News on this site has been slow these last few days, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been a busy time for trading. Last weekend I took a brief trip to Paris's annual 2-day technical analysis conference right of the Champs Elysées.

A plethora of experts were on hand to give their 2-cents of what's going on in the world of trading. Speakers were pretty much evenly split between French and international professionals.

One conference speaker that was of interest was Felipe Tudela, who is the author of a book on Sokyu Honma. For those of you (like myself) who didn't know any better, Honma is credited with the birth of Japanese candlesticks (and for those of you who still use line charts, make the switch to candlesticks: each candlestick holds 4 times more information than your usual line chart point!).

To sum up his conference in a few lines, he categorised chart movements into 5 categories:
1) Triple tops (which are often followed by a powerful drop),
2) Triple bottoms (which are often followed by a powerful what? ...yes, you guessed it, a rise)
3) Gaps
4) Trends (3 or more consecutive candlesticks with the same colour)
5) Corrections

----- For a genuine trend to be established, the highs (or lows) of the three candlesticks must be consecutively HIGHER (or LOWER).

----- Never open a position on a lower trend in an ascending market (and vice versa).

----- Look for triple tops/bottoms to suggest new trend directions (and this is true no matter what timeframe you're looking at.

This pretty much sums up his speech, which was illustrated by a plethora of examples and explanations.

Open up a chart on your trading platform (real or demo mode) and see how his ideas converge with what you see.

Discuss...