Candles do have one main point that stands out from bars..it is easier see the double tops and bottoms when you have spikes that form the long wicks..the ES loves DT's and DB's..and this is the only instance where I have seen candles to be useful compared to bars. Of course one can trade with either and still be successful..it all depends on what way one interprets the "data" and how one acts on same! Of course I tried everything else..even after been told about bar charts being much better..and I eventually went back to bar charts..as they are the easiest and best way to read what is happening..thus allowing you to act more swiftly.. especially when it really matters!
Oh..just in case some of you run off and look for All Brooks book called something with "bar by bar"..then you should forget it..I had a look thru the book..load of rubbish I actually spent many many hours in the past trying to find a book that had some sort of reference to "the right way" to use bar charts..but I could not find one single book..and I went thru hundreds of them on many sites that had many trading books in pdf format. To this day I still believe that there is no such book out there..but I might be wrong of course?
It depends on what type of analysis and what type of trading you are talking about..you have VSA..with dedicated software programmes to "identify" major changes and thus create opportunities..you have new services that turns your monitors into the NASA control centre ..and..you also have Volume By Price..which is a very simple and effective tool to identify major support and resistance areas on any timeframe..when..used in the right way..as not all brokers or software packages display VBP the same way. So..my answer is..VBP is definitely worth looking at for certain type of trading..the rest is just more mumbo jumbo!
Some years ago..when I was in discovery mode..I spent a good deal of time trying to map out the bid/ask against the last price..as it was hard to find software that done it for you. I found that it was somewhat helpful for daytrading stocks..not for futures..it was easily set up in excel with the bid and ask being color coded based on the last price..and..it was also easy to put in a small chart plotting the 3 lines..what stood out was you could see the lines getting closer and wider..and it was a useful aid for spotting pending reversals when used with the rest of the setup. Took a lot of work..and many hours of chopping and changing..but my honest opinion now is that it is not required at all..nice to know..but not required..as the danger of getting into too much detail is that you start to ignore the big picture..and the big picture is what will make you money..not the teeny weeny one
I got volume by price on my DOM but at this stage cannot make much sense to it and how to use it. Looking at it with an open mind tho.
For those interested in bid/ask analysis, this is a thread I started a while back. I used to trade on this info. However, the issue that it can not be scaled to a big size: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/dom-acv-and-bid-ask-wall-used-tgether.103293/
Long 29.50, Stop at 27. Target 37ish... I think we have LOD EDIT:... and I cannot read a chart if my life depended on it