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Marking swings without crowding the page
A futures chart becomes hard to read when every bar gets a notch. Here is how we mark swings in the Bangkok room so the trend can still be seen.
Niran Kaewmanee
One notch for a swing, not for a mood
In the classroom we ask students to mark a swing high only when a high is flanked by lower highs on both sides, and a swing low only when a low is flanked by higher lows. That rule is older than any overlay. It is also easy to break when a session felt important.
A large Tuesday bar does not earn a swing mark because the room remembers the day. It earns a mark when the neighbouring bars confirm the turn. If you are unsure, leave the pencil down and write a question in the margin instead of a notch.
Daily first, weekly as a check
Students often jump to the weekly because it looks calmer. We still start on the daily so the swings that actually happened are visible. Then we ask whether the weekly close agrees with the story those swings tell.
If the daily is a sequence of higher highs and the weekly close is still inside last month’s range, the advance is younger than it feels. That sentence belongs under the chart. It does not belong in a speech about conviction.
What we erase
Trendlines that clip closes to look pretty are erased. Labels such as ‘breakout’ written before a weekly close has left a range are erased. The graphite dust on the pack is part of the training. A clean page at the end of four weeks usually means the student stopped drawing.