Decide which way the Dow leans before the session opens — and why deciding beforehand is the whole point. This free lesson covers: What a bias is, Why it is set before the open, When to decide, Where the daily candle closed, Reading the close, Structure over recent days, Name the structure, Bounce or reversal, Writing the bias down, Which is a usable bias?.
The Top-Down Method · Learn · Step 1 of 10
A daily bias is a single sentence: which direction you expect US30 to favour this session, and what would tell you that expectation is wrong.
It is not a prediction and not a promise. It is a starting assumption that decides which setups you take seriously and which you leave alone.
Going deeper
Setting a bias before the session is an application of pre-commitment: deciding while calm what you will do when you are not. The value comes from the decision being reviewable afterwards.
Hindsight bias makes post-hoc analysis almost useless — once you know the outcome, the chart genuinely appears to have signalled it. A written bias is the only defence.
Before the session you intend to trade — most commonly during the London morning for a New York session. The specific hour matters less than it being before, not during.
The invalidation condition tells you. Once it is hit, the read is void and the correct action is to stop looking for setups in that direction.
You can void it, which is what invalidation means. Quietly reversing it to fit what price is doing is how a plan becomes a rationalisation.