What is pivot points?

What it means

The central pivot is the average of the previous high, low and close, with support and resistance levels derived by simple formulae above and below it. The whole set is fixed before the session begins, which is unusual — most levels only become visible after price has already reacted to them.

Why it matters

Their usefulness comes mainly from convention. Enough participants plot the same standard pivots that reactions at those prices are partly self-fulfilling, which is a real effect even though the arithmetic behind it is arbitrary.

What this changes in practice

Our PIVOT-BOUNCE strategy fired zero times live and was cut as redundant with RANGE-REV. That redundancy is worth noting as a general point: several distinct-sounding strategies in our original set turned out to be identifying the same setups, and a tournament that dedupes by strategy type is the mechanism that exposed it.