Jesse RogersFounder and CEO of Smart Trading Blueprint

After Trading 9 Years I Only Trade One Candle Now

26 Dec 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:25

Jesse Rogers presents a simplified trading method called the "first candle rule": after the 9:30am market open, wait for the first five-minute candle to close, mark its high and low, then use the 1-minute chart to trade a confirmed break of those levels. Confirmation requires a displacement pattern called a fair value gap (a three-candle pattern where the first and third candles leave a gap), followed by a candle digging/retesting the gap and an engulfing candle; enter when the engulfing candle closes and use a fixed 3:1 risk-to-reward target. The video emphasizes simplicity, mechanical repeatability, and higher profitability versus more complex strategies.

Questions this video answers

After the 9:30am market Open, wait for the first five-minute candle to close.

The 1-minute chart.

A fair value gap is a three-candle pattern created when the market moves with force and leaves a gap between the first and third candles.

A fixed 3:1 risk-to-reward.

Chapters

After nine years of trading, I finally stripped my entire strategy down to one thing. Trading just one candle every single day. That's it. And the craziest part is that I'm more profitable now than whenever I use complicated strategies. Here's how. This is called the first candle rule. And all you need to execute it is the first five minute candle of the day. Each day after the 9:30am Open, you're going to wait for the first five minute candle to close. And after that candle closes, you mark out the high and the low and then you drop down to the 1 minute chart and wait for the market to break one of these levels. But we need a very specific type of behavior to confirm a break. And no, it is not just a candle closure and most certainly not just a wick. And what we're looking for is a displacement and the pattern we use to confirm this is a fair value gap. Now, fair value gaps are really simple. They're just three candle patterns that are created when the market moves with a lot of force and leaves a gap between the first and the third candles. Wick. Now, once the fair value gap forms, we still need to wait for our confirmation, which is a candle digging and retesting the fair value gap, followed by an engulfing candle. Once this engulfing candle closes, we enter the trade and target a fixed 3 to 1 risk to reward. This means that on your winning trades, you're going to make three times as much as you lose on the losing trades. Simple, mechanical and repeatable. Now, save this and study it again and again.