Andrews Pitchfork (Median Line)

Hi TIK,

That's a nice chart. I had completely missed, at first, how it's point A starts relative to the 50%P&T (aka midpoint) from P0-P1, but still uses P3 (B) and P4 (C) for the fork. You described it. I just glossed over that detail too fast. I've never tried that. And I either never knew, or have forgotten, that technique if it was one of Andrews.

Regards to how you describe it as " P0/P1 Schiff P3-P4 Median Line to pick P5", the word "Schiff" is misused by many forkers. I don't mean to detract from your otherwise great and interesting analysis, and maybe it's a nitpicky observation, but -- as derived from a regular fork -- a "Schiff" means 50% of just price, and a "Modified Schiff" means 50% of both price & time (aka midpoint). The midpoint you used is the later, so use of the word "Schiff" has the wrong implied meaning. Best to just say "midpoint" because that -- to me -- is more clear. If it were just of price, I'd say "50% price" or "mid-price".

I'm sure of my definitions, and a long time ago, I clarified it with Tim and he agreed. Here's a couple pictures from a site (no affiliation) that has it correct: Schiff and Mod.Schiff A lot of tools improperly swap the names, and a lot of PF traders get them mixed up.

I like all the other reasons you cited for the P5 pivot formation.

So when was it you were drawing this fork that shows such a nice P5 touch to the ML. Live, when it was fresh? Or soon after? Such resonance, or sets of lines like this, do occur to me/us in hindsight, but it's the real-time anticipation of such pivots that gives the entries.

Welcome. Please give more examples. Thanks in advance.

Hello Pips4life,

Pleased you like the chart. You are correct in that the chart should read " P0/P1 Mod.Schiff P3-P4 Median Line " however if you ever lucky enough to read some of his newsletters and/or examples he actually calls them Schiff ML's and leaves it up to you to make the distinction, that is where some confusion may lye. I have seen one chart where he does make the distinction ie. He calls it Usual Schiff ML & Modified Schiff ML. Interestingly enough I recently discovered a way he used both to actually forecast not only the Pivot meeting the ML ( Like my example ) but the NEXT PIVOT! I am yet to test it on my charts.

Your question refers to context, ie. when do you start drawing in the forks expecting a P5? Whenever I look at a chart I begin by looking at the most recent pivot that has been confirmed and asking myself one simple question. Could this be the 4th pivot in a sequence? ie. Can I see a clear progression of Pivots beginning with P0? If yes I start drawing in the forks especially the one in my example. If it's not, I wont draw the above mentioned fork as he was quite specific that he used it to pick a P5! In the example you can see as the market drifting down from P4 it was also forming potentially 5 clear "mini" pivots as it came into the ML. Very often also as it hits the ML you would do some form reading looking for tells that price was being rejected at this point. I describe a nice one on my chart ( Alternate closes ) again he only used this little form reading technique around a probable P5 area. I describe other reasons on the chart that are all providing excellent confluence and they are all Andrews Technique's

Note: Sometimes when you draw the above Fork trying to anticipate a P5 ( Change in Trend ) you will notice that market has clearly broken the ML, in this case it hasn't worked for a reason you may not be aware of. example: wrong pivot count and/or selection etc. I just play around with different pivots ( but still adhering to basic fork construction ) and like Kapital, look for market resonance around the main lines ie: ML's, MLH, Re-tests etc. I also try to draw STANDARD FORKS even if price is not neatly respecting either the ML or more importantly the MLH ( Median Line Parallels ).......I know there are times when a Schiff or Mod Schiff are a better fit, however, The ORIGINAL STANDARD FORK to me is the most powerful, correctly interpreted, it tell me alot more about where price is headed

I will post more examples soon, but my example is one of my favorite setups

PS: Also note how important the number 5 is in Andrews Techniques

Hello again,

I have done a quick analysis of the EUR/USD 60 illustrating how powerful a Standard Fork is used in combination with a sliding parallel. Notice on the upward fork after the spike the market broke the Sliding Parallel & then pulled back into it.....This is one of the safe areas where trades where taken ie. Backside Retests of either MLH or SP's. Also notice where my minimum target and high probability target is based on the Price Failure Rule.

The downward fork is nicely running along the upper MLH. Notice how steep this fork is and how unlikely the ML is to be reached Thus I am searching for the break of the Sliding Parallel and then a retest possibly giving me a nice early long entry.Also notice the sliding parallels are similar in distance to the parallels around 60-66pips

In the second diagram I converted them all to Mod. Schiff. Take a look at the bottom right hand circle in both......nice confluence!

Sincerely,

TIK

TIK, you know your forks! Great EU charts. I replicated the down Andrews and its MS. The MS ML was double-touched, which I'm sure you well know is quite common for steep forks sloped in the same direction that price is approaching (i.e. a down sloped PF, approached by a downward price move).

The first touch was a slight overshoot by a few pips (<5). The second most recent touch was absolutely perfect (+/- 0.0p) on my Daily chart (ECN feed, GMT-5, 6b/wk) at 1.33327 low. Fyi, the same PF on my H1 has an intercept of 1.33320 at the hour the low was made, so price held shy by -0.7p. About 1-3p shy is most ideal, indicating good bounce-or-reversal pressure.

If I have such strong evidence in hand, real-time, and the confluence of other clues/pattern/structure/counts, then I'm perfectly willing to take counter-trend trades. The huge difficulty is to see them live, when the risk is still low. It's still up 20p from the low, but it could come all the way down and still not invalidate the long setup.

(Edit) P.S. I marked some of the resonant points in the past to the same MS lines farther away from the ML. It's hard to take such into account real-time, but it's interesting when such resonance occurs.

Here's another point of resonance for the recent EU low. The Andrews had a nice intra-fork point of resonance to its ML (upper gray circle), and it bounced almost 200p, but held shy of the half-line (aka quartile), a sign of weakness. After the ABC 3-count move, it broke lower through the LML, but has now respected the WL#1 (lowest gray circle). A sharp move so far with some big M1 candles.

Here is a pitchfork that has very good resonance using a non-standard A pivot (p0):

I'm liking the pre-resonance along the lower quartile of the Catalin upfork, which is a possible indication of future resonance.

USDCAD,Daily. Red fork ML formed a strong pivot early July (pink circle). Black fork uses that bounce as its C. Look at the many strong points of resonance pre-fork (gray circles). The black ML just held for a bounce, perhaps in part because the overall black fork has good resonance.

NZDUSD weekly chart

NZDUSD,Weekly a busier chart to consider.

You didn't say, but maybe your cyan fork is a Mod.Schiff?? Matches mine (magenta).
Blue SP has best accuracy for the latest bounce, but magenta MS ML is good, as is
also the red halfline (aka quartile). Not far is also the black halfline.


At the previous high pivot, price held shy of my red UML more so that what it appears to do on your chart.

Same forks, but Daily (UTC-5, 6b/wk), and closer in. Lots of interesting past touches to the lines. The latest low held a little more shy of the blue SP than vs. the weekly perspective, but I added a green SP from the middle pivot. The latest low was between the blue and green SP's. The gap between SP's is only ~9p, so either one is good accuracy.

Reply @ pips4life: Great charts! interesting use of ML's & Schiff ML's backwards to observe resonance. Also the use of halves & quarts to observe the effectiveness of these divisions is an excellent technique on longer term charts. What I find is that each forex pair resonates to either the fibs or Halves/Quarts/Eighths or other combination, see my EURUSD Monthly. I picked this as a major turn a few weeks back on the EURO.

I notice you mention taking real-time entries based on price reaching Andrews Lines in general. Ideally you need to develop a rule set that allows relatively low risk entry when price touches or slightly exceeds one of these lines. ALL the Andrews Lines provide this broad based filter ie. There should be either a rejection or blow through then a test. It is then a matter of taking a mechanical entry based on a rule set that you are comfortable with example: Candle Pattern/Pullback/Stop Placement/Time of Day/Context etc.......I have attached one of my recent trades based on a 4th touch in this case of an SP.......I normally would like a deeper pullback to the High's however I will take a break of the Asian high's any day if it ALSO MEETS AN ANDREWS LINE........

Reply @ Kapital: I am not familiar with Catalin Forks however I see how you have used it to find resonance & confluence......which is what it's all about!

Case for a short (right ellipse):

Yes Pips4life, Modified Schiff. I had the SP on but as of lately it wasn't resonating like the Modified one.

euro

Rolling Chop (failure to reach median line)?

gold and Eur/usd 240m

My cat is a Median Line trader! Who knew?? Up as much as 20 pips! (But down to as little as 3p a bit ago, but ~ +16p now).

Went to bed last night, flat all positions. Very (pleasantly) surprised to wake up this AM to a trade in profit??! In fact, it was an entry 90 min before I woke up. A mystery indeed.

It turns out...

My cat loves my warm laptop keyboard. Though I've disabled the MT4 option for "One click trading", on occasion, I bring up the Buy/Sell window and fill in the #Lots, and then I position the cursor to take the trade that I might later decide to open with a single left-click on the button next to the touchpad. (It's an older laptop which has such buttons, but a tap on the touchpad will do the same thing, as with newer laptops). (Note to self: always check the cursor position before the click!). By chance, I went to bed with my laptop with the Buy/Sell window ready to take a big trade. (Note to self: NEVER do this again!!)

I guess she liked the EU trade setup. She went long at 07:05:44 EDT at 1.33410, soon after the black ML touch. The trade was never down more than the spread.

She's pretty calm about the whole thing, actually. AFAIK, she hasn't come in to check on her trade even once, not even when her +20p slipped down to +3. IMO, she might want to watch out for the green LML retest. It caused a 68% retracement, which might be done now, but be careful. Back up to +16p.

P.S. She doesn't believe in entering any Stop/Loss or Take/Profit. Bad kitty!!

P.S.S. As long as I don't screw it up from here -- which is still a possibility -- she's covered her food supply for the year. Actually, I just closed 1/3 at +16 so she's a good kitty now. We're square.

Jade, my Cat Trader. This is where kitty does her work.

Hello Pips4life,

That was so such a funny post, made me laugh! You really need to send this to Myth Busters.....Proof that cat's are not only highly intelligent but more profitable than most traders

Sincerely,

TIK