Regarding Al Brooks' strategy of fading near where you think traders are placing their stops, recent <5min price action on the ES futures has shown that HFT/algorithms are quite skilled at fading those who try to fade the stops of traders as well, prior to a mean reversion in price. This means you need an extremely large amount of capital and risk tolerance and experience or one should just trade at a higher timeframe.
So if I place a limit order below a bear bar during the first pullback in a trend and get filled using the low of the prior pullback sometime earlier in the trend for my stop, thus adjusting my size accordingly based on that initial risk, using 1/3 of my position for the first limit, and THEN, a deeper pull back occurs and I place a second buy limit below another bear bar and get filled on the next bar, the institutions will intentionally try to take the market to the prior low of an earlier pullback where my stop still sits? It won't be because of my stop, if they do that. Large amount of capital is not necessary for using limits this way. Large amounts of discipline and proper risk and position size, is, however.
Entering a possible breakout earlier by using a smaller time frame signal and breakout pretty much achieves the same thing, but then you are more likely to use the most recent low (of the signal or BO bar), and yes, you will have a much more likely chance of being stopped out. Brooks is clear that fading entries in trends is riskier because the market may go much further than anyone knows in a pullback, which is why you want to use smaller size until and if you do get an anticipated BO.
He doesn't advocate trying to enter trades this way with inexperienced traders, but simply indicates it is a technique used, as he indicates about other techniques such as scaling, countertrend scaling (where Brooks agrees more with you regarding capital), and so on. I don't know if he goes through so much detail in the videos since I only quickly viewed them before delving into the books. I'm taking my time with them now, so later I can elaborate on that...probably toward the end of the year.
It still seems to me that he covered most of the items you have brought up, including trading the 15 being completely fine. I bought this two leg set up on the 15 Wed. I faded my first entry, tried to fade the second leg down, but had my order too far away, and moved the limit to above the bar prior to the signal (after the 2nd pullback leg down, and after the signal closed), where it filled. The downside, I only had 2/3 of my size on the play, but better than nothing. If that adjusted 2nd limit hadn't filled I might have bought at the market, but look how much closer I would have been to the 1rst target, a prior high + 200ma, if I had bought above the signal close. Even though this is the 15, this type of setup was all over the one minute chart I posted last night.
By the way, the second outside up bar 2 bars after the 1rst OB after the bottom of the selloff was the one I got burned on that I mentioned in an earlier post (2nd OB above and to the right of the text "initial stop"). I shorted at market (market order) below the prior bear doji bar
before the OB had closed. Very bad decision, even though it was coming off the 20. Big outside up bar two bars prior at the end of a shrinking stare + weak signal bar. That made me the mark. There was 1 minute left in the down OB when I shorted. It then rapidly reversed to the up OB you see.
But what if I had placed a limit buy where I shorted (which is what I should have done)? Always looks better in the rear view mirror. Speaking of outside bars, look at that one after the first leg down of the H2 setup. Nice! My reason for placing the limit buys where I did? Look at the doji signal before the outside bar I got burned on. I believed that the high of that would be tested, and later though it possible the low would be.
