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I have not been using the pitchfork in my trading, but I found it interesting based on some things I have read. Here is a pic of YM today. I was playing around and drew one in hours before it was tested. What I found interesting is that it aligned with a setup of my method.
I traded the first test from yesterday at the 10250 area because it was a set up in my plan. I did not trade it because of the median line. I do which I had held overnight. :-)
I am going to watch them for the fun of it. and see if they create ant confluence with my set ups. For now it's just like doing it.
Mikula's book is good but it touches on some finer points of Andrews work, which might be missed in the beginning. Integrated Pitchfork Analysis by Dologa:
It's a very good all around book. It spends alot of time on choosing the pivot, which is crucial to whether a pitchfork has any predictive ability or just proves to be more confusing than anything else.
Another key is to find a timeframe that suits the instrument and you best. For me, 15 mins tends to work best for ES and currencies. Warning lines and sliding parallels are also curcial concepts to master, that I often see people ignore. The high probability move to the median line is a decent play, but doesn't compare to action at the various reaction lines. Andrews would take a move to a reaction line and immediately reverse.
Here's a CL chart I started marking up yesterday at 4 am. I rarely use pitchforks on CL (great with fx) but this thread prompted me to take a look at CL.
At point (2), I wasn't sure if anything was there, but was testing for a turning point off of the price reaction from DOE release (1). I like to use pitchforks to anticipate market turns, as opposed to "curvefitting" the bulk of a prior move. The advantage is when you find a move beginning, there is plenty of action to play out - plus the curve fitting approach that many take is just so wrong.
Back to the chart: I watched it trade up to point (3), then the selling reaction and CL fell to touch the sliding parallel precisely at (4). At this point I knew I had something and I had various confirming data, so I took a position with a very low risk stop. Nice move followed to (5) and done. I took zero heat and a nearly instantaneous anticipated movement off of this pitchfork. Woke up this morning to see that the sliding parallel continues to be support, which should provide more opportunities. Anyway, this is a brief look at how I use them.