http://i.imgur.com/o8wl1D2.png just the shape, there is a lot of to and fro between those points , it goes from point to point regardless of the to and fro in between,the hard part is matching volume and momentum ,looking at multiple timeframes, on the eve of a holiday, it will most likely respect the last 5 days movement, on a fed rate hike or drop, it affects the largest positions, globally , those two extremes and everything in between, but if you are day trading ,you need to know where the larger timeframe nip is,so if you are making higher highs,higher lows,rallying ,you know where the big ship and the dock are,the largest players that move the markets,
none of these explanations will make sense til you've hand charted, and very few who've asked and have been advised follow thru with that excercise, what i see , i can only crudely explain, but i know what i know, not how or why i know it, if that makes any sense, from doing the hand charting, you force yourself to apply day in day out, the repetitive patterns and you learn it through osmossis , not trying to say i know this or that, instead you just go with the market, you join it so to speak by handcharting and in turn recognize it's repetitive behavior