Order Blocks

The idea in one breath: An order block is the last opposing candle — or tight cluster — before a move so strong it breaks structure. The theory says large players left resting orders there; the honest version says price demonstrably tends to react when it returns. The theory is unknowable. The reaction is measurable. We trade the measurable part.

How to find one — the engine's rules, which are now your rules

1. Find a displacement — an impulsive leg that breaks a structural point. No displacement, no order block; a big candle that breaks nothing is just a big candle.
2. Step back to the last opposing candle before it: the last down candle before an up-displacement, or the reverse.
3. The block is that candle's range — a zone, never a line. The engine uses full range, consistently, because consistency beats debate.
4. It matters once. The first clean return to the zone is the tested trade. A level tapped four times is not "strong" — in the block grammar it is spent.

What makes a block worth trading

Blocks are not equal, and treating them as equal is where most of the losses live. The engine scores four things: displacement strength as an ATR multiple, whether the displacement swept liquidity before moving, higher-timeframe alignment, and zone freshness.

Sweep-then-displace is the A-grade shape. This is why "I entered at an order block" is not a strategy — which block, in what context, is the entire game, and a trader who cannot answer those two questions has a vocabulary rather than a method.