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Candlesticks = Signals
INTRODUCTION
Traders and investors have been looking at charts for well over 85 years as Edwin Lefe‘vre wrote (1994, p. 61), “I should say that a chart helps those who can read it or rather who can assimilate what they read”. The problem today, however, arises not only from the interpretation of the chart but also how best to apply the mass of indicators and what indicators are best applied.
This book and the techniques that are discussed set out to demonstrate how to use a chart in the context of the market price action, that is, what to look for on a financial chart and then to place the signal into some form of technical context that will make it possible to gain insight very quickly into a particular currency market, thus saving many hours of fundamental research. This book demonstrates chart analysis that can give you, as a technical trader, an edge for entering a position in the financial markets, allowing the position to be monitored on a daily basis for signs of change or weakness.
The purpose of this book is not to teach you how to trade the markets, but instead how to find opportunities in the markets that present themselves as trade and investment opportunities. The signals, the warnings about market sentiment become apparent once you understand how to apply some of the familiar chart techniques that have stood the test of time, examples made available in such a way that it will not take long to understand how to apply these techniques to your own charts and find trade and investment opportunities.
Regardless of whether you are a part-time trader or full-time trader, your only concern is to find important signals that represent opportunities that will lead you to a profit. The daily market price action that appears on charts in the form of Japanese candlesticks or patterns are, for whatever reason, the result of the actions of market participants, but a technical trader is not interested in the crowd’s reasons for doing what they do, but instead the result of their buying and selling.
It is, however, during the buying and selling that the emotional responses of many market participants are heightened and these emotionally loaded responses to the market occur time and time again and are categorised as FEAR, HOPE and GREED. In light of the vast amount of information that is available via the internet or news channels, these emotions are quite often heightened to such an extent that it is almost impossible to make a clear decision leading in many cases to badly executed trades. The opinion of some expert somehow gets the message across that undermines your objective thinking, and it is ultimately the recommendation that is the technical trader’s worst enemy. To invest in the financial markets it is absolutely necessary to create your own plan based on your own analysis. A trade should be executed from a position of power and confidence not from uncertainty or based on feelings.
In this book the techniques are applied in a relatively straightforward manner so as to create a technical picture on which to base an investment decision that does not rely on any outside recommendations but instead on your own visual analysis of the markets. A chart should be used to identify the opportunities that are ever present in the financial markets, monitor long-term investments and help to plan an investment decisively. Charts should also be used to find the appropriate level at which to enter or exit a position.
Chart analysis is a cold hard study of the markets, it is a study of the price action and nothing more. If the closing price of the Euro continues to move higher in the week then foreign exchange traders and investors will be buying that currency, which is a fact, in spite of what the fundamental and economical reasons may be.
Interpreting a chart is about recognising and understanding the sentiment of the market. If the market was bullish, is it still bullish, if not, why not? Is the market correcting or is it a reversal?
In this book, the more obvious techniques have been taken and applied as ideas for expressing the technical picture. The techniques have been arranged in order of importance and are readily and quickly understandable and bring those searching for a method of interpreting the financial markets to their objective.
Each subject relates to the phenomenon of chart technical analysis with the issue of the investment and trading strategy being part of the plan. Six primary chapters cover the subject matter.
Chapter 1 looks at the categories and ideas behind signals produced by Japanese candlesticks with a focus on the market sentiment. The candles are reduced to eight types in order to comprehend the ideas derived from them, covering the more general standard type signal representing both extreme and normal market conditions with the more abstract representing uncertainty and imminent change.
Chapter 2 relates to the patterns that appear in the financial markets and the various relationships to market sentiment including how to find possible measured targets upon a breakout of the pattern, a pause in the market trend and a change in market sentiment. Patterns are important signals and many market participants trade them.
Chapter 3 looks at the idea of support and resistance levels focusing on trend line support and resistance and the phenomena of polarity and pivot lines that give rise to a simple price observation at levels considered as bullish or bearish, allowing the technical trader to determine market direction and monitor positions.
Chapter 4 introduces the moving averages and the momentum indicators, both of which are based on the underlying price action. The averages supply information about the conditions of the market such as trending environment and support and resistance, the momentum indicators monitor the close in relation to the highs and lows over a set period of time and reflect this as the rate of change within the market. The momentum indicator is used for confirmation of market price action, displaying over-bought and over-sold conditions and divergence.
Chapter 5 applies certain techniques to the charts for finding optimal entry levels as confirmed by the techniques in the previous chapters. The obvious consequences of finding optimal market entry, covered by such themes as volume, pivot lines and interpretation of short-term charts, are very important for the technical trader.
Chapter 6, the final chapter, draws on all the methods and techniques discussed previously in order to create a plan not only for watching the markets for signals but also for developing a strategy to be used for investing and monitoring a position.
All of the methods and ideas covered here come under a form of classification in the world of technical analysis. There will be the view that the ideas contained here must include also the ideas relating to their class. This is not necessarily the case as there has to be an element of will in trading and investing. The operations that involve placing wealth at risk involve emotions, therefore all that can be achieved technically is to arrange those technical tools in accordance with the dominant ideas behind them and convey them in such a manner that the primary task of creating a consistent yet simple technical picture of the financial markets is achieved.
In studying these techniques the reader will undoubtedly try to adopt and produce slight variations. This should be encouraged, however, these techniques, especially those indicators used for the purpose of demonstrating a change in momentum, have stood the test of time, that is, they are universally accepted as being sufficient and do not require change or modification. Applying the same parameters and back testing will prove this argument. It is with these techniques that you will master the basics necessary to understand your own charts and thus read the und...
