After a decade trading I settled on using candlesticks on my charts. I like how candles visually represent price action and quickly show the contrast of the open, close and daily range. I use them in correlation with my trading system as confirmation and confluence with my existing signals.
I was very happy when a trader and educator that I admired created a free candlestick eCourse. This was an advanced course with more than just theory but also a thorough study of actual backtesting, quantifying, and looking at results of candlestick patterns across multiple markets, trends, and years of data.
JB Marwood has created this informative Candlestick eCourse on his website. He starts out by explaining the history of candlesticks as visual representations of price action on charts and then moves on to the basic principles behind candlestick chart patterns. This course reveals the historical performance of all the classic candlestick patterns across the futures markets, forex markets, and stock market. Mr. Marwood uses Amibroker coding to backtest the visual patterns of candlestick charts. It is very interesting to quantify candlestick pattern performance and see the results versus the preconceived opinions about how they should play out based on traditional beliefs.
The author also adds in moving averages and RSI into his tests as confirmation of patterns to help improve the results of standalone candlesticks. This course backtests 25 of the most popular candlestick charts patterns across all major futures, forex, and stock markets. Marwood explains how to turn these signals into your own complete trading system. The image in this blog post represents the course patterns looked at along with an included candlestick eBook. The results of his backtesting suggest that some patterns are not profitable at all and he presents the results clearly for you to see. The backtesting results in this eCourse also reveal that one specific candlestick pattern is better than every other that was tested.
Anyone interested in the markets for stocks, forex, futures, and trading candlestick patterns will find this course a great value for its education and information and it is free! I was very impressed with his work as an educator through this eCourse.
Of course, candlestick patterns can be used inside your own system to create good risk/reward ratios on entry and create an edge through letting the winning trades run and cutting your losing trades short.
Here is a link to this free course by JB Marwood –> Candlestick Analysis For Professional Traders