What Is the Pullback Entry Strategy

A high, a step back, a close above it

The pullback entry strategy is built on a rising price and a step back. A pullback is a few days in which the price comes back from its high while the rise underneath it is still there. Take gold in September 2025. The price had been rising since a low of 3311.51 on 20 August. On 17 September it made a high of 3707.55, and over the next days it came back to a low of 3627.97, 79.58 below the high, while the twenty-day average — the average of the last twenty closes — stayed 80 dollars under the low. On 22 September the close, 3746.00, was above the high again. That step back, and the first close above the high, is the pair the strategy watches for.

A bow drawn back

Picture a bow. The arrow is the rise so far, and the string drawn back is the pullback: the price comes back from its high while the rise underneath is still there. The strategy watches a rising price for exactly that step back, and its cue is the first close past the old high, the moment the string is let go. What separates a pullback from a turn is whether the step back stays inside the bow. The strategy's card names the thing it measures that by — a moving average, a level, a share of the rise — and on gold in September it was the twenty-day average, eighty dollars below the low.

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