The Rev Strat (1-2-2)
Compression resolves — but not always in the direction it first picks. The Rev Strat is what it looks like when the market fakes one way out of an inside bar and then goes the other: a 1, a 2 in one direction, then a 2 back through the other side. The breakout everyone chased just became their trap.
Why the fake-out matters
An inside bar concentrates orders on both trigger levels. When the first break — say a 2d — attracts sellers and then fails, those sellers are stuck below a level that no longer means what they thought. The 2u that follows is not a fresh opinion; it is their exits detonating in sequence. Compression plus a trapped crowd is the highest-octane fuel mix TheStrat describes.
The trade
The trigger is the second 2 — the break back through the inside bar's opposite side. Entry at that break, stop beyond the extreme of the failed move (the trap's wick), first target at the origin of the compression and the measured move beyond it. The failed direction's extreme is your risk marker because a return there means the reversal thesis is dead.
Rev Strat and the failed 2
The Rev Strat is a named, three-bar expression of the same physics as the failed 2 — a break that could not hold. The difference is context: the Rev Strat's failure comes directly out of compression, which means both crowds committed early and one of them must fully unwind.
See it live, right now
Every concept on this page is detected in real time across 190+ tickers — candle typing, trigger levels, and alerts the second a level breaks.
FAQ
What does 1-2-2 mean?
An inside bar (1), a directional break one way (2), then a directional break the other way (2). The second 2 reverses the first — the Rev Strat.
Is the Rev Strat the same as a failed 2?
They are cousins. A failed 2 is any directional break that trades back through its level; the Rev Strat is the specific three-bar sequence where that failure erupts out of an inside bar.
Where does the stop go?
Beyond the wick of the failed breakout. That extreme is the trap's edge — if price returns there, the trapped crowd escaped without fueling your trade.
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Educational content, not financial advice. Patterns describe probabilities, not promises.