The three bars after a very tall volume column

Every few weeks the packet contains a column that dwarfs its neighbours. We call that a climax print only after the room has agreed it is tall relative to the recent columns, not because a headline used the word. The useful work starts on the next three bars, not on the tall one.

What the tall column already spent

A very tall column means a lot of participation arrived in one bar. Some of that participation is people exiting, some is people entering, and the chart does not label them. What we can see is that a large effort has already been spent. The next bars tell us whether price could go further on what remained.

On evening two, Kang Subin covers the tall column with a slip of paper and asks the table to describe only the three bars after it. Did they overlap the climax bar’s range? Did their own volume shrink? Did the close drift back inside the prior range? The slip comes off only after those answers are written.

A shrinking column is a fact

If the three following columns are plainly shorter, participation eased. Price may still drift in the same direction for a while on that lighter attendance. The note records the ease. It does not announce that the move is finished. We have watched lighter columns continue for a session, and we have watched them fail on the next morning’s open. Both belong in the log as later observations, not as a rule pasted onto the tall bar.

Bring this to a marked review if your own charts have a tall column you have already labelled. The hour is often spent removing the label and restoring the three bars that follow it.

Sittings that practice this kind of note are listed under clinics. The pace of the four-evening clinic is on the ledger.