Paired range-bar averages and next-bar limit exits

Separate clocks for longs and shorts

The construction assigned one exponential average to longs and a different exponential average to shorts rather than sharing a single lookback. Both averages were taken from a lookback band of 8 to 15 bars.

The smoother was a triple exponential average of the high-low midpoint, computed as (high + low) / 2. That moving-average was a baseline a bar had to stay away from, touch, or cross.

Average length was treated as a minor calibration. The main construction choice was rising-versus-falling-bar-size: separate range-bar lengths for upward and downward markets so the bars themselves absorbed noise.

Entry, cash flatten, and opposite-side abort

A long trigger required the bar low above the long-side average. A short trigger required the bar high below the short-side average.

An open position used a bar-touch-flatten: it was sent to cash if the bar contacted the active average. It was also closed if the opposite side's entry rule fired.

Because the two sides used different bar sizes, an opposite-side-abort could fire while a trade was still open. Editorial reading: state the long trigger, the short trigger, the cash flatten, and the opposite-side abort as one rule-based-entry procedure so the holding period can be tested as a unit.

A limit on the forming bar

A range-bar has a fixed high-low span, which ties the next bar's extremes together and makes a next-bar limit solvable before the bar completes.

A fixed range-bar span lets the next bar's limit be solved so an extreme on that bar would place the next average at the exit threshold. The limit-order is then a precomputed executable price for the forming bar, derived from the planned average-touch.

That construction allowed a limit inside the forming bar instead of waiting about half a bar after the signal bar completes. Editorial reading: convert a bar-touch-flatten into a next-bar limit so execution is part of the rule rather than a wait for the bar to close.

Two repairs for a noisy touch

Two repairs were specified for a touch-based flatten. Lengthen the average when contact is only noise. Or require the next bar's extreme to drive the next bar's average through the threshold when the touch cuts too far.