Here is my mix of candlesticks and
VSA, hope it's valid and I follow some of the basic rules correctly. Correct me if I am wrong though as I am still learning.
This first chart is the ES daily and I highlighted the spinning tops against support. If you go back to our first two hammers with strong volume you'll see price went up to test resistance. Volume was relatively strong on the move to resistance which validates the move IMO. Price was rejected and fell back to our new support level but on low volume, which would tell me there is a lack of interest. This is where I believe it gets important, the three spinning tops also have strong volume. If you look at the chart the volume is similiar to those of wider bodies, but these bodies are smaller which in the candlestick world would give you a warning that the move is slowing down. But with the stronger volume I feel like the market maker is controlling the prices and building a position, quickly buying up shares that newbies are selling in a panic.
This next chart is basically zoomed in so you can see the volume and corresponding price moves a little more clear. You'll see I outlined the bigger WRB with low volume, then the smaller candle with much higher volume. This tells me the smart money was allowing price to fall so they could continue their accumulation that was started two weeks ago.
This is a weekly chart of the ES. Traditionally following basic candlesticks and seeing this chart I would say there was a doji with a WRB, followed by a bearish engulfing candle thus my bias would be bearish. But in this case, we will see that the down volume candle had more volume. If we break down the time frame and look at the daily we saw that the accumulation was at the low, thus making me bullish. If anything, we could test 1400 again and have a nice tradeable 70pt range. I'll take that.
This is a long term chart with a long term trend line. The initial test to the support was on light volume, then a small body under the trend line with high volume. I'm not really sure what this means, so maybe some experienced
VSA guys can shed some light. But again, as price stablized around support volume has been very high, which tells me strength.
Then for the last chart. I highlighted a few key areas to combine candles with
VSA.
Green - candles became much smaller with tall wicks. I know this really doesn't matter to
VSA but in candlestick analysis this would tell me that the market maker has complete control. Now if I went into
VSA terms and combined the two I would come away believing that someone is accumulating a large position.
Yellow - Price hits resistance on strong volume and a small candle, actually the doji itself is on low volume which would signal no demand. The big money isn't pushing price any higher thus it falls the next day. From there price continued to fall but the general trend of volume was down. This declining volume and declining price tells me there isn't a very strong force behind the move. Then we hit our lows with a lot more volatility, and alot of accumulation. So I would go out on a limb here and say that the professional money started accumulating in july, and continued in January.
So as of right now, I would be willing to buy calls up to 1400. My stop would be just below a 50% retracement of the major wick that led to new lows, so roughly 1275. The reason for this is I wouldn't be surprised to see the smart money push price a little lower to create a little more panic in order to buy. If the general public is scared they will sell, which creates a very good opportunity for smarter traders.
Please note though, I went at this with a bullish bias. So if something sticks out that I did wrong that would infact be bearish I would love to hear it. Sometimes our own bias can blind us from big opportunities. And as much as I want to say that I'm a good enough trader to not allow that to happen, it's simply not the case yet. Good trading.