What is Andrew's Pitchfork?
Developed by Dr. Alan H. Andrews, this technical indicator can be exploited to detect most profitable chances as well as sound and reliable support and resistance lines.
It consists 3 points on Peaks and Valleys, on Bearish trend 1st point should be placed on a peak, 2nd point on valley of next wave and 3rd point on peak of next wave.
Utilizing Awesome Oscillator, known as AO, would help traders to detect proper points by identifying phase of peaks and valleys. 1st and 3rd points have same phases while 2nd point has the opposite phase.
On each wave and phase traders must select highest or lowest points to detect useful and correct pattern.
It is believed that in more than 80% of the detected patterns trend would return to Median line, plotted from 1st point while only remaining 20% shows shift of market sentiment toward new trend.
A line can be placed to connect 1st and 3rd points, called Trigger line, to identify a beneficial support/resistance line.
Under particular circumstance when Andrew's Pitchfork pattern has sharp acclivity or declivity, traders can place new 1st point between a straight line from previous 1st and 2nd point to draw new enhanced pattern.
This technical indicator shows long term trend movement toward specific direction. Based on the candlestick patterns near the lines, due to the fact that these lines are powerful support and resistance lines, a trading strategy can recognized with other confirmations from other indicators and oscillators.
If you want to understand the concept of this indicator, consider it as a channel in which the price trend is moving toward top or bottom. Based on the market reactions to a financial or political news plus other strategies, price moves toward one of the lines. At those important areas, traders can use other confirmation to find a good trading spot.
Regarding the Trigger line, price may break the 3rd line out of the channel toward the trigger line and may return from this line. Connecting the 1st and the 3rd lines to draw this line will bring the last support/resistance line for detecting the price movement with the help of Andrew's Pitchfork indicator. Thus, the major candlestick patterns or specific signal from other indicators or tool as well as an important market news near the Trigger line show another trading opportunity that a trader can use for a successful order.
The most important factor in Adrew's Pitchfork pattern is the selection detection of the points; 1st, 2nd and the 3rd points. If the points are not selected correctly then the lines are not providing valid support/resistance lines, hence the signals based on this indicator will probably show unreliable future trends. To specify the valid points, traders must find the specific highs and lows where price returned toward the opposite direction without more or less fluctuations. This may need more investigations on different time-frames.
For instance, you can specify the trend direction on the long-term periods like Weekly or Monthly period, then detect the highs and lows on the 4 hours or 1 hour time-frames. The valid highs and lows may be detected with other strategies and indicators like Divergence/Convergence or RSI, Stochastic and AO.
Different Andrew’s Pitchfork Strategy
Diverse technical analysis can be generated from this pattern with various strength and effect.
Under particular circumstance when Andrew's Pitchfork pattern has sharp acclivity or declivity, traders can place new 1st point between a straight line from previous 1st and 2nd point to draw new enhanced pattern.
Most popular technical analyses are as follows;
- 1stType: When price moves along the line from 3rd point and it cannot proceed near Median line, if it bounces from 3rd line, where there would be other confirmation analyses from MACD, RSI or Candlestick patterns, price would jump toward Median line.
- 2ndType: On a normal pattern, in which price proceeds toward Median line from 3rd line, if price cannot cross Median by a complete candlestick and other confirmations for reversal trend appear then price would probably return from Median line toward 3rd line.
- 3rdType: After price proceeds toward Median line from 3rd line and it bounces back toward Trigger line back without crossing Median line, if it cannot pass Trigger line where other reversal confirmations from indicators and patterns emerge then it would be highly probable that price moves away from Trigger line toward 3rd line.
- 4thType: On the occasion that price proceeds from 3rd line to 2nd line with some fluctuations on Median line, if it cannot pass 2nd line and other reversal confirmations arise, a reversal trend toward Median line can be speculated.