Field notes
Three structure marks that usually earn ink
Not every swing deserves a trendline. Here are the marks we keep when cleaning a busy ASX or FX chart in clinic.
Traders often arrive at a Chart Structure Clinic with a forest of rays: every minor pivot connected, Fibonacci fans overlapping, and a moving average for luck. The first task is subtraction.
Marks that usually stay
Last decisive swing — the high or low that ended the prior impulse on your trading timeframe. It frames whether you are still in that impulse or already repairing.
Accepted range boundaries — zones where price has spent time and reacted more than once, not a single wick from six months ago.
Break-and-hold reference — the level that, if reclaimed, turns a breakout story back into a range story.
Marks we often erase
Trendlines that only work with constant redrawing, indicators that contradict each other by design, and “psychological” round numbers that sit nowhere near structure.
Cleaner charts make risk-managed trade setup planning faster because the invalidation is visible without squinting. If you want a guided clean-up on your own watchlist, the Chart Structure Clinic is built for that afternoon’s work.