Good post. You can tell a level matters just by watching and feeling the DOM as price approaches that level. It is the only pulse that the market has. Nearly everyone is there to make money from movement, they have to look at something to do that. And it is not a making secret formula. You can watch a market trade on purpose back and forth between levels that for what ever reason, has been chose for a time period to remain as targets. there is no reason for it to go from one edge of a range and back and bak again. It is participants pushing it there to pick up money on the ride. Some days, all you have to do is join the party. Which is actually what the participants pushing to and from those targets want, so don't get suckered in the end. To the OP, look at wide and significant low volume areas that were set when the market re-priced from one area to another on a sentiment/fundamental shift. So long as that shift remains true, then the edge of that LVA acts as great S/R. You want them to be wide LVA's, and based on a clear change in reasoning and a re-pricing of the market. Also look for S becoming R. So called break pullback out retests. They are give away trades. And if you are wrong, C&R for a possible rocket back to the other side of the range and a BO in that direction. Warning: forget these so called S/R levels on days with large volume driving one direction. Or expect a few levels to wash and wider target to eventually hold.
for decades i've used prior day hi/low/close, and whole numbers, and mean reversions/50% pullback levels
Perhaps I'm being naive, but aren't most significant levels like this due to true supply/demand? Shouldn't volume always be lower in these regions because it is the imbalance that causes the price movement? You've worded this in a way that isn't immediately clicking with my brain, which excites me because it probably means there's some gaps in my understanding so I'm going to save your post and think on it. Do you have an example chart?
I completely agree. I honestly don’t care if price movement is because of fundamentals, self fulfilling prophecy, or simply because the sun rises in the east. If a strategy works for profit then use it.
I’ve never found prior day stats to be useful for establishing intraday bias. Post-open supply/demand is my only gauge.
Horizontal lines work, but most chart monkeys can’t get the math right, and always late to the party. Also support and resistance are nonsense terms. Markets just seek liquidity, that’s it.
Even if you show them, they’d be lucky to get filled on even one instrument when the demand shifts, which happens at the speed of light. The execution has to be coded.
Suspect we are talking about the same thing. I doubt there is anything novel in what I said. Just maybe my tangled wording. Example chart coming when I am at my trading desk next. Also for the OP, check out the commercial course offered by "My Trading Coach." It might answer some of your questions for intraday level trading. In general for this thread... Embrace the Uncertainty. There is no my-way-no-other-way.
my former day trading forex coach ( but unsuccessful trader ) taught us to draw support & resistance lines. He drew thousands of it over the past few years. His chart is similar to the one shown below. My charts have ZERO SR line. I didn't use SR line for the past few decades. For those who do position trading, there might be some use
I daytrade FGBL future so I use: 1. pivot levels (swing high/low points, do not confuse with somehow calculated levels) from 60 min and daily charts 2. current day's open price as filters when NOT to trade. I expect that near these levels (1) relatevely big positions are at breakeven and the battle buyers VS sellers could take place. This means chop price action on my trading chart. Opening price (2) means the level when current day became positive or negative and this also is dangerous point for me. If I see signal according my plan but (1) or (2) level is 6 ticks or less this means no trade for me. If I would trade fast paced market (Lord saved me from this ) like CL, GC or ES/NQ/YM can suppose that 60 min levels are not enough and one should look at 15 min or even 5 min. And the offset should be greater than 6 ticks. But not sure. My take: try to look at S/R bottom up, not when to trade, but when not to trade. Look at chart attached and you will see what I mean.