A detector proposes a trade. Gates decide whether it goes ahead. Once a setup exists, every gate on that source gets a say, and any one of them can refuse the entry.
Gates
There are 32 gates. They ask questions like:
- Is the trend going my way on the timeframe I named?
- Is there enough momentum behind the move?
- Has structure broken?
- Is the spread wider than I allow?
- Is this entry too close to the last one?
- Is it inside the hours I switched off?
- Is the higher timeframe pointing the other way?
- Does a related market agree?
- Have I already had my trades, or my losses, for today?
Three general-purpose gates have their own articles: the indicator condition gate, the candle pattern gate, and stopping for the day.
Gates that compare two markets
Three gates look at a second market as well as the one you trade:
- Correlated-symbol agreement. The other market must be moving the way your trade needs.
- Follower instrument. The other market must have led the move.
- Daily correlation regime. The two markets must have been moving together, or clearly against each other, recently.
All three need you to name that second market. Add the Correlated instrument block to the same setup and choose the instrument. Wildflower does not choose it for you. A strategy that switches one of these gates on without it will not save, and the message says what to add.
The second market's prices are read on your own computer, the same way as the market you trade. A candle from the second market only counts once it has closed, so these gates never act on a price that had not happened yet. Backtests read the same candles in the same way.
Score floors
Wildflower gives each setup scores. Six blocks set a minimum on one of them: the expansion score, the fair value gap score, the pre-signal score (the lead-up to the signal), the zone score, the conviction score, and the composite score. A setup that scores below your floor is passed over.
You set the number.
The composite score also counts the context you tick: a double top or bottom, a liquidity sweep, the market not moving sideways, and how many timeframes agree on the trend. What you tick is counted whatever other gates the strategy uses.
A seventh score block, Reverse the side on scores inside a band, takes a signal the other way round when its scores fall inside bands you set: a long is taken as a short, and a short as a long.
Every number is yours
The Session open quarantine, Session close proximity, Stop distance floor and Wide-range body required gates ask for every number they use. A strategy with one left empty will not save.
So do Liquidity in the way and Liquidity target required, including the candles and swing size. Stop for the day asks for at least one of its two numbers.
Each market open is read on its own city's clock:
- the futures exchange (CME) reopens at 5pm Chicago time
- London opens at 8am London time
- New York opens at 8:30am New York time
Where you see them working
Every refusal is written in plain English on the Everything else tab of Activity. For example: "the 5-minute trend was not aligned", "the spread was wider than your setting allows", or "the setup scored below your threshold". If you add a gate and trades stop, that tab names the gate that stopped them.
What can go wrong
Gates stack. Each one you add narrows what gets through, and several narrow gates together can let nothing through at all. Activity shows which one is doing it.
Some gates are only read by certain detectors. If you put one beside a detector that never reads it, the gate would change nothing. So Wildflower will not run the strategy. It names the gate and the detector, and asks you to remove the gate or use a detector that reads it.