pullbacks & breakouts:
as per me there are only 2 ways to trade any market any time frame. either pullback trade or breakout. both work well on any time frame any market. the key to success is to try to define them objectively as much as possible.
define pullbacks and only look for them in overall context of the trend. retracments which are not pullback are patterns and breakout entries are possible with patterns. i don't look for big pullbacks and large patterns, not comfortable with them and not able to define them objectively.
one way of defining pullback is to restrict the number of bars in pull let say max 3 bars excluding inside bar(s). the pullback should be smooth and without having any pivots among price bars. one can refer to jeff cooper gann 1-2-3-4 trading set up or joe ross book "trading the ross hook".
same i do with regard to patterns. i objectively define how many bars and how many pivots i can consider to eliminate complex patterns.