Why location beats the candle name

In class we ban the phrase “it’s a hammer, so buy” for the first morning. Not because hammers are useless, but because the name arrives before the map.

A hammer after a clean decline into prior demand is a different animal from the same shape mid-range. We ask students to mark three zones before they name anything: the prior swing, the session open relative to the prior close, and whether the wick is fighting an obvious level.

The exercise is simple. Cover the candle name on your worksheet. Write only location notes. Then uncover the name and see whether it still earns a place on your watchlist. Most traders discover half their “signals” were names without addresses.

Bring that habit to the next Foundations Intensive and the checklist will feel less like homework and more like oxygen.