PART I
Trend Reversals: A Trend Becoming an Opposite Trend
One of the most important skills that a trader can acquire is the ability to reliably determine when a breakout will succeed or reverse. Remember, every trend bar is a breakout, and there are buyers and sellers at the top and bottom of every bull and bear trend bar, no matter how strong the bar appears. A breakout of anything is the same. There are traders placing trades based on the belief that the breakout will succeed, and other traders placing trades in the opposite direction, betting it will fail and the market will reverse. A reversal after a single bar on the 15 minute chart is probably a reversal that took place over many bars on the 1 minute chart, and a reversal that took place over 10 to 20 bars can be a one-bar reversal on a 120 minute chart. The process is the same on all time frames, whether it takes place after a single bar or many bars. If traders develop the skill to know which direction the market will likely go after a breakout attempt develops, they have an edge and will place their trades in that direction.
Reversal setups are common because every trend bar is a breakout and is soon followed by an attempt to make the breakout fail and reverse, as discussed in Chapter 5 of book 2. If the breakout looks stronger than the reversal attempt, the reversal attempt will usually not succeed, and the attempt to reverse will become the start of a flag in the new trend. For example, if there is a bull breakout ...
