1. Look for a signal with a protruding tail that creates a false-break of a level. Watch for obvious protrusions and false-breaks of key levels in the market. This filter can be applied to trending markets or to counter-trend trades. Wherever you have a key support or resistance level, keep an eye out for false-breaks / protrusions of that level.

2. A long-tailed pin bar is a high-probability pin bar. Long-tailed pin bars work very well in trending markets and as counter-trend signals, as we saw in the examples above. A long-tailed pin bar is always something to keep an eye out for when analyzing the markets.

3. Don’t “bet” on a breakout…wait for confirmation instead. A good filter to use for tempting looking breakout trades is to wait for the breakout and close above or below the level. Then, the breakout is “confirmed” and you can start looking for a signal in the direction of the break. This will help you avoid many false-breaks, especially in range-bound markets.

4. Look for continuation signals after a pullback to support or resistance in the trend. Trend continuation signals are a ‘bread and butter’ strategy that you need to watch for.Watch for trends and then retracements within those trends, then keep an eye out for signals forming from “value” areas that indicate the trend might resume.

5. Don’t trade signals in tight “chop”. Be cautious trading pin bars or other signals that form in thick and choppy consolidation. If you see two or three pin bars in a row as in our example above and the market is not coming off in the direction implied by the pins, it’s an indication that it’s probably not going to come off. We need to see momentum and a clear breakout from consolidation before entering from a signal formed in “chop”.

6. Look for “confluence”. Watch for obvious “hot points” in the market, or areas where two or three or more levels are intersecting…these are very high-probability levels to trade from.