Larry Williams' Oops Pattern Strategy

Trade the Larry Williams' Oops Pattern strategy on S&P 500 & Nasdaq futures. Capitalize on gap opens using daily & 15-minute charts.

Published · Updated · Methodology: Technical Indicators

Part of: Moving Average Strategies

  • Methodology: Technical Indicators
  • Content type: strategy
  • Timeframes: Daily (for gap and previous day's low/high), 15 minute (for intraday bars of the daily session)
  • Markets: S&P 500 Index (ES Futures), Dow Jones (YM Futures), NASDAQ (NQ Futures), SPY (ETF)

Indicators used

  • ATR
  • Moving Average
  • ADX

Source video

Decoded from: 📚🔍 Unraveling Larry Williams' Timeless 'Oops Pattern'! Building Winning Strategies Today! 🚀💡 by Ali Casey | StatOasis — watch the original

Key timestamps:

  • 0:30 - Explanation of the 'Oops Pattern'
  • 0:55 - Long entry conditions
  • 1:25 - Short entry conditions
  • 2:00 - Backtesting setup and initial results
  • 3:10 - Optimization of holding bars
  • 4:50 - Introduction of strategy filters

Strategy overview

A moving average smooths noisy price into a single trend line, but on this page it is a supporting actor rather than the lead. The strategy decoded here is built around Larry Williams' "Oops Pattern" — a gap-based opening setup in which price opens beyond the previous day's high or low and then reverses back through that level, catching out the traders who chased the gap. The moving average is not the trigger; it is one of three filters, sitting alongside ATR and ADX.

The source video, "Unraveling Larry Williams' Timeless 'Oops Pattern'" from Ali Casey's StatOasis channel, treats the setup as a decades-old idea worth rebuilding and testing rather than accepting on reputation. Its design is deliberately two-timeframe: the Daily chart supplies the gap and the previous session's high and low, while 15-minute bars handle execution inside that day's session. The walkthrough moves in stages — defining the long and short conditions, running a first backtest, tuning how many bars a position is held, and only then introducing filters on top of the base pattern.

That sequence is the interesting part. The moving average, ATR, and ADX arrive last, as regime and volatility screens meant to sharpen a setup that already stands on its own price action — which is why a strategy filed under moving averages is, at its core, a Larry Williams gap play. This entry describes the Oops concept and how the video frames it, not the specific entry, exit, or filter settings used in the source.

Topics

larry williams strategy · oops pattern · trading strategy · pine script · tradingview strategy · es futures strategy · nq futures strategy · spy trading strategy · gap trading strategy · intraday trading · technical indicators · atr strategy · moving average strategy · adx strategy

Frequently asked questions

What is Larry Williams' Oops pattern?

It is a gap-based reversal setup: price opens beyond the previous day's high or low and then trades back through that level, and the reversal — the "oops" of the traders who were trapped chasing the gap — is treated as the signal. It uses the prior session's range as its reference points.

Does this strategy rely on the moving average?

Not as its trigger. The core is the Oops gap pattern; the moving average is one of three optional filters — with ATR and ADX — layered on later to screen for trend and volatility conditions rather than to generate the entries themselves.

What timeframes does this Oops strategy use?

Two. The Daily chart defines the gap and the previous day's high and low, while 15-minute bars are used for the intraday execution within that day's session.

How can I test an Oops-pattern strategy before trading it?

Backtest it on historical intraday data before risking capital, since gap-and-reverse setups depend heavily on how the open and the prior day's range are measured. Strategy Decoder extracts the structure of strategies like this one from video sources so you can evaluate and test them on TradingView.

About this strategy page

This trading strategy was decoded by Strategy Decoder's AI from a public YouTube trading video and turned into a structured, reviewable specification. In the interactive app this page shows the full entry and exit logic, risk management settings, the indicators involved with their parameters, AlgoWizard-compatible logic and a Pine Script export ready for TradingView backtesting — plus an automated backtest verdict when one has been computed for this strategy.

Strategy Decoder catalogs 2,229 decoded strategies. Each one is extracted with confidence scoring, cross-linked to the indicators it uses, and kept up to date as new videos are processed daily. Load this page with JavaScript enabled to use the interactive tools, or start from the strategy explorer to filter by methodology, market and timeframe.

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