Price structure
Support, resistance, higher lows, repeated tests, and breakouts viewed through daily, weekly, and monthly charts.
Read my philosophy →Independent market intelligence
Clarity for consequential decisions.
Educational research on public markets, long-term price structure, macroeconomic shifts, and asymmetric opportunities.
Research focus
Signal over noise.
We organize complex market information into clear, decision-useful perspectives—grounded in evidence, scenario analysis, and disciplined skepticism.
Economic context
Inflation, policy, liquidity, rates, currencies, and geopolitics used to evaluate the environment around a setup.
See the case studies →Asymmetric setups
Opportunities where potential upside can meaningfully outweigh a clearly defined amount of risk.
See the case studies →Trading philosophy
Why I keep my charts simple.
After more than six years of trading, I have found that simplicity makes it easier to see the market clearly, remain patient, and avoid manufacturing trades that are not really there.
Price is the primary source. Indicators are calculations derived from it—not a substitute for understanding the structure itself.
Indicators can create the illusion of certainty
Newer traders often want a signal that tells them exactly when to buy or sell. That makes tools such as RSI, MACD, and moving-average crossovers appealing: if enough readings line up, the trade can feel objectively correct.
In my experience, that can become a trap. Adding more indicators gives a trader more information to search through—and, eventually, enough evidence to justify almost any trade. Instead of reading the market, the trader may begin searching for confirmation of a decision they already want to make.
A free signal is not an automatic edge
I do not expect a universally available indicator with default settings to produce a durable trading advantage by itself. If a formula automatically identified profitable entries and exits, that edge would likely be competed away or treated as valuable proprietary research. Any real edge must come from context, interpretation, execution, and risk management—not simply placing a common indicator on a chart.
“Overbought” does not mean a stock must fall
RSI is a good example of how a label can be misunderstood. A very high RSI tells us that recent upward momentum has been unusually strong. It does not tell us that the stock is required to reverse, nor does it provide a reliable expiration date for the trend.
I have watched powerful momentum stocks—including SanDisk—remain at extremely elevated RSI readings while price continued moving higher. A trader who shorted solely because RSI appeared “overbought” could have been early for weeks or months and suffered substantial losses.
My limited use of moving averages
I generally do not build trades around moving averages. I may occasionally check the 200-day or 200-week average because many market participants watch those long-term reference points, but they remain secondary context. I do not treat a touch, crossover, or break of a moving average as a complete thesis.
Why I do not follow options flow
I once paid for a real-time options-flow subscription—the type of service that often costs around $60 per month. Watching unusually large trades appear on the screen can feel like privileged information. It creates the impression that you can identify a “whale” and simply follow the trade.
The problem is that a flow alert shows a transaction, not the trader’s complete position or intent. A feed may estimate whether an order traded near the bid or ask, but it often cannot tell you with certainty whether the position was opened or closed, whether it was one leg of a spread, or what other exposure the institution already held.
What the alert might show$10 million of NVDA $105 calls · expiration in two weeks
Opening or closing?The order could establish a new position or close an existing short-call position.
Outright or multi-leg?It could be one side of a spread, roll, collar, or another complex strategy.
Speculation or hedge?The calls could offset short stock, another derivative, or broader portfolio risk.
What is the real exposure?Without the rest of the portfolio, the trade’s true directional meaning remains unknown.
That same call purchase could appear aggressively bullish while actually reducing a bearish position, completing a spread, or hedging another exposure. The reverse can also be true. A single print rarely provides enough information to reconstruct a sophisticated participant’s complete strategy.
This is especially dangerous for newer traders. The speed, size, and professional-looking data can create confidence without understanding. I frequently see flow alerts interpreted as simple bullish or bearish bets online, even though the surrounding context is missing.
Experienced specialists may be able to use flow as one input alongside open interest, volatility, price action, and other market data. My conclusion is narrower: it does not give me a dependable standalone edge, and it distracts me from the information I understand best.
My experience with flow
I made more money when I stopped watching options flow than when I allowed it to influence my decisions. Removing it helped me stay with my own process instead of reacting to trades whose purpose I could not know.
What I focus on instead
My charts are built around the places where buyers and sellers have repeatedly made important decisions. I focus primarily on:
- Major support and resistance levels
- Repeated tests, failed breakouts, and confirmed breakouts
- Higher lows or lower highs forming around a key level
- Daily, weekly, and monthly price structure—not intraday noise
- Fundamental catalysts and the broader macro environment
- Liquidity, options-market depth, and a clearly defined amount of risk
The goal is not to predict every move. It is to identify a small number of unusually clear setups, wait for confirmation, and avoid taking a trade simply because an indicator produced a signal.
The central lesson
The strongest traders I have studied tend to emphasize price, context, patience, and risk more than crowded screens. That observation helped shape my own process. Indicators are not inherently useless, and another trader may use them successfully as one part of a broader system. They simply do not provide the clarity or independent edge I want in my own trading.
For me, the cleaner the chart, the easier it is to see what actually matters.
Educational case study · September 2026
The Gold Breakout: Combining Long-Term Technicals With Macro Context
The long-term GLD chart is a clear example of how I look for major price structures, wait for confirmation, and then use the macro environment to judge whether a breakout has room to continue.
The original advance
Beginning around $42 in 2005, GLD entered a major long-term advance that carried it to approximately $185 by 2011—a gain of roughly 340%. After reaching that area, the market entered an extended pullback and consolidation lasting nearly nine years.
GLD finally returned to its previous high during the pandemic-driven market environment in 2020. Despite aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus, heightened uncertainty, and growing inflation concerns, it could not sustain a breakout. The price tested the old high and was rejected.
At the same time, a significant amount of speculative attention and capital was flowing toward Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In my view, gold had the supporting macro narrative, but it still lacked the technical confirmation required for a trade.
The long-term setup
Following the failed 2020 breakout, GLD spent approximately another four years consolidating below resistance. Between 2022 and early 2024, the monthly chart began producing higher lows while repeatedly testing the $186–$194 resistance area.
This created the appearance of a large cup-and-handle formation. More importantly, the repeated tests showed that sellers were continuing to defend the same area while buyers were becoming increasingly aggressive at progressively higher prices.
The setup reflected an important market principle: the longer the base, the greater the potential energy behind the eventual breakout.
The breakout and expansion
When GLD finally pushed through its prior all-time-high region near $193, the next major obstacle was the psychological $200 level. Once price cleared both areas, the long consolidation was resolved and the market entered a powerful expansion.
The move demonstrated why I pay close attention to bases that form over years rather than days. A lengthy consolidation does not guarantee success, but when price finally confirms the breakout, the resulting expansion can be significant.
Why the macro environment mattered
The chart structure provided the setup, but the macro environment strengthened the thesis. The post-pandemic period included persistent inflation concerns, changing interest-rate expectations, geopolitical uncertainty, currency weakness, and continued demand for gold as a defensive asset.
I did not need to predict every Federal Reserve decision or become a professional economist. I only needed a reasonable understanding of the broader environment and whether it was becoming supportive of gold while the monthly chart approached a decisive technical level.
Macro did not replace the chart. It helped explain why the breakout had the potential to continue once price confirmed it.
My trading framework
Keeping the analysis simple
This trade did not require a screen full of indicators. I did not rely on RSI, moving averages, volume signals, or intraday price movements. My analysis centered on:
- Long-term support and resistance
- Daily, weekly, and monthly price structure
- Repeated tests of the same level
- Higher lows beneath resistance
- Psychological round-number levels
- The broader macroeconomic environment
I do not use intraday timeframes. Short-term charts often contain more noise than useful information for the setups I trade. Higher timeframes make it easier to see where buyers and sellers have repeatedly made important decisions.
Use higher timeframes to identify the structure, wait for price to confirm the breakout, and use macro conditions to judge whether the larger environment supports the trade.
Educational takeaway
A compelling narrative alone is not enough. Gold had a bullish macro story in 2020, but the technical breakout failed. Waiting for price to confirm the thesis helped distinguish an interesting idea from an actionable setup.
The longer a market builds beneath an important level, the more significant the eventual expansion can become. That does not guarantee a successful breakout, but it can create the type of asymmetric opportunity I look for.
Risk reminder
Breakouts can fail, and no chart pattern guarantees a particular result. Risk should be defined before entering any trade—especially when options are involved. This case study is educational and is not a recommendation to buy or sell GLD or any other security.
Educational case study · NVIDIA
The NVIDIA Breakout: When Technicals, Fundamentals, and Macro Align
NVIDIA’s 2023–2024 move is one of my clearest examples of waiting for a powerful fundamental catalyst, allowing the stock to build a healthy base, and then acting only after price confirmed the breakout.
The fundamental catalyst
In May 2023, NVIDIA delivered an earnings report and forward guidance that surprised Wall Street and changed how investors viewed the company’s growth potential. Demand for its graphics processing units was accelerating as generative artificial intelligence moved from an emerging theme into a major investment cycle.
That report helped establish NVIDIA as one of the central companies behind the AI infrastructure buildout. The fundamental story was exceptional—but a strong story alone was not my signal to chase the stock.
After the initial move, NVDA spent roughly seven months consolidating. That pause allowed the market to absorb the gains, repeatedly test a major price level, and build the structure for a potentially larger move.
The technical structure
As the consolidation matured, the weekly chart began producing higher lows beneath the $50 resistance area. Sellers continued defending the same level, while buyers were becoming willing to step in at progressively higher prices.
This is the type of compression I look for. The fundamental catalyst remained intact, the broader AI theme was gaining momentum, and price was tightening beneath a clear psychological level. The setup did not require a collection of indicators—the support, resistance, and higher lows made the structure visible.
Seven months of patience
The full setup is easier to understand when the base and the expansion are viewed together. NVDA consolidated for approximately 31 weekly bars—about seven months—before resolving above resistance.
This is what I mean by “the longer the base, the bigger the break.” A long consolidation does not guarantee a large advance, but it can create the conditions for a powerful move when the technical breakout is supported by improving fundamentals and a strong macro theme.
The expansion
Once NVDA decisively cleared $50, the stock advanced approximately 96% in eight weekly bars—roughly nine weeks from breakout through the measured high shown on the chart. The move was fast because several factors had aligned: a proven earnings catalyst, accelerating AI demand, an active macro theme, a long technical base, and a highly liquid stock with a deep options market.
The $50 level shown here is split-adjusted. It represents approximately $500 at the time, before NVIDIA’s later 10-for-1 stock split. The split changed the quoted share price, but it did not change the underlying percentage move.
Why this setup matters to me
This was the beginning of the AI trade and the period in which I made most of my trading profits over only a few months. The lesson was not that I needed to trade every day or catch every market move. It was that patience—waiting for an unusually strong setup in a liquid stock with active options—could matter far more than constant activity.
The alignment I look for
Three parts of one setup
- Fundamentals: earnings and guidance confirmed accelerating demand.
- Technicals: a long base, higher lows, and a clear resistance level created a defined setup.
- Macro: the AI investment cycle gave the move a powerful market-wide theme.
- Execution: patience came first; the confirmed breakout came before the trade.
Trading is not about catching everything or making a trade every day. It is about waiting patiently for the best setups—and being prepared when they arrive.
Educational takeaway
The best opportunities can appear when technical structure, company fundamentals, and the broader market environment all point in the same direction. NVIDIA had the narrative, but the seven-month base and confirmed breakout supplied the timing.
For my approach, fewer high-quality decisions are more valuable than constant trading. A setup this clear is rare. That is precisely why patience is part of the strategy.
Risk reminder
This is a retrospective educational example, not a recommendation or a representation that similar results are likely. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Breakouts can fail, options can expire worthless, and concentrated positions can produce substantial losses.
About the founder
Kevin Burrows
Independent trader and market researcher focused on options, asymmetric setups, and decision-making under uncertainty.
I’m Kevin Burrows, an independent trader and market researcher with more than six years of experience managing my own portfolio across equities and options. Since beginning in 2019, I’ve developed my approach through hands-on experience, company-level research, macroeconomic analysis, and navigating both strong markets and difficult drawdowns.
My trading primarily focuses on options and asymmetric setups—opportunities where the potential upside meaningfully outweighs a clearly defined amount of risk. I study market momentum, volatility, catalysts, liquidity, and broader economic conditions to understand not only why a trade could work, but also what could prove the thesis wrong.
I have also passed the FINRA Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) Exam, demonstrating foundational knowledge of investment products, market structure, risk, regulation, and prohibited practices.
Through Burrows Capital Research, I share the concepts, research methods, and lessons that have shaped my development as an independent trader.
2019Independent trading began
OptionsPrimary trading vehicle
SIEFINRA exam passed
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