time-frame line and wait.
The Action Line and the Safety Line as entry and exit criteria
The Action Line is the trendline you trade against, and the Safety Line is a parallel line placed on the other side of the swing structure, giving you a fixed reference for where the idea is wrong. Together they turn a subjective chart read into a rule-based plan.
An entry is taken when price returns to the Action Line and shows a reaction in the direction of the trend, not simply because price touched the line. The Safety Line then defines the invalidation: if price closes beyond it, the structure that justified the trade no longer exists and the position is closed.
Because both lines are drawn before the trade, there is nothing to interpret in the moment. That is the core reason the framework holds up over years: the decision is made in advance, in a calm state, rather than in the middle of a fast move.
Position sizing, stop-loss and trailing stops
Position size is derived from the distance between your entry and the Safety Line, not from a fixed lot or contract number. If the distance is wide, the position is small; if the line sits close to entry, the position can be larger for the same risk.
A workable routine looks like this:
- Decide the maximum account percentage you are willing to lose on the trade, for example 1%.
- Measure the distance in ticks or points from entry to the Safety Line.
- Divide the risk amount by that distance to get the number of contracts or lots.
- Place the stop just beyond the Safety Line, not exactly on it, to allow for wicks.
As the trade moves in your favour, the stop can be trailed behind new swing points, or behind a redrawn Action Line as the trend develops. Trailing too aggressively turns a trend trade into a scalp, so the stop should follow structure rather than every candle.
Typical questions and doubts from traders learning this system
Viewers who try the method tend to hit the same three issues. The first is impatience: waiting for price to reach the line feels like doing nothing, so people enter early and turn a rule-based trade into a guess. Sitting out the middle of the range and acting only at the lines is the discipline the system demands.
The second is over-tooling. Traders arrive from indicator-heavy backgrounds and want to add oscillators or moving averages for confirmation; the method is designed to work without them, and extra tools usually just create conflicting signals.
The third is scale. A beginner who makes a small profit in a day should not conclude the system is either magic or useless; the edge only shows up across many trades with consistent risk. Others ask how the trade is actually placed, which broker and platform are used, and how leverage is set; those mechanics are execution details that belong to the broker and platform setup rather than to the chart logic itself.
Tools and links mentioned in the breakdown
Tori Trades points viewers to several resources alongside the strategy itself: the waitlist for her training at https://go.toritradez.com/9acc4ff4, a trade journaling tool with the discount code TORI20 at https://go.toritradez.com/yt-tradezella, the broker she uses at https://go.toritradez.com/yt-tradestation, and her social accounts at https://go.toritradez.com/yt-instagram and https://go.toritradez.com/yt-facebook. Journaling matters more than most beginners expect, because the only way to know whether your trendline entries are actually working is to record them with screenshots and outcomes.
Summary
The boring trendline system works because every decision is pre-defined: top-down bias from the higher time frame, a cleanly drawn line, an entry at the Action Line, a stop at the Safety Line, and position size calculated from that distance. There is no indicator to reinterpret and no signal to second-guess, which is exactly why it can be repeated for years. The channel Tori Trades walks through this framework step by step in the video breakdown, including how to maintain and redraw lines as a trend evolves. If you want to go further with the method, start with the Tori Trades waitlist.
Key takeaways
- The system uses only price action: trendlines drawn on higher time frames, no indicators.
- Entry trigger is the Action Line, a trendline drawn through the most recent swing points.
- The Safety Line is the parallel line used as a structural stop and exit reference.
- Position size is calculated from the distance between the entry and the Safety Line.
- Tori Trades says she has used the same approach for over 11 years across futures and forex.
Questions & answers
Do I need indicators to trade this trendline system?
No. The method is built entirely on price action: trendlines drawn from swing highs and lows on a higher time frame, plus the Action Line and Safety Line for execution. Adding indicators tends to introduce conflicting signals rather than improve the setup.
How do I decide my stop-loss and position size?
Place the stop just beyond the Safety Line, the parallel line that invalidates the structure. Then size the position by dividing your fixed risk amount, such as 1% of the account, by the distance in ticks or points between entry and that stop.
Why does the strategy feel so slow and uneventful?
Because most of the time you are waiting. Entries only happen when price returns to the Action Line, so the middle of a range is a no-trade zone. That patience is what keeps the rules objective and prevents impulsive entries.
Can this work on futures and forex, or only one market?
The rules are market-agnostic: top-down bias, a valid trendline, entry at the Action Line and a stop at the Safety Line apply to futures, forex and other liquid instruments. What changes between markets is contract size and tick value, which affect position sizing.
Source: This boring trading strategy made me $526,454 · Markdown version