Given The Time Rule For Zones, Where Do I Place My Entry?

Really enjoyed this ebook referenced above… thank you.  

I really hope, someday, I am able to describe what is going on on a chart like you did on pages 43-44.  Can you recommend additional reading material that would improve my understanding of charts, candle by candle ?

I am learning to trade supply / demand zones.  Couldn’t help look at charts on pages 36 & 42, and asking myself: Ok given the 24 hour rule for zones in H1 charts, where do I place my entry ???  

It appears unless price returned to zones where large institutions, such as on page 36, place their buy trades within 24 hours of the large move up, I would have missed the trade.

I assume its being able to recognize a retracement, being able to gauge how strong the retracement will be ( pause or trend reversal )  and then find a strong plausible zone nearby to catch the retracement as it turns back toward trend  or proceeds with trend reversal  ???

How on earth do I do that ????   lol   What frustrates my trading is being able to gauge the strength of an impulse/retracement or of S/D Zone.  Felt I need to be able to understand chart development, candle by candle to be able to accomplish this.  This ebook showed me that it is possible to do so.

I have purchased other ebooks from you:

How to determine when a reversal is going to take place; and
What causes consolidations and retracements to form. 

I think this book will help my understanding of these other books better.

Any advise on the above questions is greatly appreciated.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to produce all the material that you have, especially the e-books,  in order to help improve other people’s  trading.

Regards…

My Response:

On learning resources

I stand by my books and the articles on my site as your best bet. There are some good books out there on candlesticks, but their usual definitions can often cause confusion — they tend to treat every named pattern (pin bar, engulfing, doji, etc.) as if it’s meaningful in isolation, which isn’t how bank trading actually works. The patterns that matter to you are the ones that reveal what the banks just did.

My main advice: focus on candlesticks with large wicks

These are formed when bank traders either place trades or take profits off trades. That’s it — that’s the entire significance. A large wick is a footprint of institutional activity, and the direction of the wick tells you which side of the market they were on.

As you analyze charts, ask yourself: what might have caused the wick to form?

An example to make it concrete

If price is trending lower and you spot a bearish candle with a large lower wick (it doesn’t have to be a bullish pin bar — this is important), it could signal the bank traders have just:

• Placed a significant number of buy trades, or
• Taken substantial profits off open sell trades.

Either way, the wick represents demand showing up at that price. The banks didn’t leave it there by accident. And because the wick is on the lower side of a bearish candle, it tells you the selling pressure was real, but something stopped it before the close.

That’s the kind of reading you want to develop — not “this looks like a pin bar, therefore reversal,” but “the wick on this candle tells me someone large acted here, and the direction tells me which way.”

On the 24-hour rule

The 24-hour rule isn’t an absolute one. It’s a heuristic — a starting filter — not a law. Certain zones, based on their formation in the market, are still viable for trade after 24 hours.

Explaining why certain zones function beyond the 24-hour limit is quite complex, because it differs per zone. It comes down to factors like where the zone sits relative to higher-timeframe structure, how much order flow is likely still unfilled there, and whether the zone was formed against or with the trend. There’s no single rule I can give you that covers every case.

What I can do is flag them for you — my weekly analysis will highlight those zones suitable for trading beyond 24 hours. Treat that as your reference for the exceptions, and default to the 24-hour rule the rest of the time.

On trade entry at a supply or demand zone

Place your entry order at the near edge of the zone, not through it:

• Supply zone → place your entry at the bottom edge
• Demand zone → place your entry at the top edge

The reason is simple: the near edge is the first price where institutional orders are likely to sit. Entering there gives you the best available price while still being inside the zone. Placing your entry at the far edge assumes price will travel all the way through the zone before reacting, which it often won’t — you’ll miss trades you should have caught.

On retracements composed of large candlesticks

In my experience, if a retracement composed of large candlesticks propels price back towards a supply or demand zone, it indicates the zone may not cause a reversal.

For example: if I observed a move like this pushing price back towards a supply (or demand) zone, I wouldn’t go short at the zone.

The logic is this: a retracement made of large candles is itself institutional activity. Someone is committing size on the way back to the zone. If the banks were planning to reverse at the zone, you’d typically expect the approach to be more hesitant — smaller candles, waning momentum, price drifting into the level. A strong, large-candle push into a zone suggests the orders behind that push intend to keep going through it, not reverse at it.

That’s not a hard rule either, but it’s a useful filter. When you see a large-candle retracement approaching a zone you’d otherwise trade, stand aside.

A closing note on all of this

None of these are mechanical rules — they’re ways of reading what the banks are doing behind the chart. The wick-reading, the 24-hour filter, the entry placement, the large-candle warning — all of them are attempts to answer the same question: is there real institutional interest at this price, and is it still there? Keep that question in mind and the specific rules will make more sense.

Hope these pointers help.

PAN.