Its just smoothed data. You're better off with constant volume bars IMO - but it requires reorienting your thinking.
All the strategies (chart, Price action, pattern, indicators or tea leaf or whatever) will work in certain market conditions and not in other conditions. HA work fine in trending market. As a trader you need to identify how to recognise when it is a trending market or chop. Honestly it is easy to say than to do it in practical, most of the institution can't get it right consistently and this is why their major revenue still coming from brokage/fixed income/market making/derivatives and etc.
It's been what's been costing me for like EVER, slowly getting the hang of it though. M1 chart, Bollinger Bands, 10 dev 2 and 20 dev 2, spelling out trend or chop better than anything I've found yet, why I'm stopped using HA currently.
There's been a big shift within the last 5 years or so among vendors to push "smoothed bars" with some form of synthesized OHLC. The argument "for" is that indicators applied to smoothed bars give less false signals, more winning trades. Well, it's been 5 years or so down the road and where's the proof? Vendors are still vending so it didn't ween them off collecting pick axe and shovel income back into trading their own accounts for far greater returns. Personally, for my primary trading chart I do like time independent price bars with a real OHLC. I used to use volume bars with a transaction-based data provider, but when I switched to no frills IB for data reliance, range bars worked for me just as well. Still, I can't resist taking 5 min 20 ema pullback trades in a strong trend so that stays up as well. While I see where people are coming from who find HA bars less emotionally daunting while you're in a trade, at times, I subscribe to the NoDoji approach to scary high volatility trading: set your target and stop and walk away until your PC tells you that one of the two events just happened!
As lot of Japanese tools, HA is a great one, for many reasons : - few people use it - HA shows trends simpler - HA keeps you longer in the trend - HA works with all markets, all time frames. Disavantages : - Incorrect prices : you need to compare with a classic candlestick chart at the same time. - No gaps : again you need to use a classic CC in parallel with. - No patterns : you will not see morning star, evening star, hammers, hanging man etc. To resume : use both CC and HA charts at the same time, same time frame. CM
I'd say it's a slightly different chart, not a completely different one: HA candles are a cross between a charting-method and a smoothing indicator. It can be combined quite well and interestingly with Bollinger Bands (for those who like that kind of thing).