It is late here now.
I will answer this question for you tomorrow.
Don’t worry about what GFT says.
Here is the truth :
[U]Lets say you are going long.[/U]
You wish to exit at 100
Your spread is 3pips.
Then you must set your exit at 103.
Your trade will then close at 100
[U]Lets say you are going short.[/U]
You wish to exit at 50
Your spread is 3pips.
Then you must set your exit at 47.
Your trade will then close at 50
Your bottom green candle wick did not go thro your t/p by the required spread.
Therefore, you were still in the trade!
Remember this carefully!
It is a matter of bid and ask spreads.
But I will not complicate matters by going into that.
I advise against the use of t/p orders.
They, like stop loss, PNC etc tend to create confusion.
I advocate the use of the Direct Deal ticket only.
It always works at market price and you can see how much profit/loss you have by looking at your floating profit/loss window or tab.
Congratulations on large charts! 
You may care to select better colours for your indicators so that you can see them better.
Also, there is a line thickness option.
Dealing with this may help you to trade better.
Hello everyone,
I looked at this engulfing pattern (Aug 19th @ 1320), entered short according to the Keltner. The first exit on the Starc chart was easy.
I see there are minor retraces after the first exit but these do not come near the upper Starc until the 7th candle on the main (20 min) chart.
Shouldn’t we see stronger retraces before the 7th candle on the main chart?
Could someone check this out on their charts? I have the Starc settings set per Tymen’s advice but curious to see if these match another charts platform.
Thanks for the feedback 
Here is the picture: … I tried to paste the chart image directly into this post but could not paste it for some reason so I have the image as an attachment. Hopefully my chart is large enough for everyone to see.
H2Odiver,
I take it by your name you do scuba? One of my hobbies.
Looking at your chart there;
Magnification is kind of small, but from what I can see, it looks like the pattern you took was an Inside Bar - not an engulfing.
The exit looks good to me, but the second entry is kind of far away from the first pattern. At that point you’d probably be looking for another main chart pattern. I would treat it as two separate trades instead of a single 2 part trade, and the second one doesn’t look like a good trade to me.
On your main chart there’s a nice Inside Bar long near the end of the chart.
I’m interested to see what others have to say though.
Hi VulcanClassic,
I have included (hopefully) a larger picture of the main chart and the pattern.
I need to brush up on my patterns So this pattern is not an engulfing but an inside bar? In any case, would you consider this to be a strong pattern to go short? I know the top BB is steadily rising but there is definate price movement going down on this pattern.
I guess I was looking for stronger retracements closer to the upper Starc band. The one strong retracement that comes close to the upper Starc seems too far away from the main pattern.
So I guess not all retracements that are strong on the main chart do not necessarily retrace to the top of the Starc band on the 5 minute chart?
Thanks for taking the time to answer my post… I look forward to hearing from you and everyone else.
PS. You got it, I love Scuba!
Hi H20diver,
Thanks very much. I’m not that old but you can’t imagine how it helps.
In fact i’ll be more clear about this because i’ve been experiencing reading tymens notes and seing his post.
Everyone HAVE TO magnify his charts. It is a REAL help. Let’s think about it a little bit. What are we looking for ? Bearish pattern such as engulfing and Evening star ? How much candle those are ? No more than 3 ! Then it is useless to watch 50 candles or more on the main chart at the same time !
Everyone will also notice that while magnifying there is no doubt of the type and the quality of the candle. Before your last post, i was about to say i also saw an engulfing which is the contrary of Vulcan. But it is a not ideal engulfing because the red wick isn’t above the green one.
Remember, we’re looking for good quality pattern then good quality to radar them.
In any case, would you consider this to be a strong pattern to go short?
Not a strong one. First because of the wick. Then an evening star is anyway stronger than an engulfing. Then you are on a “trumpet” mode. Then I guess you were in a local uptrend …That was not ideal for sure then ! I would not trade that one.
Remember that in such case, a reversal pattern only mean a change in the general trend. Then it is just able to stop going up ==> level OR down but most of the time LEVEL and not for a long time. There has to be confirmation of bearish pattern and twice is best…
I know the top BB is steadily rising but there is definate price movement going down on this pattern.
You wrote the word : “BUT” . If you say “BUT” then it is not a quality pattern.
From what I understood, you include the body and wicks when considering a pattern. So if overall size of second candle is smaller than the first, you have an IB, if second candle is larger it’s an outside bar or englufing.
I agree with FXCaribbean that BB is rising rapidly, making it a riskier trade. I probably would have traded it:D, but then I’m no expert by any means.
Try looking back on your charts and see how many of those patterns succeed and fail off the BB.
I would really like to hear from Tymen on this one. I have more reviewing to do as well, we should always be learning.
Here’s a great website for patterns, I originally got it from Tymen on his Joy of Candlesticks thread.
FXCaribbean and VulcanClassic:
Thanks so much for the feedback. I’ll make sure my charts are posted larger next time
For some reason I was thinking the wicks did not mean so much and was relying more on what the candle bodies looked like. I’ll have to take into consideration that the wicks carry more weight than I have been assigning to them.
I understand about the rising BB, trumpeting, double patterns back to back to really reverse the price downward but I guess I was experimenting more with the 5 min charts, and price action in relation to those Starc bands (retracement and exit points)
I don’t have time to see the trades unfold but was going back at the end of the day, picking patterns on the main charts to see and practice retracements/exits on the 5 minute Starc chart
So I guess I have to pick quality patterns and watch that BB on the main chart before I revert to the 5 min Keltner and Starc to watch for retracements and exits. Just curious as to why retracements in this example were not coming close to the upper starc band.
Thanks guys… hopefully Tymen will weigh in on this:)
Yeah, I could be wrong so let’s see what Tymen has to say. I was getting that from James in his 40 - 100 pips a day thread.
Yes, I will weigh in on this matter!!
This is, indeed, a fascinating thread.
Here we discuss all the charts and trading on them.
This is real candlestick discussion.
This thread leaves my own thread clear to do the educational stuff.
I am so glad that [B]FXCaribbean [/B]set it up.
Now to that pattern posted by [B]H20diver[/B] :
This is an advanced 4 candle evening star pattern.
The long green candle before the standard 3 is included to complete the pattern.
It is not an engulfing pattern.
This should solve the matter about the candle wicks.
Later on I will do some tuition on advanced candle patterns.
However,…the BB is showing a breakout to the max… so this pattern is not tradable short.
Also, the last red candle of the pattern is very short compared to that long green starting candle.
Again…a no no trade.
Sure, the price went down somewhat and then basically level.
Hence a profit could be made.
But did you know that beforehand?
No, of course not.
So trading this pattern, against all your wisdom and knowledge, would be just gambling.
You could just have easily lost heaps on this trade.
Better to go with our knowledge and stay out.
Choosing not to trade a pattern is a [U]position[/U].
The correct move to make on this chart would be to trade long the 3 green soldiers that appear bdfore the evening star.
A nice profit would follow with the next two green candles.
Hi Tymen,
I’m still not quite clear on the importance of the wicks. Could you please expand on that a little? Not necessarily with this chart but with any chart.
H20diver, I hope you don’t mind that I have stolen your chart.
I am interested in the 3 green soldiers pattern. There are two good examples in your chart.
The first one ends crossing the upper BB. I assume you know the price will keep going up, despite crossing the band, because of the trumpeting BB.
Is the second pattern a 3 green soldiers pattern? Maybe it should be traded as a 3 inside up pattern instead.
I keep trading 3 green soldiers no matter where they are. I’m looking for a little guidance with this pattern.
Thanks.
Hi condor,
First i would like to thank you for comming to the thread. May i also recall you that this thread has been created in order for us to train on UMS method.
You will notice that tymen told few words on these 3 green soldiers pattern in order to comment that chart. His answer was to give an argument not to trade it as one of the UMS reversal pattern.
May i suggest that you open a thread on those 3 green soldiers (i would have called those last “Stalled” but i’m not an expert…) and there opposite Three black crows.
Though, i’ll only tell you one thing that has been told from the UMS method about the fact that one trade a candlestick pattern :
You [B]ALWAYS [/B]have to matter where those pattern are.
I don’t see any reason that would prevent the 3 green/white soldiers not being linked to the context.
FXCaribbean
"Don’t go where there is a path. Open a new one and leave a trail".
If you want to understand what we’re talking about here (UMS) then read this and set your screen and computer that way. Also read the live thread, UML Live and UMS Live
FXCaribbean - Sorry, I thought this thread was for discussing things that might distract from Tymen’s ongoing lessons.
That’s a good question, I wouldn’t mind hearing an answer on it.
Yes, the 2nd pattern is also a 3 green soldiers pattern.
The 3 green soldiers can be traded without immediate regard for the Bollinger bands.
This is because it is very much a pattern associated with breakouts (the trumpeting BB).
This fact makes this pattern different from all the others I trade.
It needs special treatment in my candlestick thread - yes, we will come to it!!
Aha, then Condor was foreseing it. Congrats condor !
It depends entirely on which pattern you are considering.
[U]The body to body relationship is the real important part.[/U]
The wicks provide an indication of the extremes of emotion experienced by the buyers and sellers.
They are an indication of buyer and seller strength.
[U]Rejection patterns[/U] - long wicks telling us that either the bulls or the bears could not maintain the price and the opposite group moved in.
eg [U]long bottom wicks [/U]- sellers cannot keep the low price level and the buyers move in.
[U]long top wicks[/U] - buyers cannot keep the high price level and the sellers move in.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Tymen. I will try to be patient until you discuss this pattern. Here is a trade I caught last night. It is 3 red crows. I got 61 pips from it. It went on much further than my exit, but I’ll take the +61! Obviously, they don’t all go this well. I’m eager to learn more.
Wow!!
Thats fantastic Condor.
Looks like a news release was connected with that trade.