I make a call.
Ten days later the market scores me

The three gates

A card clears all three or it doesn't get called

• Isolation

  Can I send you to eBay and have you find the exact card in one search? If the results mix in parallels I can't separate, I pass

• Slope

  The last few real sales set the price I'm working from. If recent sales are coming in under the older ones, the card is already falling and I pass

• Catalyst

  A specific dated event in the next ten days that the price hasn't absorbed yet. Volume by itself is never enough

The score

I record the price the card trades at today, then call a target range above it. Ten days later I take the median of real sales and see where it landed

• Alanded inside the target range
• Bmoved up but missed the range, short or past it
• Cflat, within 5% of where it started
• Dfell 5 to 20%
• Ffell more than 20%

An A is the only win. No partial credit for getting the direction right