Trading confluences explained as a repeatable checklist you can apply to any chart

Video: Learn Every Trading Confluence In 18 Minutes

Want articles like this for your own video to promote it on YouTube and Google? Order them through the Telegram bot @sat_sit_bot. It writes articles around your video, embeds the video and publishes them on popular niche websites (no ads). Free trial — 50 articles.

Oct 18, 2026 · based on the channel TJR

Trading confluences are independent pieces of evidence — a liquidity pool, a fair value gap, an equal-high level, a break of structure — that line up on the same side of a trade and justify taking it. Instead of hunting for one perfect signal, you build a short checklist and only act when several unrelated conditions agree. TJR's 18-minute walkthrough of every major confluence is a useful map of that checklist, and the same framework is what the paid blueprint at the TJR trading blueprint is built around.

What a confluence actually is in trading

A confluence is a point on the chart where two or more unrelated reasons to enter a trade overlap, and the value comes from the reasons being unrelated. A moving average crossing a slower moving average is one idea expressed twice; a liquidity sweep, a fair value gap and a higher-timeframe level are three separate ideas that happen to agree. That distinction matters because correlated signals feel like confirmation while adding almost no new information.

The practical test is simple: could you explain each confluence to another trader without mentioning the other ones? If yes, you have real confluence. If every signal in your list is derived from the same price data in the same way, you have one signal wearing several hats.

The five confluences TJR breaks down

The video compresses a full retail price-action vocabulary into a short list, and each item answers a different question about where price is likely to go next.

1. Liquidity. Above equal highs and below equal lows sit clusters of stop orders and pending orders. Price is often drawn to those pools before continuing, which is why a sweep of a recent high or low is treated as a setup rather than a breakout.
2. Fair value gap (FVG). An aggressive move that leaves a gap between the wick of one candle and the wick of a candle two positions later marks an inefficiency. Traders expect price to revisit part of that gap before continuing.
3. Inverse fair value gap. When a fair value gap fails to hold and price trades through it, the same zone can flip role — support becomes resistance or the reverse — and the inverse FVG becomes the entry area on the other side.
4. Equal highs and equal lows. Repeated tests of the same level build a visible liquidity shelf. They are not support and resistance in the textbook sense; they are a map of where other traders' orders sit.
5. Break of structure (BOS). A decisive close beyond a prior swing point signals a shift in the sequence of highs and lows, and traders use that break to define direction before looking for an entry.

None of these is a strategy on its own. Each is a piece of context that tells you where the crowd's orders are and where price has already shown its hand.

Why stacking more confluences can make you worse

Adding confluences improves a setup only up to a point, and past that point it degrades both the number of trades you take and the quality of the ones you keep. The most-liked comment under the video makes the point directly: the skill is knowing which confluences actually add value to your strategy, not collecting all of them.

The reason is mechanical. Every extra condition cuts the number of qualifying setups, and the conditions you add last are usually the weakest ones. You end up waiting for a rare alignment, then taking a mediocre entry because you have been waiting so long. A three-condition checklist you can apply consistently beats a seven-condition checklist you abandon after two losing weeks.

A workable filter looks like this:

• Pick one higher-timeframe bias tool — structure or a single moving average, not both.
• Pick one liquidity concept — a sweep of equal highs/lows, for example.
• Pick one entry zone — FVG or inverse FVG, whichever your market respects more often.
• Require all three, and require a defined invalidation level before you size the position.

Reading the chart in sequence, not in pieces

The confluences in the video are meant to be read in order, because each one changes what the next one means. A break of structure tells you which direction to look; liquidity tells you where price is likely to reach; the FVG or inverse FVG tells you where to enter inside that move.

Run the sequence on a single instrument for a week and the pattern becomes obvious. Price sweeps an equal low, breaks structure to the upside, leaves a gap on the way, then returns to that gap before continuing. The trade is not the gap alone — it is the gap sitting after a sweep and a break, which is exactly the overlap the video is describing.

Keep a journal of these sequences rather than of individual indicators. After twenty or thirty logged examples you will know which combination your instrument actually respects, and that knowledge is worth more than any additional indicator.

Common questions traders raise about confluence setups

The doubts that come up most often are about discipline and about whether any of this survives contact with a manipulated market. One widely liked comment argues that the market is heavily manipulated and will do the opposite of what most investors expect, which is precisely why order-flow concepts such as liquidity sweeps matter: they describe where the crowd's orders are, not what the crowd hopes will happen.

The second recurring theme is time. Another popular comment makes the honest point that you will lose money at the start regardless of how much material you consume, and that the traders who last are the ones who keep showing up rather than the ones who expect a single video to change their results. Treat the confluence list as a vocabulary to practise, not a switch to flip.

The third is over-trading. When every chart seems to offer a setup, the checklist is too loose. Tighten it and accept fewer trades.

A realistic way to practise the checklist

Practise confluences on replay or on a demo account before risking real money, and grade each session on process rather than profit. Mark the liquidity levels at the start of the day, note where structure broke, and only then look for a gap to enter from.

A short routine that works:

1. Mark the prior day's high and low and any equal highs or lows on your timeframe.
2. Wait for a sweep of one of those levels.
3. Confirm direction with a break of structure.
4. Enter on the FVG or inverse FVG, with the stop beyond the sweep.
5. Log the outcome and whether the confluence held, not just the profit and loss.

Trading is risky and most day traders lose money, so position size should be set by your invalidation level, not by how confident the checklist makes you feel.

Useful links

• TJR trading blueprint — the full system for becoming a consistently profitable trader.
• Indicators TJR uses daily
• Funded account raffle entry
• Alpha Futures funded accounts, 10% off
• Lucid Trading, 40% off

Final thoughts on building a confluence-based process

Confluences are a language for describing why price might move, not a guarantee that it will. The five concepts TJR covers — liquidity, fair value gaps, inverse FVGs, equal highs and lows, and break of structure — give you a compact vocabulary that covers most retail price-action setups. Use two or three of them consistently, define your invalidation before entry, and judge yourself on execution rather than on any single result. The channel TJR is worth following for the full breakdown, and the blueprint is where the framework is developed in more depth.

Source: Learn Every Trading Confluence In 18 Minutes · Markdown version