Starspa, before you get too caught up in price action, there's an easy thing to observe. In strong intraday trends, you'll tend to get only 1-3 consecutive opposite closes in a row before the trend takes off again, so the importance is in getting IN, not the "where" precision. To prove the point to yourself, go find strong trends historically, take an imaginary trade at the close of a each red bar in an uptrend (vice verse for a downtrend) and measure the MAE and MFE for each trade. The reward to risk ratio will be greater than 1:1 no matter which one you took, except maybe on the last leg. [by "strong trend" on intraday, I mean favoring a 9 or 20 period moving avg...personally, I like the 9 wma and 20 ema]. So your skill level to improve is getting the context right (up/down/sideways), not in the anal-ity of the entry. Because look at all of those awesome reward to risk ratios you just measured. Be 50% right in guessing up/down by the first leg of a new trend and you will get all you want from trading. If you get 4 consecutive candles against the trend and the 20 ema gets closed through, that's a good clue that sideways or reversing is going on. Again, go back and handcheck as many strong trends intraday that you care to...the really good ones don't have that tendency. I'll add another trend watcher thingy: Clayburg is correct (lookup Clayburg lines). If price during the first hour of regular trading hours (RTH) favors one side or the other of the first 5 min midpoint, the odds are high that price will finish above / below that favoring (line) for the day. I'll add my own twist. Don't let price leave the first 60 min high/low without you on board!
What is difference between the young guys one the old dudes? The later know they limitations and thread carefully, while the former like to piss on the live wires first and share results later. But I guess some young souls never change....
What are you talking about? I was here when StarSpa first join and shared his picture. He is an old dude.
Old Dude? That sucks, and now this old dude, who has been teaching young dudes all his life, has to learn from young dudes! I guess that's part of the humbling of myself.