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Cookbooks · Signals: rules plus forecasts · Intermediate · about 8 min

Breakout confirmation with volume

Treat a close above the prior 20-session high as a breakout only when volume confirms it, and check whether the week ahead leans up.

1. When to use it

   Breakouts on thin volume often fail. Writing the condition as one rule gives one belief; asking its two halves as separate questions in the same request shows which half is missing.

2. The request

   highest(C,20) is the highest close of the 20 sessions before today, so C > highest(C,20) is a new closing high. avg(V,20) includes today.

   {
     "model": "ora-fin1",
     "state": {
       "symbol": "XLE"
     },
     "questions": {
       "breakout": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "ask": "C > highest(C,20) and V > 1.5 * avg(V,20)"
       },
       "price_break": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "ask": "C > highest(C,20)"
       },
       "volume_ok": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "ask": "V > 1.5 * avg(V,20)"
       },
       "up_week": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "instructions": "Will the stock be higher in a week?"
       },
       "rally5": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "instructions": "Will it rally at least 5% at some point in the next month?"
       }
     },
     "actions": [
       {
         "id": "confirmed",
         "when": "breakout >= 0.6 and up_week >= 0.55",
         "do": "webhook",
         "connection": "my-oms",
         "body": {
           "symbol": "{{symbol}}",
           "signal": "breakout_confirmed",
           "p_breakout": "{{breakout}}",
           "p_up_week": "{{up_week}}",
           "as_of": "{{as_of}}"
         }
       }
     ],
     "dry_run": true
   }

   Open this in the Playground

3. The real response

   XLE:

   {
     "model": "ora-fin1",
     "answers": {
       "breakout": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "yes_no": 0.0647,
         "rule": "C > highest(C,20) and V > 1.5 * avg(V,20)",
         "basis": "rule"
       },
       "price_break": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "yes_no": 0.6462,
         "rule": "C > highest(C,20)",
         "basis": "rule"
       },
       "volume_ok": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "yes_no": 0.0647,
         "rule": "V > 1.5 * avg(V,20)",
         "basis": "rule"
       },
       "up_week": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "yes_no": 0.592
       },
       "rally5": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "yes_no": 0.491
       }
     },
     "usage": {
       "input_tokens": 429,
       "output_tokens": 20
     },
     "context": {
       "source": "server",
       "symbol": "XLE",
       "as_of": "2026-10-30"
     },
     "version": "ora-fin-0.1.1",
     "actions": [
       {
         "id": "confirmed",
         "fired": false,
         "status": "skipped"
       }
     ]
   }

   The price half is true (price_break 0.6462) but volume is not (volume_ok 0.0647), and and takes the lower of its parts, so breakout is 0.0647. AAPL is the mirror image: volume confirms (0.7437) but the close did not clear the high (0.3146), so breakout is 0.3146. Neither fires the confirmed action.

4. The code

   cURLPythonJavaScriptPHPGoJavaC#RubyCopy

   Requires curl 7.76+. Save as run.sh, then: bash run.sh

   curl -sS https://oramodel.com/v1/systemone \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $JEV_API_KEY" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{
     "model": "ora-fin1",
     "state": {
       "symbol": "XLE"
     },
     "questions": {
       "breakout": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "ask": "C > highest(C,20) and V > 1.5 * avg(V,20)"
       },
       "price_break": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "ask": "C > highest(C,20)"
       },
       "volume_ok": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "ask": "V > 1.5 * avg(V,20)"
       },
       "up_week": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "instructions": "Will the stock be higher in a week?"
       },
       "rally5": {
         "type": "yes_no",
         "instructions": "Will it rally at least 5% at some point in the next month?"
       }
     },
     "actions": [
       {
         "id": "confirmed",
         "when": "breakout >= 0.6 and up_week >= 0.55",
         "do": "webhook",
         "connection": "my-oms",
         "body": {
           "symbol": "{{symbol}}",
           "signal": "breakout_confirmed",
           "p_breakout": "{{breakout}}",
           "p_up_week": "{{up_week}}",
           "as_of": "{{as_of}}"
         }
       }
     ],
     "dry_run": true
   }'

5. Act on it

   Fire on the combined rule plus the forecast (the action above does this on our side), and log the halves so you can see later why a signal did or didn't fire:

   a = data["answers"]
   log.info("%s breakout=%.2f price=%.2f volume=%.2f up_week=%.3f", symbol,
            a["breakout"]["yes_no"], a["price_break"]["yes_no"], a["volume_ok"]["yes_no"], a["up_week"]["yes_no"])

6. Variations

   • Stricter volume: V > 2 * avg(V,20).
   • A longer base: C > highest(C,55).
   • A crossing instead of a level: crossup(C, sma(C,50)) is true only on the day it happens.
   • Add rally5 to the when if you want the month's upside odds to agree too.

Information, not investment advice. Every number on this page is a real response for the session shown; answers change with each session.

What's next

• RSI and Bollinger mean-reversion checks
• Rule language