When I began trading, the markets felt like an endless puzzle with missing pieces. Candles rose and fell with no clear reason. My charts were filled with moving averages, oscillators, and fancy indicators, yet none of them gave me the clarity I desperately wanted. Some days I felt like I had cracked the code, but the very next day, the same method would fail miserably.
I first stumbled upon pivot points through a random YouTube video. Honestly, I had no idea how to use them properly — I just plotted them on my chart and hoped they would work. But something about the concept caught my attention. Until then, I was relying mostly on moving averages, which constantly shift in real time and never gave me a solid reference point.
At that time, I was working a full-time job, and I couldn’t sit in front of the screen all day. What I needed was a set of key levels that would remain fixed for the session — levels I could rely on to judge price behaviour even when I wasn’t glued to the chart. That’s when my digging led me to Frank Ochoa, better known as PivotBoss, and his classic book Secrets of a Pivot Boss.
Suggested Read: Day Trading While Working a 9-to-5: My Honest Journey
Reading that book completely changed my style forever. The way Frank explained pivots — not just as static levels, but as a framework for reading market structure, trend, and sentiment — resonated deeply with me. I devoured every page, and over time, pivots became the core indicator of my trading approach.
The First “Aha” Moment
I added pivot points to my chart. I noticed something strange. Price seemed to “respect” these levels. It would bounce from one line, stall at another, or reverse right where a pivot was drawn. These weren’t random movements — the market was reacting to something concrete.
For the first time, I wasn’t staring at chaos. I was staring at a map. That’s what pivot points are — a roadmap for the day, the week, or even the month, depending on how you use them. They are calculated using nothing more than the previous session’s high, low, and close. From these three numbers, a central pivot point is derived, and from that, support and resistance levels are built. Simple math, yet powerful in practice.
Discovering CPR — The Price Magnet
As I dug deeper, I found the Central Pivot Range, or CPR. Imagine three tight bands at the center of your chart. I began to notice that no matter how far the price drifted away, it often found its way back to this central zone. It was like a magnet pulling the price in.
That’s when I started calling CPR my price magnet. Whenever price strayed too far without conviction, I’d quietly whisper to myself, “It’ll come back.” And more often than not, it did.
Suggested Read: What Makes Trading So Hard? My 4-Year Journey Through Pain, Phases, and Discipline
My Trading Playbook
Over time, I began to notice patterns. In range-bound markets, the most reliable trades came from what I call trap setups. Price would break above the previous high, luring traders into long positions. But when it failed to follow through and slipped back down, I would short, expecting it to return to CPR. The same logic worked on the downside — failed breaks below the previous low often turned into strong bounces.
But in trending markets, this approach was suicide. I learned that if the market is clearly marching in one direction, the smarter play is to wait for a pullback into CPR. In an uptrend, whenever the price dipped into CPR and found buyers, it was my signal to join the continuation. The same worked in reverse for downtrends. That became my simple but powerful playbook: trap setups in ranges, CPR pullbacks in trends.
Taste of the Market
Let me share a real example. I was studying NASDAQ 100 futures, not on the intraday scale but over months. This time, I plotted quarterly pivots. The yellow lines on my chart represented quarterly CPR, while the white line marked the previous quarter’s low.
For months, the market was in what we call a mark-up phase. Every pullback into quarterly CPR was a buying opportunity, and each time the price respected that magnet, it rallied higher. It was a textbook uptrend.
![\"Pivot](\"https://msptraders.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Chart-1024x494.png\")
Then came the compression phase. The market moved sideways for weeks, building energy. My custom tool, the Advanced AR indicator, highlighted it as well — the purple dotted zone on my screen screamed “accumulation.”
The real test came when the price dipped below the previous quarter’s low. At that moment, the bears thought they had won. Sellers piled in, expecting a breakdown. But something strange happened. Price refused to stay below that line. Instead, it clawed back above and closed strong. That was my cue.
If the bears were truly in control, the price would have collapsed and never looked back. The fact that it couldn’t stay below the previous low told me this was a false breakdown. I entered long. What followed was a powerful uptrend continuation.
That single trade reinforced a lesson I carry to this day: pivots don’t just show you levels; they reveal the story of who is winning — bulls or bears.
Why Do Pivot Points Work?
Some beginners ask me, “Isn’t this just arbitrary math?” On the surface, yes. But markets are driven by psychology and collective behaviour. Because pivot points are so widely used, they become self-fulfilling. Traders watch them, institutions place orders around them, and algorithms are programmed to respond. Think of them as crowded bus stops. Everyone knows the bus will arrive there, so they gather. The crowd itself creates significance.
Suggested Read: My Trading Journey: From Gut Feelings to a Mechanical System with TradingView
The Mistakes I Made
Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Early on, I made plenty of mistakes. I thought every pivot touch was a trade. I ignored whether the market was trending or ranging. I cluttered my charts with so many indicators that pivots lost their meaning. The turning point was when I stripped everything down. Pivots, VWAP, EMA, and volume — that’s all I kept. Less noise, more clarity.
Lessons for Beginners
If you’re just starting, my advice is simple: don’t rush. Spend time just watching how price behaves around pivots. Notice how a narrow CPR often leads to explosive moves, while a wide CPR suggests a range day. Watch how price struggles or bounces near the previous high or low. Use replay mode. Journal your observations. The more you see these setups in action, the more natural they’ll feel when real money is on the line.
From Confusion to Clarity
Looking back, pivot points were the missing piece in my puzzle. They didn’t turn me into a profitable trader overnight, but they gave me structure. They allowed me to read the market’s language instead of guessing. For me, trading is no longer about predicting. It’s about listening. Pivots are the whispers of the market, telling me where the battles are fought and who is winning.
And that’s what I’d like to leave you with: trading isn’t about finding the perfect indicator or the secret formula. It’s about building an edge and then respecting it with discipline. Pivot points gave me that edge. Discipline turned it into consistency.