Trading and Crypto

How to trade with trendlines using a boring repeatable strategy that works on any market

This boring trading strategy made me $526,454

Video: This boring trading strategy made me $526,454

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· based on the channel Tori Trades

Key takeaways

  • The system uses only price action: trendlines drawn on higher timeframes, no indicators.
  • Top-down analysis starts on the higher timeframe and the lines are then adjusted for lower timeframes.
  • The Action Line marks the entry trigger; the Safety Line marks the exit and stop placement.
  • Position sizing is set before entry and the stop is trailed as the trend develops.
  • The trader behind Tori Trades says the same trendline process has been used for over 11 years.

Trading with trendlines means marking the dominant direction on a higher timeframe, drawing a line along the swing lows or highs, and then waiting for price to return to that line before acting. The entry comes from an Action Line and the exit from a Safety Line, so the whole decision is made before the trade is opened rather than in the heat of the moment. The system Tori Trades walks through is deliberately unexciting: no indicators, no pattern hunting, just a repeatable process — the same one the channel says has been in use for over 11 years — and you can join the waitlist for the trader's program here.

What a trendline actually represents

A trendline is a straight line drawn through two or more swing points that shows where buyers have repeatedly stepped in (in an uptrend) or sellers have repeatedly taken control (in a downtrend). It is not a prediction tool; it is a map of where the market has already reacted.

Two consequences follow from that definition:

  1. A line needs at least two touches to exist at all, and a third touch is what makes it worth trading.
  2. A line that has never been tested is a guess about the future, not a description of the past.

The practical value is that the line converts a messy chart into a small number of price levels where you are allowed to act. Everything else on the screen becomes noise you can ignore.

Top-down analysis before you draw anything

Top-down analysis means reading the chart from the highest timeframe down to the one you execute on, so that the smaller picture is always interpreted inside the bigger one. The sequence is mechanical:

  1. Open the higher timeframe and identify the prevailing direction: higher highs and higher lows, lower highs and lower lows, or a range.
  2. Mark the major swing points that define that direction.
  3. Drop to the lower timeframe only after the higher-timeframe structure is clear.
  4. Redraw or adjust the lines on the lower timeframe so they match the swings you will actually trade against.

Skipping step one is the most common error: a beautiful line on a five-minute chart means very little if it points against the weekly trend. When the higher timeframe and the lower timeframe disagree, the higher timeframe wins and you simply wait.

Rules for drawing trendlines correctly

The quality of the whole system depends on the line being drawn the same way every time. The rules that make that possible:

  • Connect swing lows in an uptrend and swing highs in a downtrend, not random candle bodies.
  • Do not force the line through wicks just to make it touch more points; a line that needs bending is not a line.
  • Prefer lines with clear, separated touches over lines with many clustered touches in a small range.
  • Keep the line outside the price action — it should act as a boundary, not cut through the middle of the candles.
  • Revisit the line as new swings form; a trendline is a living object that gets adjusted, not carved in stone.

A useful sanity check: if two traders following the same rules would draw visibly different lines, the swings you picked are too ambiguous and the setup should be skipped.

The Action Line and the Safety Line

The Action Line is the trendline you trade from — the level where you want price to arrive before you commit. The Safety Line is the invalidation level: the point at which the idea is wrong and you are out, either by stop-loss or by a deliberate exit.

In practice:

  1. Price approaches the Action Line.
  2. You wait for a reaction at the line rather than entering in the middle of the move.
  3. The stop goes beyond the Safety Line, not at a round number and not at an arbitrary distance.
  4. The distance between the two lines defines your risk per unit, which then defines your position size.

This is the reason the approach survives: entry and exit are decided by geometry, not by mood. Sitting in the middle of the range doing nothing is part of the job — you act at the lines and only at the lines.

Position sizing, stops and trailing

Position sizing is calculated from the stop, never from how confident you feel. The formula is straightforward: risk per trade (a fixed percentage of account equity) divided by the distance between entry and the Safety Line gives the number of contracts or lots.

Once the trade is running, the stop is trailed — moved progressively in the direction of the trade as new swing points form, typically behind each new higher low in a long or lower high in a short. Two rules keep trailing honest:

  • Never move a stop backwards, even if the market looks like it is about to reverse.
  • Trail to structure (swing points), not to an arbitrary number of ticks, so the stop sits where the idea would genuinely be invalidated.

A tight trail produces many small wins and occasional early exits; a loose trail gives back more open profit but stays in longer trends. Either is workable as long as it is chosen in advance and applied consistently.

Typical questions and doubts from traders

Beginners consistently raise the same three concerns about this style of trading. The first is speed: trendline trading is slow, and most sessions produce no valid setup at all, which feels wrong after watching fast-paced day-trading content. The second is subjectivity — two people can draw different lines on the same chart, which is why strict swing-point rules matter more than the line itself. The third is the gap between understanding a strategy and executing it: knowing where the Action Line is does not automatically produce discipline when price is moving quickly.

The most common structural fix is to define the swing points objectively — for example, requiring a low to have a set number of higher lows on each side before it counts — so that the line can be drawn identically by anyone and the rules can actually be backtested. Traders who have spent months on heavier concepts such as order blocks and liquidity sweeps often report that a naked chart with two lines is easier to execute, precisely because there is less to interpret in the moment.

Final takeaway

A boring trendline system wins because it removes decisions: the higher timeframe sets the direction, the Action Line sets the entry, the Safety Line sets the risk, and position sizing is arithmetic rather than opinion. The edge is not in the line itself but in applying the same rules to every chart, in every market, for years — which is exactly the claim behind the 11-year track record presented by Tori Trades in the video breakdown. If you want the full framework and the trader's own materials, the program waitlist is the place to start.

Questions & answers

Do I need indicators to trade with trendlines?

No. The system is built on price action alone: swing points, two lines and a stop. Indicators are derived from past prices, so they add a layer of interpretation without adding information the chart does not already contain. A naked chart with a clean trendline is easier to execute consistently than a screen full of oscillators.

How do I decide where to put my stop-loss?

The stop goes beyond the Safety Line — the level where the trend structure would be broken and the trade idea invalid. You then size the position so that the distance from entry to that stop equals a fixed percentage of your account. The stop distance determines the size, never the other way around.

How often does this strategy produce a valid setup?

Less often than most people expect. You only act when price reaches the Action Line and shows a reaction, so many sessions pass with no trade at all. That patience is the point: sitting in the middle of a move is not a missed opportunity, it is a rule.

Can two traders draw different trendlines on the same chart?

Yes, and that is the main weakness of discretionary line drawing. The fix is to define swing points objectively — for example, requiring a low to be flanked by several higher lows before it counts — so the line becomes reproducible and the rules can be tested on historical data.

Source: This boring trading strategy made me $526,454 · Markdown version

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