Quote from Arthur Deco:
Send her a PM and beg her to come here and deplain her methods. She loves the detention.
Bearmountain sent me a PM and they let me out of detention
I'm still an early student of PA and honing my method, distilling it down to pure PA with a 20-bar EMA to clarify trend and channel.
Read Al Brooks' book, "Reading Price Charts Bar By Bar".
PA in a nutshell:
Flat 20 EMA = range/channel/consolidation
Rising 20 EMA = uptrend
Falling 20 EMA = downtrend
With-trend trades are easiest and most profitable (trading with a rising or falling 20 EMA).
Buy or sell breakouts or pullbacks:
Price in an uptrend pulls back (down bars), look to buy a break through a previous bar's high.
Price in a downtrend pulls back (up bars), look to sell a break through a previous bar's low.
Price in an uptrend comes from a pullback to test the previous resistance, buy at or a tick above the high.
Price in a down trend comes from a pullback to test the previous support, sell at or a tick below the low.
If trading a breakout, use a tight stop because a failed breakout (breaks a few ticks then reverses) is a sign the trend may be reversing.
Counter-trend trading:
All trends eventually end and here are some signs of reversal -
Price has 3-4 pushes in a trend OR price has a strong push in one direction, consolidates in a narrow range, then has a breakout and another push in the same direction (measured move), look for reversal signals:
A hammer (bottom of a downtrend) or shooting star (top of an uptrend) with a long wick. Usually trend will reverse soon. Short as soon as that bar closes. This is pure counter-trend. Waiting for the first lower high/higher low is confirmed counter-trend.
The second lower high/higher low usually confirms the new trend is underway (the 20 EMA should now be rising/falling instead of flat and price should have closed on the opposite side of the 20 EMA) and produces the first strong move of the new trend.
For a college-level education in PA, read Al Brooks.