I am not busting your balls over this post but there are several things you are missing here. I find it interesting that you post this because this is basically what I do. The reason it's not that easy as it sounds is that in the exact moment of the trade these things are not so obvious.
How do you KNOW the high/low at the EXACT moment the high/low are being printed?
By monitoring the sequence of events that constantly repeat themselves in the markets with the right tool. Once knowing where one is in trend, then as the non-Dominant traverse expressed itself, by looking on the DOM there will be a pile up of limit orders that price action reverses from as opposed to being eating through.
Until the trend has some legs you will not be able to draw trendlines that MIGHT signal likely areas of resistance.
Every two bar combination is a leg of a trend. These bar-by-bar trends require a different degree of mental capacity to monitor. They are the faster trends that get built upon and are the seeds of the larger moves.
Thus lot's of people do it the easy way and never attempt to add this skill to their skill set. Instead, the approach is to set large stops to avoid whipsaws to accommodate this behavior of the market.
How do you know price is not going to breakout from a shallow trend to a steeper trend where MORE money is to be made?
By monitoring volume, there is/are a context/s by which this is discerned before EOB. It requires special tooling when trading intrabar. EOB trading is difficult for most folks because they don't wait for EOB. They don't understand that legs of a trend are also repeated as legs to a bar on a smaller faster fractal.
How do you know when there is a break above this trend resistance that it's not just over exuberant buyers where if you held longer you would make more money selling to these Yahoos?
Not clear on this question.
,....or trend reversal where you would be buying at support and market goes hard against you.
Which is does, often and frequently. Much to my delight. This moment is preceded by decr volume. At this moment Dominance volume has arrived, during the non-Dom traverse of the prior channel. One's RTL is XO and the new trend segment is underway.
Also, most trends that are meaningful hug the upper edge of the trend channel,....until they don't.
The LTL, it's the best position for a short at the appropriate time as well as the lowest risk. It's also the best position to enter on a long. Understanding the price volume relationship sorts this out.
So how do you know when that will happen or is likely to happen? How do you know when it's best to take profit?
By building one's mind, the market system of operation can be observed. It takes work to train one's mind to begin to see. Unfortunately this endeavor is difficult for most and impossible for others.
A meaningful up trend will not reverse back down to the support line as often as hug the resistance line. Just look at the S&P for the last 8 years and the fact that we STILL have not had a 5% correction. How do you know where to set a stop loss in this strong up trend because there is ALOT of space between you and the support line if you are chasing this string trend. Where were you buying in that scenario?
By going to faster fractals, annotating and logging the same procedure that works on timescales of any duration. The monitoring resolution is not correctly coupled with the trading timeframe.
Get the picture....I can go on and on....
What you are saying is like saying being an NFL running back is easy. Just catch the ball when the QB feeds it to you and run where the other players are not. Find the hole and run through it. Stay in bounds and repeat over and over. Do this live when there are aggressive players wanting to take your head off and you have to hold on to the ball and you'll see it's not so simple.
Being an NFL running back is easy for those inspired by being it. They will do what is required and necessary to excel. Each step reveals the next. The journey started with an inspired thought.
All complexity can be reduced to it's simplest interrelated parts. Discovering the interrelationship of the market's granularity of display is the challenge.
All this can be had by understanding the accurate relationship between OHLCV data. Not including volume in one's understanding of the markets gives one an unnecessary handicap based on others who enjoy the same handicap.
Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.
Lao Tzu
None of what I say will change a life. Posting a chart with a request for clarity and a desire to understand will.
Eganon
