Educational: Pin Bars, False Breakouts, and Leg Starts
Martin Pring coined the "Pinnochio Bar." The Pinnochio Bar, or pin bar, tends to offer very reliable reversal signals when identified and traded properly, according to Pring.
I'm going to give you an in-depth look at the "pin bar", hopefully shedding light on the incompetence of even the 'trading gurus', because I don't think even Martin Pring understood why the Pin Bar is formed during price action.
I've taken a moment to break down multiple timeframes of the same chart, where pin bars were significant reversals. There is actually a technical reason for why this happens, and after understanding, you won't need to guess if the quick movement will hold, nor will you need to wait for confirmation.
Without going into mechanics of algorithms and market makers, the simplest reason for why a pin bar occurs, is because the market provides liquidity to test a significant leg start. That's it. That's all you really need to know. In the main chart, I've illustrated the leg down, and the pin bar that was formed to test the leg start of the leg down.
What is a leg start? A leg start is the first level of support/resistance that price gains or loses to make a swing high or a swing low. Often with the candle that makes the high or the low, the opposite side of that candle will be a close approximation of where the leg start exists. In a swing high situation, usually the low of the candle that created the high, will become the leg start. The rule of leg starts: Rule #1 Price will almost always be repelled on the first test of a leg start.
As price is progressing through legs and levels, that were created on higher time frames, price also progresses to exhaust lower time frame levels and legs. In doing so, pin bars are created because smaller time frames have no levels left to exhaust, thus the market provides liquidity, and a higher time frame leg start gets tested and vice versa.
Here is an example of the same exact process on a smaller time frame leg:
Most traders don't understand legs, levels, and how they work together, so they notice a knee-jerk reaction, usually to news, and then notice that price moves quickly as news provides liquidity to test an untested leg start, and then quickly reverses. Then the crowd cries that 'news caused the reaction', 'it was a false breakout', or even worse --'they were stop hunting.' These moves are completely predictable. I actually took this trade, and here is the chart that predicted the move:
I'm going to give you an in-depth look at the "pin bar", hopefully shedding light on the incompetence of even the 'trading gurus', because I don't think even Martin Pring understood why the Pin Bar is formed during price action.
I've taken a moment to break down multiple timeframes of the same chart, where pin bars were significant reversals. There is actually a technical reason for why this happens, and after understanding, you won't need to guess if the quick movement will hold, nor will you need to wait for confirmation.
Without going into mechanics of algorithms and market makers, the simplest reason for why a pin bar occurs, is because the market provides liquidity to test a significant leg start. That's it. That's all you really need to know. In the main chart, I've illustrated the leg down, and the pin bar that was formed to test the leg start of the leg down.
What is a leg start? A leg start is the first level of support/resistance that price gains or loses to make a swing high or a swing low. Often with the candle that makes the high or the low, the opposite side of that candle will be a close approximation of where the leg start exists. In a swing high situation, usually the low of the candle that created the high, will become the leg start. The rule of leg starts: Rule #1 Price will almost always be repelled on the first test of a leg start.
As price is progressing through legs and levels, that were created on higher time frames, price also progresses to exhaust lower time frame levels and legs. In doing so, pin bars are created because smaller time frames have no levels left to exhaust, thus the market provides liquidity, and a higher time frame leg start gets tested and vice versa.
Here is an example of the same exact process on a smaller time frame leg:
Most traders don't understand legs, levels, and how they work together, so they notice a knee-jerk reaction, usually to news, and then notice that price moves quickly as news provides liquidity to test an untested leg start, and then quickly reverses. Then the crowd cries that 'news caused the reaction', 'it was a false breakout', or even worse --'they were stop hunting.' These moves are completely predictable. I actually took this trade, and here is the chart that predicted the move:
