Early, on-time, late: a timing vocabulary

Profit alone is a poor teacher of timing. A lucky early entry can reinforce a habit that fails next week. In the Entry Timing Lab we score process labels instead.

Early

You mark before the candle that confirms your rule has closed. Example: buying the first tick of a pin bar before the bar finishes and before the level is respected on a close.

On-time

You mark after your stated confirmation — often the close of the signal candle or a reclaim of a midpoint — and before the move has already traveled a large fraction of the recent average range.

Late

You mark after price has already run far from the invalidation. Late is not automatically “wrong.” Sometimes it is the only mark that fits a rule about waiting for structure. We still name it late so you know what you traded.

Why the labels help

Participants stop arguing only about P&L and start arguing about whether their rule fired. That conversation transfers to live charts more cleanly than another pattern encyclopedia.