Portable swing rules for candle turns and a 1-2-3 wave count

One portable swing procedure

Swing trading, as used here, is a holding-period procedure that looks for regular, large-enough price moves and encodes entry, exit and abstention as one testable rule set. Swing-style rules are described as usable on any market that produces regular, sufficiently large moves.

The published indicator rules were encoded in a trading-platform scripting language and also released as plain text. The same swing procedure can be applied to instruments and to non-time bars such as range or renko constructions after the settings are adapted. A 1-2-3 wave count can be applied below the daily bar, including intraday work, if its settings are adapted to the instrument and the chosen time frame.

Wave count as a component, not a standalone signal

The 1-2-3 wave count is a three-swing labeling of successive turns used as one input to a larger swing-rule set, not as a complete standalone signal. It is presented as one component of a larger indicator-rule swing system and is not meant to be used alone. Using wave counts without the rest of the rule set is described as requiring a backtest of the chosen settings first.

Elliott wave analysis is a multi-swing labeling scheme. One implementation note treats Elliott-wave labeling as too subjective and too logic-heavy to encode, and looks instead to simpler peak-valley identification.

Candle turns, peak-valley marks and a size filter

Candlestick patterns, as used here, are repeatable open-high-low-close conditions, including step-candle logic at peaks and valleys, written so a chart turn can be encoded in a spreadsheet or platform. Step candlestick logic at peaks and valleys can be rewritten as spreadsheet procedures and combined with a minimum percent swing to mark a trend between apexes on daily or intraday bars.

Two definitions are treated as necessary on every time frame: how turning points are identified, and how a noisy trend is distinguished from a peak or valley. Peak-valley means a turning point defined on any time frame so later rules can tell a completed swing from noise inside a trend. A minimum percent swing is the size filter that ignores smaller oscillations when marking apexes and the trend between them.

What to encode and what to retune

The archive facts describe a historical workflow: write the swing filters, the candle turns and the 1-2-3 wave count as one rule set, then adapt settings when the instrument, the time frame or the bar type changes. Non-time bars can still host that same swing procedure after those settings are adapted.

Editorial: do not swap the peak-valley test or the minimum percent swing for a looser Elliott-wave label when the goal is a portable, encodeable procedure. Keep the three parts together and change only the settings that the instrument, the time frame and the bar construction actually require.