Premarket high and low as my only two lines until 09:45 ET

[Fairman]

My charts used to have eight or nine lines before the open. Now, for the first fifteen minutes, they have two: the premarket high and the premarket low. Everything else waits until 09:45 ET. The reason is simple. I couldn't act on nine lines at once, and the open punished me for pretending I could.

## Rails
- At 09:25 ET I mark the premarket high and low for each A-list name. I only take premarket prints that came with real volume, so a single odd print at 07:02 doesn't count.
- Between 09:30 and 09:45 ET I only trade one of two things: a break-and-hold of one of those lines, or a clean rejection from one of them.
- A break-and-hold means two consecutive 1-minute closes beyond the line.
- After 09:45 ET I add the opening range high and low, VWAP, and prior-day levels.

## Worked example (illustrative)
A $36 name gapped up on earnings. The premarket high is 36.80 and the low is 35.90. At 09:31 ET it opens at 36.40 and chops. At 09:36 ET it closes a 1-minute bar at 36.84, and the 09:37 bar closes at 36.88. That's two closes above.

I buy 300 shares at 36.89 at 09:38 ET with a stop at 36.74, 15 cents under the entry and below the line. At 09:41 ET it prints 37.12. I sell 150 at 37.10 for 21 cents a share and move the stop to 36.89. The remainder stops out at break-even at 09:44 ET when it pulls back.

The other version of the same morning: the 09:37 bar closes back at 36.76. No trade. Two lines made that decision easy to see.

## Failure modes
- Marking the premarket high off one thin print that nobody else will respect.
- Adding "just one more" line and ending up with the clutter I set out to remove.
- Trading the first break without waiting for the second close.

## When to skip
- The premarket range is so tight (under about 20 cents on a $30+ name) that the lines sit inside the opening noise.
- The range is so wide that my stop behind the line would exceed my max cents.
- SPY is gapping hard the other way and my name has no clear reason to ignore it.

Diagram: a chart sketch with only two horizontal lines labelled PM high and PM low, a "2 closes above" box, and a 09:45 ET marker where the other levels get added.