Buying vs Selling Pt1- COLOR, Most have it completely backwards
I'm making a little educational series of tutorials to put some of my trading philosophies into writing for myself but also to help teach anyone interested or provide a fresh perspective to others.
Let's start with COLOR.
From indicator lines, fill regions, background colors, arrows, to barcolors (be it from an indicator or just the basic candle), most traders are looking at a green candle and a red candle in reverse. Novice traders see a big fat candle and think, "Wow, lots of BUYING" then see a huge red candle and think, "Lots of SELLING". I think we inherently associate green with money and like to see lots of green when we have long positions. And then we associate red with emotions of fear and panic, bad things.
Let's have a look at a chart of SPY using the "Ehlers Instantaneous Trend" with ribbon and barcolor to help identify trends and paint them the color we are accustomed to seeing-
Very quickly I'm sure a lot of people think the coloring makes sense and might be looking up the Ehler indicator right now (it is a really cool one so go ahead). What we're seeing is this-
Seems natural to buy when you see these green candles going up and sell/avoid buying when you see red candles going down.
The problem is that that's what dumb money does! They buy when smart money is SELLING. Those green candles are actually the result of a smart buyer who timed things correctly and bought at the lows and is now 1) holding onto their shares, 2) waiting for sell signals. And when those red candles start showing up, dumb money gets all panicky and starts selling their shares. They might wait for closing cost to fall beneath a moving average or some other indicator, then they start selling and voila- capitulation. The price those sellers get is probably not great and when it's all said and done was not very much above what their entry price was.
But as people are selling, smart money is BUYING. They are fishing for a bottom to start accumulating shares. They look for really 'red' days with lots of volume, a perfect cocktail of emotion that gets weak hands to tremble and chase the price down before capitulating and selling for whatever price they can get. And usually when this is occurring, the bottom forms.
Let's reverse the colors of the bars and start seeing things through the lens of smart money-
Now if you are still associating green with buying and red with selling, the world should make much more sense. When the candles turn green here you're a buyer and when they turn red you're a seller. That doesn't mean buy the first candle and every candle, all the time, every time. It means that is when you are waiting patiently for the most opportune moment to buy. And when these candles are red you aren't freaking out and selling, you tell yourself "I am looking for moments when I can take some profits off the board when we get really crazy moves up, and maybe replace some of those shares with a few new shares I purchase at lows or on some bad days". The point is that this is a selling phase. I will go into depth as to why selling phases go up*, because I know that's a concept that people struggle with psychologically. (* there's two kinds of selling, as well as buying, which we'll get into).
Here are some close-ups on candles and their default colors-
Same chart, colors flipped-
Let's start with COLOR.
From indicator lines, fill regions, background colors, arrows, to barcolors (be it from an indicator or just the basic candle), most traders are looking at a green candle and a red candle in reverse. Novice traders see a big fat candle and think, "Wow, lots of BUYING" then see a huge red candle and think, "Lots of SELLING". I think we inherently associate green with money and like to see lots of green when we have long positions. And then we associate red with emotions of fear and panic, bad things.
Let's have a look at a chart of SPY using the "Ehlers Instantaneous Trend" with ribbon and barcolor to help identify trends and paint them the color we are accustomed to seeing-
Very quickly I'm sure a lot of people think the coloring makes sense and might be looking up the Ehler indicator right now (it is a really cool one so go ahead). What we're seeing is this-
- Most of the time the green candles have been when SPY has been rising
- Most of the time the red candles have been when SPY has been falling
Seems natural to buy when you see these green candles going up and sell/avoid buying when you see red candles going down.
The problem is that that's what dumb money does! They buy when smart money is SELLING. Those green candles are actually the result of a smart buyer who timed things correctly and bought at the lows and is now 1) holding onto their shares, 2) waiting for sell signals. And when those red candles start showing up, dumb money gets all panicky and starts selling their shares. They might wait for closing cost to fall beneath a moving average or some other indicator, then they start selling and voila- capitulation. The price those sellers get is probably not great and when it's all said and done was not very much above what their entry price was.
But as people are selling, smart money is BUYING. They are fishing for a bottom to start accumulating shares. They look for really 'red' days with lots of volume, a perfect cocktail of emotion that gets weak hands to tremble and chase the price down before capitulating and selling for whatever price they can get. And usually when this is occurring, the bottom forms.
Let's reverse the colors of the bars and start seeing things through the lens of smart money-
Now if you are still associating green with buying and red with selling, the world should make much more sense. When the candles turn green here you're a buyer and when they turn red you're a seller. That doesn't mean buy the first candle and every candle, all the time, every time. It means that is when you are waiting patiently for the most opportune moment to buy. And when these candles are red you aren't freaking out and selling, you tell yourself "I am looking for moments when I can take some profits off the board when we get really crazy moves up, and maybe replace some of those shares with a few new shares I purchase at lows or on some bad days". The point is that this is a selling phase. I will go into depth as to why selling phases go up*, because I know that's a concept that people struggle with psychologically. (* there's two kinds of selling, as well as buying, which we'll get into).
Here are some close-ups on candles and their default colors-
Same chart, colors flipped-
Disclaimer
The information and publications are not meant to be, and do not constitute, financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice or recommendations supplied or endorsed by TradingView. Read more in the Terms of Use.