Trend lines

hey, im trying to learn price action without any indicators as i believe that is the best way, im trying to draw trend lines but im unsure if im doing it correctly, i know for uptrends you connect recent HL and downtrends recent LH but do would you connect it from the candle wick or the bodies and for example its a uptrend, would the candle have to be a bearish candle or doesnt it matter? hope you understand and thanks for any help also if anyone can suggest videos or books which can help me in learning price action id much appreicate it.

Classic TA theory says draw these lines using the daily H’s and L’s.

However -

  1. most people will ignore this protocol when the trend line “rides” price tendency better if you let it pierce a few wicks, but not normally bodies

  2. someone told me that trend lines should be drawn with a crayon, not a pencil: if your strategy only works with pencil-sharp lines on charts, you may be sitting too close to the action.

Sorry, forgot to say also -
3. know the timings of your daily bars, they may not run from midnight to midnight in forex, and occasionally this can result in charts from different sources with different H or L for the same date. My SB firms’s charts run from 2200-2200: my chart software package has an initial daily close value as at 1630hrs UK time but that value is adjusted after the US close at some point during the night.

I agree completely with Tommor’s comment above about using a crayon. :slight_smile:

It [I]does[/I] matter, in my opinion.

For me, anyway - the tops and bottoms and of the wicks, not the bodies of the candles.

The tops and bottoms of the wicks denote highs and lows (for the period of the candle). The body of the candle denotes the open and the close.

[U]Key concept[/U]: highs and lows are objective and factual and denote an area of support or resistance (however brief and localised) and that means something. Opens and closes are arbitrary and user-defined and signify far less.

These are the books that helped me, with learning price action trading …

[I]Understanding Price Action[/I] (Bob Volman)

[I]Naked Forex: High-Probability Techniques for Trading Without Indicators[/I] (Alex Nekritin & Walter Peters)

[I]Daytrading[/I] (Joe Ross) (this is an updated re-issue of an earlier book - “Trading by the Minute”, I think it was called)

[I]Trading The Ross Hook[/I] (Joe Ross) (I keep coming back to this one again and again, because it’s simple and logical and helpful, and the whole concept is based on one of the soundest principles of price action trading, namely “buy the dips in an uptrend and sell the rallies in a downtrend”)

Trading Price Action Trends - Technical Analysis of Price Charts Bar by Bar for the Serious Trader (Al Brooks)
[I]
Trading Price Action Trading Ranges - Technical Analysis of Price Charts Bar by Bar for the Serious Trader[/I] (Al Brooks)
[I]
Trading Price Action Reversals - Technical Analysis of Price Charts Bar by Bar for the Serious Trader[/I] (Al Brooks)

Warning: Al Brooks’ set of three textbooks is kind of badly written and very badly edited (especially considering who the publisher is), and pretty difficult to plough through, but their content’s excellent, so those are a kind of “mixed recommendation”: his online video course is much, much better and more helpful and more approachable, but it’s also more expensive ($250, I think). It’s still very good value, though, in my opinion, for about 37 hours of videos: [B]https://brookstradingcourse.com/[/B]

I agree with this. Not only have I heard it recommended on the forums, I also have read exactly this thinking of using “crayons” to draw trend lines. I believe it was in Laurentiu Damir’s book, Price Action Breakdown.

I like to print out charts and use a sharpie to draw them out and when I place them on my computer screen I usually put a few lines close together to give me an “area” of interest.

I would recommend Damir’s book for a quick read on a simple PA system using the naked technique. Coming in at under 100 pages, I found it easy to understand as a newbie and learned a ton about supply and demand and a simple way to apply the knowledge to building your own system.

I currently am reading Bob Volman’s book on PA, Understanding Price Action. So far has been an excellent read.

Sounds very interesting - I haven’t seen this one. :8:

(Since the thread is titled “Trend Lines”, I’ll mention in passing that I use only horizontal ones, myself: I’m using them to see at a glance when the price breaches them, rejects them or re-tests them, and personally I attribute [I]far[/I] more significance to breaches, rejections and re-tests of horizontal ones than of diagonal ones.)

I would say I always try to make things easy for myself by using the system of three screens. From it can project the market to an extent!

In start concentrate only on horizontal support and resistance. They are enough to practice and make money. After some experience under your belt go for trend lines.