Most traders lose before they ever place a trade, because they don’t know how to choose the right battlefield. Edge isn’t in the entry. It’s in the environment you choose to fight in. 10 Trading Heuristics: Market Selection & Context 1.Start top-down: read the higher timeframe, execute on the lower. 2.Only trade clean charts, obvious structure, obvious levels. 3.Regime first: trend, range, or transition dictates the playbook. 4.Trade where others must act: highs, lows, breakouts, opens. 5.Check the “space”: is there enough room to the next wall? 6.Avoid the middle, mid-range destroys good bias. 7.Match volatility to the setup: compression → expansion. 8.Respect relative strength: strongest longs, weakest shorts. 9.Know the catalysts: size down when events matter. 10. If you can’t explain the trade in one sentence, it isn’t clean. Your P&L is a reflection of the environments you allow yourself to trade in. Stop forcing setups. Start selecting battlefields where discipline actually gets rewarded. Master context, and the trades practically choose themselves.
