1. Daily Profile / Daily Narrative

3 min read

Maintained by Nix Young

This chapter uses daily highs and lows, key levels, candle profile and higher-timeframe alignment to form a daily narrative before assessing a continuation or reversal. It also records the checks used to decide whether the daily read remains relevant and whether price action is sufficiently clean.

Questions this chapter answers

How is a daily high or low assessed?: Check whether it formed from a key level, has swing and correlation confirmation, displaced away, and is supported by clean 30m or 1h price action. Read this section
What separates continuation from reversal in these notes?: Continuation is read after the daily high or low is formed and price respects the existing direction; reversal needs a key level and stronger confirmation. Read this section
Why does candle profile matter?: Wick size, time remaining and the order in which price trades around the open help frame whether a candle is more likely to expand or reverse. Read this section

1.1 Daily High / Low

Community insight

A bullish expansion candle typically opens low first — when it does and leaves the session high still unestablished, that's a good continuation signature, since there's still a target to knife through. — Garrett — "How I Confirm Narrative With Drivers", 29:39

The daily high / low is usually formed before 10:30.
The daily high / low is always made from key levels: a 4h gap or a 1h order-pairing range.
Once the daily high / low is likely formed, price is more likely to trade within the intraday range.
Any move against the DoL is usually treated as:
- a retracement, or
- a reversal.

The daily high / low should not be judged by time alone. Also check:

whether it formed from a key level;
whether there is a swing formation;
whether there is SMT / SS validation;
whether price has displaced away;
whether the 30m / 1h price action is clean.

The swing that actually forms the day’s high/low must be 1h or above — not 30-min. A 15m or 30m PSP can still be used as an additional early-confirmation filter, but it isn’t the swing that creates the level itself.

1.2 Continuation vs Reversal

Community insight

A mechanical, closure-only daily-bias trigger: if a daily candle closes below the previous day's low, expect continuation lower; if it wicks below that low but closes back inside it, expect a reversal and bullish continuation instead — mirrored for the previous day's high. — TTrades — "TTrades Playbook | Fractal Model Fundamentals (TTFM)", 1:23

Continuation

Core features of a continuation:

The daily high / low is already formed.
Price is trading within the intraday range.
Consolidation is usually a continuation signature.
In a trend, price usually respects gaps and manipulates internal swings.
In a trend, 1-stage SMT is usually enough.

Reversal

Core features of a reversal:

Price reaches a key level.
SMT appears.
A Strength Switch is preferred.
PSP / 2-stage SMT appears.
Displacement / gap confirms the move.
HTF reversals usually require higher-quality confirmation.

1.3 Candle Profile Components

Community insights

A candle profile has two components that both need to align: wick size tells you how far it can expand, and whether it opens high or low first tells you how it will actually form. — Garrett — "Filter Price through 'Candle Profiles'", 0:30
A large-wick reversal candle will reverse but is capped near the open, so adjust your targets to stay inside the daily range — a small-wick reversal candle, by contrast, can both reverse and expand in the same candle. — Garrett — "Filter Price through 'Candle Profiles'", 1:24
What counts as opening high or low is whichever side gets manipulated first, not necessarily the very first tick — but opening high and then opening low with nothing in between reads as seek-and-destroy, not a clean directional day. — Garrett — "Filter Price through 'Candle Profiles'", 5:52
Wick size isn't the only filter — a reversal that forms with plenty of the candle's time left can still become an expansion candle, while the same wick forming right at the close has no time left to expand and should be treated as a plain reversal. — Afyz — "Master Class Part 1: Reversals", 34:56
There are two reversal-candle shapes: a fluid open-low-first-then-reverse-into-the-high, which is tradeable, versus open-high-first-then-open-low with nothing established to target — that second shape is seek-and-destroy and shouldn't be framed as a clean reversal. — Garrett — weekly trade recap (4K subscribers), 1:23
The daily candle's wick size is a capacity signal, not a requirement — you don't need a huge daily expansion to catch a worthwhile R:R. The daily just needs a profile (open direction, key level, SMT) that supports the move; the actual entry timing and alignment still comes from the 4h/1h/30m layers underneath it. — Anomaly — Advanced course — Lesson 6: GxT Model, 21:30
Reversal-candle trading (large wick, capped targets) is scoped specifically to the daily timeframe — the same read is deliberately not applied to trade reversal candles on the 4-hour chart. — GxTradez — "Phases of Price & Profiles For Expansion", 26:08
When a bullish candle opens low first, the session high forms very early and hasn't yet tagged any key levels — leaving it as untested, low-resistance liquidity, which is precisely why price is more likely to later expand into and through it. — GxTradez — "Phases of Price & Profiles For Expansion", 20:56
Candle 2 and candle 3 often cover roughly the same total price distance — the difference isn't how far price travels but how: candle 2 splits the distance into an up-leg and a down-leg that ends back near its open, while candle 3 covers the same distance in one direction only. — TTrades — "TTrades Fractal Model - Trading Candle 3", 2:45
An explicit three-tier difficulty ranking for trading a wick-based setup: easiest is letting a large-wick reversal candle close and trading the following small-wick continuation candle; harder is trading the reversal candle itself directly when its own wick is small enough to support expansion; hardest (typically avoided) is trading a large-wick reversal candle directly — if forced to, drop timeframe and target back toward the daily open rather than a break of the daily range. — TTrades — "Wick Size Matters: The Key to Understanding Reversal and Expansion Candles", 5:01
Names a third candle type beyond directional/reversal: the 'indecision candle' (open and close sit close together with large wicks on both sides) — especially likely after a lack of scheduled news or an unusually large previous range; don't expect more than three of the same candle type in a row before a different type follows. — TTrades — "Open High Low Close - Understanding Candlesticks", 9:29
When multiple correlated indices all open the day with a small/flat-bodied candle relative to the prior close (his term: a 'devil's mark'), combined with an unmitigated opposing PDA nearby, treats this as a continuation-bias confluence layer for the next day. — $niper — "The Only Daily Bias Video You'll Ever Need", 7:52
Adds a third confluence layer on top of internal/external-range-liquidity plus SMT: trade only on the wick side of the period's own open — buy below the weekly/daily open if bullish-biased, sell above it if bearish-biased — paired with a fixed cascade (weekly key level → 4H model; daily key level → 1H model). — $niper — "How To Read Candlesticks Made Simple", 0:33
Only takes the long/short once price is trading on the correct side of the daily candle's own opening price (below it for longs, above for shorts) — applied as the qualifying gate for both the initial entry and any later re-entry on the same idea. — $niper — "TheMMXMTrader's Twitter Model | AUDJPY Trade Breakdown | ICT Concepts", 5:44

A candle profile has two components, and both need to align:

Wick size tells you how far the candle is likely to expand. A small wick / large body supports expansion. A large wick / small body will reverse but is unlikely to expand much past the opening price — treat that as candle 2 and wait for candle 3 to trade the actual expansion.
Time remaining in the candle is a second filter alongside wick size. A wick that forms early, with most of the candle’s time still left, has room to become an expansion candle even if it currently looks large. A wick that only forms late, close to the candle’s own close, has little time left to expand — treat that as a reversal candle and wait for the next candle to trade the expansion.
Open-high vs open-low tells you how the candle is likely to form and close. A bullish expansion candle typically opens low first; opening high first, especially into something relevant, is a negative condition.
Open-high or open-low is decided by whichever side gets manipulated first, not necessarily the literal opening tick — a brief early move that doesn’t trade into anything relevant does not invalidate the read.
A reversal candle with a small wick is both a reversal and an expansion candle at once. A reversal candle with a large wick will still reverse, but targets should stay within the daily range (back to the open or a little past it) rather than expecting a break beyond it.
Opening high and then opening low, with no expansion in between, reads as seek-and-destroy / consolidation rather than a clean directional signature.

Personal study notes, shared as-is and in good faith. Educational material only — nothing on this site constitutes financial advice.