My journey with the candles

[brownsfan019]

I wanted to provide a little background on my use of candlesticks for anyone that might be interested. :p

As many, when considering trading it's overwhelming where to begin. The first thing was how to display the charts and candles was one of the many options. From there it was an inquisitive nature that brought me to a few different books and websites out there. In the end, I liked what I saw with Steve Nison. I started with the books, progressed to some DVD's and I have gone to one live seminar with Steve. While that seminar was the most 'expensive' it was great. I am a very visual person (maybe why I like the candles to begin with) and a live seminar is a great experience. Yes, it will cost more than a book or even some DVD's, but in my opinion, it's a great way to shorten the learning curve.

I realize that sounds like a Nison commercial, but that's where I've come from.

Now my candlestick analysis is much more than just finding the shapes. At the beginning, it really feels like it's a 'find the shape' trading plan. Now, I understand what the candles are telling me. I've mentioned this before - I think EVERY candle tells you a story of the fight between the bulls and bears. The sooner you can get your arms around that, the faster other things will make sense. It sounds simple, but I have yet to find a book or DVD or website or newsletter that stresses that part of the candlestick analysis. I hate the 'find the shape' stuff you see all over the internet. You need to eventually get to the point where you can look at a candle, regardless of shape, and just 'get it'. Get what's going on and get why this is important.

This leads me to another pet peeve of mine - trying to program these 'find the shape' things into a computer program. I have yet to find a computer program that can find what I might consider to be a bullish candle since there is some flexibility needed here, esp in day-trading. So, I would highly recommend you learn about this before trying to get a computer to do it for you. It's like learning math - you need to learn how the numbers work before you use a calculator.

We'll discuss some different ideas and charts and see how candles can help. This is not a one size fits all, so keep in mind that candles may not work for you! I'll try to post some charts next week and in the meantime, if you have some charts or ideas or questions, feel free to post them!

[Reaver]

Awesome Brownsfan! Looking forward to following this thread!