Chart Techniques for Traders
These guides explain the chart techniques behind our forecasts. Karsten Kagels has traded mainly at support and resistance since 1980, and our forecasts are built on the same kind of key levels.
Start with the task you have right now. Each guide shows real charts, including examples where a level did not hold.
Guides in this topic
- Draw key levels
Support and Resistance: How to Draw and Use Key Levels
Where useful levels come from, how to draw zones with a stated rule and how to turn a level into a trade plan.
- Read price action
Price Action Trading: How to Read Charts Without Indicators
Market structure, key zones and three bar patterns, with a core setup and a real SPY example where the signal failed.
- Trade breakouts
Breakout Trading Strategy: Entries and False Breakouts
How often breakouts fell back into the range in our count of 1,472, and how to plan entry, stop and position size.
- Draw and trade trendlines
Trendline Trading: How to Draw Trendlines and Trade Them
How to draw trendlines with a fixed rule, four strategies for bounces, breaks and retests, and a real SPY line break without a lasting reversal.
- Use Fibonacci levels
Fibonacci Retracement Levels: How to Draw and Trade Them
How to calculate and draw retracement levels, trade pullbacks with confluence and a stop at the structure, and what a ten-year test says about the levels.
- Set Fibonacci targets
Fibonacci Extension: Levels, How to Draw It and Calculator
Three-point extension targets from the end of a pullback, why they differ from levels beyond 100%, a free calculator and three SPY swings, one without a single target reached.
- Trade gaps
Gap Trading Strategy: How to Trade Gaps and When Gaps Fill
Opening and full gaps, the four classic gap types, how often SPY gaps filled in our count since 2001, and plans for gap fill and gap and go.
- Calculate pivot points
Pivot Points: Formulas, Types and How to Trade Them
Formulas for standard, Fibonacci, Woodie, Camarilla and DeMark pivots, a free calculator, which session counts and a real SPY day.
- Swing trade
Swing Trading: 4 Strategies, Risk and Real Examples
Four swing trading strategies on the daily chart, position size, gap risk and US rules, with two hypothetical SPY pullbacks: one hit its target, one was stopped out.
- Identify market stages
Stage Analysis: Stan Weinstein's Four Market Stages
Stan Weinstein's four stages on the weekly chart, a Stage 2 checklist and two TSMC breakouts: one ran for a year, one gapped through its stop.
- Read Wyckoff ranges
Wyckoff Method: Accumulation, Distribution and Springs
Accumulation and distribution with phases A to E, springs and upthrusts as optional tests, and two real TSMC ranges read with and without hindsight.
- Trade Darvas boxes
Darvas Box Strategy: Rules, Entries and Stop Losses
The box rules step by step, when the edges become known, where the stop goes, and a mechanical test on TSMC in 2024 with two honest results.
- Count Elliott waves
Elliott Wave Theory: Rules, Patterns and Fibonacci
The five-wave pattern, three hard rules, zigzags, flats and triangles, Fibonacci ratios and a real DAX count, from the first German translator of the standard work.
- Trade order blocks
Order Blocks: How to Spot, Draw and Trade the Zone
The three conditions behind a valid order block, entry and stop at the zone, two SPY cases from 2026 and a 25-year count where a fixed rule lost money.
- Interpret volume
Volume Analysis in Trading: How to Read Volume Honestly
What volume counts in stocks, futures, forex and crypto, how to read it against its own average, and our SPY test of high-volume days since 2001.
Related articles
- Use VWAP
VWAP Indicator: Formula, Anchored VWAP and TradingView Setup
A volume-weighted reference line for the trading day, with Anchored VWAP from a chosen point.
- Practice with replay
TradingView Backtesting: Test a Strategy Without Real Money
Replay past charts bar by bar and test your level rules before you risk money.