A retired broadcaster teaches himself, and you, to trade the 30-year T-Bond futures pit by reading gaps, pivots and Fibonacci retracements off a five-minute chart. It is a real method with real numbers, but it is built entirely around one contract that barely trades the way it did in 2003.
The one idea
Eykyn's claim is that indicators lag, so the only thing worth watching is the price action itself: where the market opened, where it stalled yesterday, and how far it has already moved today. He builds a 'map' every morning from four ingredients: the pit pivot formula, yesterday's high and low, the Fibonacci retracement levels of the current move, and a set of named candle patterns (J-Hook, Doji Sandwich, Third Time Through) that mark where the map's lines are actually being tested.
The pivot math comes straight from the open-outcry floor: Pivot = (High + Low + Close) / 3, then R1 = (2 x Pivot) - Low and S1 = (2 x Pivot) - High for the first support and resistance band, with R2 and S2 built from those. He says floor traders recalculate this same grid at 11:30 CST when the big institutional desks ('the Big Boys') come back from their break, and that this recalculation is what actually moves the market, not the arithmetic itself.
Fibonacci retracements (.382, .500, .618) get layered on top of the pivot grid to judge whether a pullback is a continuation or a reversal: a .382 retracement is read as bullish continuation, .500 as still bullish but weaker, and a close beyond .618 as a failed move. Every trade then has to clear a minimum 3:1 reward-to-risk ratio before he'll take it, measured from a defined entry against a stop tucked behind the nearest support or resistance line.
What it actually teaches
The book's routine runs in the same order every trading day, from the pre-market grid to the trade itself.
BUILD THE PIVOT GRID
Before the session, take yesterday's high, low and close and compute Pivot = (H+L+C)/3, then R1 = (2xP)-L and S1 = (2xP)-H. If those are broken, R2 = (P-S1)+R1 and S2 = P-(R1-S1). Plot these on a daily chart, then transfer them to a five-minute chart alongside yesterday's actual high and low, which he treats as more important than the arithmetic pivots.
LOOK LEFT
Before trading the right-hand edge of the chart, mark every prior high, low, weekly and contract high/low still within range. His repeated line is 'look left, to set the scene, before trading right': the theory is that price reacts to these old levels far more reliably than to any indicator.
READ THE OPEN AND THE PATTERN AT THE LINE
Classify the open as a gap to Close, Follow, or Either/Way, then watch for one of roughly a dozen named patterns (Upthrust, J-Hook, Doji Sandwich, Third Time Through, Rounded Top/Bottom) forming exactly at one of the pre-marked lines. A pattern away from a real support/resistance line is treated as noise.
MEASURE THE RETRACEMENT
The moment the market turns, drag the Fibonacci tool from the intraday high or low. A .382 pullback is read as strong continuation, .500 as still favorable, and a close through .618 as a sign the original move has failed.
SET A 3:1 MINIMUM AND ONLY THEN ENTER
Only take the trade if the distance from a defensible stop (tucked just behind the res/sup line) to the first realistic target is at least 3 times the risk. His worked examples repeatedly reject trades, or shrink the position, when this ratio isn't there, and one example rates a second target at 6:1.
STAND DOWN FOR EVENT RISK
Treat the 7:30am economic report slot and any Alan Greenspan appearance as a hard stop on new entries: his rule for Fed commentary is written in capitals as 'KEEP OUT', and the reports get a dedicated events calendar check before the open.
What it looks like Monday morning
A reader who takes this seriously stops opening a chart cold. The Monday-morning change is a pre-market checklist: mark yesterday's high, low and close, run the pivot formula, transfer the lines to a five-minute chart, and pull up an economic calendar before touching the buy or sell button. That discipline (know your levels before the bell, not during it) is the one piece that survives regardless of what you trade.
The second change is refusing a trade that doesn't clear 3:1. Eykyn's worked examples show him passing on setups, or waiting for a second entry point, purely because the math against the nearest defensible stop doesn't clear that bar. Applied to any instrument, that's a usable filter even if none of his patterns or Fibonacci levels are adopted.
| Level | Formula |
|---|---|
| Pivot (P) | (High + Low + Close) / 3 |
| 1st Resistance (R1) | (2 x P) - Low |
| 1st Support (S1) | (2 x P) - High |
| 2nd Resistance (R2) | (P - S1) + R1 |
| 2nd Support (S2) | P - (R1 - S1) |
Prior day's high, low and close feed the formula; the book says floor traders recalculate this same grid at 11:30 CST.
Look left, to set the scene, before trading right.Bill Eykyn, Price Action Trading
Where it fails
- The whole book is built on a contract that no longer trades the way it did in 2003. Eykyn wrote this specifically around the floor-traded 30-year Treasury Bond pit at the CBOT, with pivot recalculations tied to the 11:30 CST return of floor locals from their break. Open-outcry bond trading closed for good years ago; the market is now electronic, algorithmic, and does not pause for a human lunch break the way his central mechanism assumes.
- The core signal is 'the Big Boys', never defined or tested. The book's explanation for why pivots and retracements work is that unnamed institutional desks return at a fixed time and move price. There is no data behind this, no citation, just the author's floor anecdotes from his broker contacts. It reads as folklore dressed as a mechanism.
- Every worked example is presented as a clean win. The risk/reward chapter walks through four trade examples (Charts 8.1 to 8.4) and every single one either hits target or gets managed into a small profit. There is no example in the reviewed material of a trade that hits the stop and loses, which is exactly the kind of survivorship the book needed to show and didn't.
- It assumes a home-trading setup that dates the book badly. Chapter 1 spends several pages on satellite dishes, dial-up 'two-hour cut-off' internet, a dedicated CNBC television feed, and SuperCharts/E-Signal charting software. None of this is actionable infrastructure advice today, and a reader has to mentally discount roughly ten percent of the book as period technology history.
- No backtest, no track record, no sample size. The entire case for the method rests on annotated chart excerpts chosen by the author to illustrate a point, not on a run of trades logged forward or tested against a data set. Eykyn says outright that price action trading 'has nothing to do with maths except for Fibonacci,' which also means it has nothing to do with statistical verification.
- The named patterns are the author's own coinages, not an established taxonomy. Doji Sandwich, Picking Up Stragglers, Third Time Through and Fountain Hills are all terms Eykyn says he personally named. That's fine as teaching shorthand, but it means the vocabulary doesn't transfer to any other book, course, or trader's chart markup, which limits how useful the pattern list is outside this one text.
Who it is for
Buy it if
You want a first-person, unfiltered look at how one discretionary floor-adjacent trader actually marked up a T-Bond chart in the early 2000s, pivot points and all. It's a decent primer on the mechanics of support/resistance and Fibonacci retracements if you've never built that vocabulary before.
Skip it if
You're looking for a tested, current method, any statistical validation, or advice relevant to a market that isn't the specific pre-electronic T-Bond pit the book was written about. Anyone trading stocks, crypto, or modern electronic futures will find little here that translates without heavy adaptation.
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