Have any of the responses resembled what you'd expect to read from someone noticing the nuances of the buying and selling pressure?
Someone who's just learning how, yes. Since science it seems is no longer taught in schools, and the books and courses and so on and on that have to do with trading are focused more on quickie fixes and less on understanding what one is looking at, it takes time. A lot less time than one might think if one can just get over the Where Do I Enter thing, which some people never do and after months still don't have much of a clue as to what's going on in front of them. The only way to learn and understand this is to watch price move, like fish in a fish tank.
I provided my reply simply as an illustration of what not to write! In all seriousness, I do agree with you 100%.
maybe folks should not think of it as a narrative with people in it. no buyers and sellers, no traders or investors, no good or bad guys. Think of it simply as a line with one thing as the observer to think about - will this line continue what it has recently done* (the default) or has it shown some reason** to make you think it will do something different. If then - what are those reasons, have you seen them before** If then - what can you then do about it. *observation and seeing how it moves **your model for how the line moves ***your plan for trade execution none of this involves worrying about what other are doing. Its just a line. and worrying about part three the trade execution is really only needed once you have a rough idea of the lines diso stu moves. FWIW.
I've tried that but it didn't go very far. Focusing on the line or lines makes it abstract, and people start focusing on the lines rather than on price (like the Darvas Box), and price movement is where it's at, not what sort of line the movement creates. Learning to trade via lines becomes analogous to learning how to play the piano by painting numbers on the keys. So after several years of futzing with various kinds of lines, I focused on the tick, i.e., the transaction, and for whatever reason people begin to understand. And once one begins to understand, the fear begins to evaporate. And once the fear evaporates, one can get down to business.
Bars 1 to 10: price decreases with rapid movements on some bars (lack of buyers?) 11 to 20: slow price movement, with upward consolidation 21 to 30: rapid upward move (lack of sellers?) 31 to 40: acceleration of upward move 41 to 50: highest level of intra-bar price variation of the entire picture, price drifting higher, uncertainty getting stronger? 51 to end: decrease of market speed, consolidation with bars closing often at the top
My $0.02. Going back to bar 4, price was moving down. It hit a low point at 6, but didn't hang around in that area and began moving up. There was a slight push to get price back down to the level at 6, but buyers and sellers weren't agreeing there and price rose again. Price hung out in a fairly tight range for a few minutes when there was a slight surge up and immediate pullback to the south (20). Yet again, buyers couldn't push prices down. Price started to rise slightly when a spike up occurred. As is typical, things settled for a while and price just moved sideways (30) though it was ever so slightly inching up. From what I can see in the picture, price had gone beyond that LSH of the down thing. I can presume that a SL was crossed, but there's not enough info in the picture to be certain of that. Price then marched up for a while - some pauses and slight RET (within the bars). In other words, there was some resistance on the way up, but price didn't motor up and it also wasn't halted significantly after every tick up. A big pop of price movement occurred and as is typical, there was some pullback (40). The pullback was mostly sideways with a few attempts to bring price back down, but it wasn't to be. But price wasn't going up either - seemed like it could have gone either way. At 44, price took off. It initially headed down, but made a dramatic change and went up. Again after a big price differential, there was some pullback. There was even a LH 46. But price quickly popped up - and immediately went down almost to the level of 46. Around 50, things leveled off for a bit, a LH occurred at 51, some pullback, another push up at 53 and then a return to the range of just after 50. Another LH occurred at 58. Price wasn't moving up, but it wasn't going down either (60) - couldn't get below the level of 50/60. However, the series of LHs seemed to indicate that it would be soon.
Bars 6-10 I see a rejection of lower prices then price retraces relatively 50% showing strength as trades are being found at higher prices. Moving to bars at 20 I see another rejection of prices making an even higher low.