When a pause is not a range
Higher highs inside a ‘box’ usually mean you are marking a pullback, not a tradeable range.
Traders love rectangles. Draw two horizontals, wait for a bounce, feel organised. Trouble starts when those horizontals cut through a sequence of higher swing lows that never actually balanced.
A simple check
Ask whether both sides of your box have been defended more than once with decisive rejection, or whether price simply paused against a prior high while the underlying swing structure kept climbing. If each “range low” is higher than the last and the “range high” is barely tested, you are looking at a pause in a trend — not range trading structure ready for edge fades.
What to do instead
Stand aside or trade with the larger swing. Save fade ideas for periods where highs and lows print at similar levels and mid-range travel looks two-sided. Forcing a range onto a pullback is how stop-outs pile up just as the trend resumes.
In our intensive we spend part of session one only on this distinction. It is dull chart work. It saves more capital than any ornate entry trigger.