Jul 31

Many of you have heard that price action has a certain fractal nature to it. Here’s a pretty straightforward example which I spotted today.

Below is 2 hours worth of SPN candles from today. Look at the overall picture: a big move up, a reversal to the 38.2% retracement, and a move back up to the same price as the top of the first move.

overallFibs

Now, look “inside” that second thrust up. It’s a miniature replica of the overall move! You can see that it goes up, retraces to the 38.2% retracement, and then heads back up to the top again.

small fibs

Look even harder, and note that the first thrust has a single red candle about 2/3rds of the way through on the “overall” move, and a very flat candle in a similar spot in the “replica” move. There are a couple other, more muddy similarities, that are easy for me to picture but hard to describe. Are they a perfect match? No. But they are similar.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be so incredibly blatant to qualify for “fracticality.” But:

  • Most people picture the famous Mandelbrot Set and its embedded self-similar replicas when they think of fractals.
  • Blatant examples make for better blog posts.