First Light — the inside-bar compression break.

Compression

An inside bar is a bar that trades entirely within the range of the one before it — the market pausing, coiling, waiting. It is one of the oldest readable patterns on a chart and it needs no indicator at all.

When one forms, First Light arms the mother bar’s high and low as the breakout rails and waits. Nothing is traded on the pause itself.

The release

The first close beyond the armed range is the trade — above the top for a long, below the bottom for a short. Requiring a CLOSE rather than a touch is deliberate: it filters out the wick that pokes through the level and immediately reverses.

Each fresh inside bar re-arms the rails, so the playbook keeps pace with the market rather than trading a stale level.

The settings that matter

This one is deliberately lean — the pattern is the signal, and there is no threshold to tune on it. The dials that remain shape risk rather than entry.

The ATR period and stop multiple size the stop against current volatility, the target R:R sets the reward multiple, and the entry cutoff stops new positions late in the session.