Milkman Trades — Trigger Box Study
25 years of SPY (2000–2025)
01 — What Is the Trigger Box
The zone between PDC and the trigger level
Bearish box: open below PDC but above the put trigger (−23.6%). Happens 22.6% of all days (1,462 days).
Bullish box: open above PDC but below the call trigger (+23.6%). Happens 26.3% of all days (1,698 days).
22.6%
Bear box days
1,462 days
26.3%
Bull box days
1,698 days
~49%
Combined
nearly half of all trading days
02 — Full-Day Outcomes
Bearish box — % of days where GG opened by close
Filter: only count days where price held below PDC for at least X time
| Day filter | Days | GG opened
by close | GG completed
by close |
|---|
| All bear box days (no filter) | 1,462 | 59.0% | 32.4% |
| Days that held box ≥30 min | 866 | 71.6% | 40.6% |
| Days that held box ≥1 hour | 667 | 80.2% | 47.8% |
Note: 70% of GGs on “held 1hr” days triggered during that first hour itself. The hold time filters for higher-quality days, not what happens after.
02 — Full-Day Outcomes
Bullish box — % of days where GG opened by close
Filter: only count days where price held above PDC for at least X time
| Day filter | Days | GG opened
by close | GG completed
by close |
|---|
| All bull box days (no filter) | 1,698 | 57.3% | 29.4% |
| Days that held box ≥30 min | 988 | 72.6% | 39.2% |
| Days that held box ≥1 hour | 763 | 82.2% | 45.3% |
Note: 67% of GGs on “held 1hr” days triggered during that first hour itself.
03 — Reversals
When PDC is reclaimed in the first hour
- Bear → Bull reversal: 73.2% reach call trigger, 49.4% reach bull GG (n=795)
- Bull → Bear reversal: 72.7% reach put trigger, 49.6% reach bear GG (n=935)
03 — Patience
If GG hasn’t triggered after 1h hold
- Bear box: 54.9% still triggers later (n=293)
- Bull box: 60.3% still triggers later (n=343)
★ Bottom Line
How to trade the trigger box
- Days that hold the trigger box for 1 hour see a GG open 80%+ of the time. Note: most of those GGs trigger during the first hour itself (70%). The hold time is a quality filter on the full day’s outcome, not a “what happens next” prediction.
- Longer hold = higher quality filter. 30 min filter = ~72% GG rate, 1 hour = ~80%. Each 30 minutes of holding is associated with ~10 more percentage points.
- When PDC is reclaimed in the first hour, the reversal tends to have legs — 73% reach the opposite trigger historically.
- If GG hasn’t triggered after 1 hour of holding, there’s still a 55–60% historical chance it triggers later. Below 50% by ~2.5 hours. Effectively over by 5 hours (2:30 PM).
milkmantrades.com · ATR Levels & Phase Oscillator by Saty Mahajan
@tesrak · @todor · Draft — not independently verified