PARTIAL · one real pattern
Hypothesis
The original "smart money" theory: a Composite Operator accumulates in trading ranges, leaving a schematic (selling climax, spring, sign of strength, last point of support, phases A–E). Entering on the "spring" — a false breakdown of the range low that rapidly reclaims — front-runs the markup.
Math — the only objective event (the spring)
Spring = penetration of the range low reclaimed within $n$ bars on elevated volume:
$$ \text{spring} \iff \big(\min_{[t,t+n]}\text{low} < L_{\text{range}}\big)\ \wedge\ \big(\text{close}_{t+n} > L_{\text{range}}\big)\ \wedge\ \big(V > k\bar V\big) $$
Method
Codified only the spring (the rest of the schematic is labeled in hindsight). Tested spring entries inside identified ranges, forward returns, costs applied.
Results
| Spring (false-breakdown reclaim) | weakly tradeable |
| Overlap with liquidity-sweep (N-107) | near-identical |
| Full phase-labeling (A–E, LPS, SOS) | hindsight-only |
| Net edge of mechanized spring | thin, regime-dependent |
Wyckoff is the honest ancestor of SMC — and its one falsifiable event, the spring (a false breakdown that reclaims), is a genuinely weak-but-real pattern, essentially the same stop-run as N-107. The full schematic (which range is accumulation vs distribution, where Phase C ends) is labeled after the fact and untestable. We keep the spring as a minor context cue, discard the phase-counting.
A century before "smart money concepts," Wyckoff described the same one real thing: price pokes below support to trigger stops, then reclaims. Everything testable in the smart-money canon reduces to that single stop-run — and a stop-run alone is a thin edge.