I’m reading Steve Nison. A lot of his examples are non-forex and he goes in depth on what the mass-psychological meaning is behind patterns with a ‘gap’.
Now in Forex the only real Gap I see, is the Monday after weekend one. Are other gaps, not just… my software that lags? Since Forex is 24h.
Is all this psy-meaning Nison talks about now Void ? Are these patterns now, less valuable, or even total useless.
Fore example a Piercing pattern, is just big white bar, next to a ‘a bit bigger black’ bar, if it wasn’t for the gap.
Hey I’m currently reading the very same book! It is true a lot of his patterns and signals are based on gap or “window” structure, I would say read it and absorb all you can anyways, if you ever want to move into equity or futures market gaps will become a prevalent feature.
Your charting software is not lagging, the forex market is just so liquid that gaps are indeed hard to spot, but they are still around. If you for instance view a less liquid pair like USDHKD (hong kong dollar) you will find many gaps, even on liquid pairs like EURUSD and USDJPY if you look at the 1 minute or 5 minute chart gaps will start to appear. You could also trade the weekly candles, as the trading week starts and ends at the same time the world over, these are the truest charts you can observe because there is much less subjectivity (caused by various brokers closing times ect)
As for if Steves work has become void? I dont think so. You will have to adapt a lot of his techniques to make them applicable in the forex market, at reasonable time frames, where gaps don’t appear.
Some patterns may need to be tossed, such as the piercing and dark cloud cover patterns ect, alot of his continuation patterns include gaps
Things like the Engulfing bars and morning and evening star reversals can work without gaps. Of course the hanging man, shooting star are timeless and don’t rely on gaps so you can use them. Tweezers tops and bottoms and all the variants should be fine, tower tops and bottoms are ok.
Definitely keep an eye on the weekly charts you can find just about every pattern on them, gaps and all