Candlestick charts and high and low points.

[Tradido]

Hi!
I'm looking at some candlestick charts and trying to find the existing trends.
But I'm a little confused...
When looking for a low or high point in the chart, which values should I look at:
The high/low values or the closing values?

thanks!

 

[The Leopard]

If you are looking for the high and low points, I would use the highs and lows.

If looking for the closes, I would use the closes.

 

[Splitlink]

If you wait for the bar to complete, you'll probably use the close. Sometimes,I use a 1 bar average on a candle, or bar chart, that will give you, automatically, a line chart through the bars.

In the end, it's all personal preference, though, and there is nothing written in stone.

 

[Tradido]

I'm a begginer, so I didn't quite understand what you mean.
I'll explain my problem in more details :

because I thought that If I use the high and low values - I might get contradicting trends by looking at them.
Suppose the chart contains several candles with the same closing and opening value but their high values increase until time X and decrearse after it, while their low decrease until time X and increase after it.
This will give us in time X a low point when looking at the low values but a high point when looking at the high values, so which is it?

If I'll look at the closing value of a candlestick which can be a high point and there's a candlestick that close a little lower, but its high value is higher than the first candlestick, which of them should be considered as the high point?

 

[Splitlink]

I do not know the answer to that question. All these peaks and lows are, in any case, approximate and lie in zones, or bands, that can be many points apart. A high is just a reversal and means no more than that. You should be aware of them and watchful of a reversal but they can, and frequently do, carry on in the same direction

There is nothing mathematical about TA and your decisions are as good as anyone else's

 

[Shakone]

I'm a begginer, so I didn't quite understand what you mean.
I'll explain my problem in more details :

because I thought that If I use the high and low values - I might get contradicting trends by looking at them.
Suppose the chart contains several candles with the same closing and opening value but their high values increase until time X and decrearse after it, while their low decrease until time X and increase after it.
This will give us in time X a low point when looking at the low values but a high point when looking at the high values, so which is it?

If I'll look at the closing value of a candlestick which can be a high point and there's a candlestick that close a little lower, but its high value is higher than the first candlestick, which of them should be considered as the high point?

Trend is something you define for yourself.

A classical definition of an uptrend might be that we have higher highs and higher lows. Equally you could decide an uptrend is when the 20ema is rising or whatever. Whatever helps you get in on the trends.

You can have higher highs and lower lows like you mentioned. Nothing wrong with that. What exactly are you trying to do?

 

[Tradido]

I was just trying to understand which value of the candlestick we refer to as the actual value when looking for highs and lows.
I think I'll use the average of the high and the low values.

thanks everybody

 

[Shakone]

As the leopard said, the high of the candle is the high. Is this not self-explanatory? Average of the high and low would be the middle.

 

[Tradido]

As the leopard said, the high of the candle is the high. Is this not self-explanatory? Average of the high and low would be the middle.

wait...
Suppose that I'm looking for a up trend.
For this I need to find a low point in the graph and then a higher more recent low point and the same for high points.
(this is what I learned).

So if I look at the graph composed of high values of the candlesticks I might get a different result than the one I'd get by looking at the low values of the candlesticks.
In the picture I attached - if you use the "high" values you'll get a high point but if you use the "low" values, you'll get a low point.
so which is it?

This is why I understood I should use a value which somehow represents the candlestick and it doesn't really matter how.
Did I get it right?

 

[pboyles]

wait...
Suppose that I'm looking for a up trend.
For this I need to find a low point in the graph and then a higher more recent low point and the same for high points.
(this is what I learned).

So if I look at the graph composed of high values of the candlesticks I might get a different result than the one I'd get by looking at the low values of the candlesticks.
In the picture I attached - if you use the "high" values you'll get a high point but if you use the "low" values, you'll get a low point.
so which is it?

This is why I understood I should use a value which somehow represents the candlestick and it doesn't really matter how.
Did I get it right?

You have correctly identified the high and low. I still have no idea what you're trying to do though.

 

[Tradido]

I'm not talking about the *candlestick*'s high and low. I looking at the overall graph in order to find the local minimas or local maximas so I can identify the trends.
In my picture the middle candlestick can be considered a local maxima or a local minima, depends on which values of the candlestick (only high values or only low values) you use to build your graph.
It can't be both, right? so which one is it? :/

 

[neil]

A quick search reveals this link

TradingMarkets | Higher Highs/Lower Lows

 

[Tradido]

A quick search reveals this link

TradingMarkets | Higher Highs/Lower Lows

Ok, so I need to look at the high and low values of the candlesticks in order to identify the trends.
But what happens if I see a case which is composed of segments like in my picture? It will have higher highs and lower lows at the same time!

should I just ignore it because it tells us nothing?

 

[The Leopard]

I think there is some confusion here. It seems that the original poster and the other posters are talking about two different things.

 

[Shakone]

Still a bit confused with what you're trying to do tradido, so apologies if this isn't answering your question.

An example of a local high could be identified as follows:

Look at any 3 bars, if the middle bar has a higher high than either bar surrounding it, then you have a local high.