I'd much rather use VBCs, I think candles are more valuable that way in the sense that you actually see the fight. I know I stole that from you brownsfan lol
I also think it depends on the type of day, is it trending or is it rangebound? If it's a trending day I like to use a larger VBC number and look for setups that will catch the bigger trend. For example if I see a hammer, and that is confirmed a MA crossover then I will enter the trade.
On a range bound day I use mostly support/resistance and other technical patterns that I have learned to read fairly quickly. This is a little more difficult and requires more screen time IMO. If I see the market trending towards resistance then a doji appears I will wait for confirmation, then when I get that confirmation I will go with the new trend. As Brownsfan said sometimes it helps to add something aside from just the candles and support and resistance lines. I came up with my own stochastic's that used the same integer I use for my VBC's. Not really sure if this works yet, but looking at historical charts it seems to work. I will have to play with it more in real time and decide if that's the direction I want to take. I also think it's important to point out that I use a smaller VBC setting for this.
For those that don't know how to choose a VBC setting all I did was found a simple integer (usually 3 or 4) and kept multiplying it until I found what worked best for me.
3 x 3 x 3 x 3 etc until I came up with 243 and 729
4 x 4 x 4 x 4 etc, it all depends on what works best with your trading style.
I included a few charts. Two of them are 243vbc and the other two are 729vbc. One is for Friday the other is for Thursday, you can probably figure out which is range bound and which one is a trending day. What do you notice between the two? Frankly with that choppy market on Thursday that 729 chart would have chopped me up, but the 243vbc let me see more opportunities. Other people may see different things and completely disagree with me, but each person is different and has their own style of trading.
Right now I am working on learning Market Profile. I want to see if I can integrate Market Profile into my candlestick analysis. So if anyone has a lot of experience in MP or in both I think it would be beneficial if we could start a thread on that.
Personally I believe CA on it's own is worthless... and this comes from personal experience. But if you combine CA with other technical techniques such as
VSA, support/resistance, other technical patterns, etc... then candlestick analysis can be very beneficial. For example would you buy/sell a doji in the middle of a tight range? No, but if the market was trending higher and you saw a defined doji against resistance whether that be a Fib number or a previous high then that would definitely resemble a much stronger warning.
I am definitely no expert with candlestick analysis, I can read a chart and tell you what the candle means and things like that. But I still have a lot to learn, and only screen time can get me there.