The four-filter test: trend + level + volume + context — Candlestick Patterns

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Set the chart first

Choose the market, session and timeframe before naming a pattern. A daily board and a five-minute board do not ask the same question, and a candle still forming is not a completed observation. Part 03 explained why session boundaries and data adjustments can change what a chart seems to show.

Then write four answers. This is a test of your description, not a rule that says four ticks mean 'buy'. If an answer is unknown, write unknown. The habit prevents an attractive shape from silently doing the work of evidence it does not contain.

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Lakshmi's card: open each question

Each filter asks for an observable fact and names the mistake it prevents.

The card does not add four marks into a score. Its job is to show exactly which question remains unanswered.

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Fill it in on one morning

Take a separate illustrative morning on Lakshmi's board: first bid ₹30, high ₹30.40, low ₹29.05, last bid ₹30.20. It has a small body near the high and a long lower shadow. That is the shape. Now look beyond it.

Trend: the preceding five sessions made lower closes. Level: the low came five paise from an earlier ₹29 area that had been visited twice. Volume: 180 sacks changed hands; the previous five comparable sessions moved between 60 and 90 each. Context: a supply truck arrived early, but Lakshmi does not know whether buyers expected another one tomorrow.

The four answers support a careful description: after a decline, a lower price near an earlier area was reached and not held, on unusually heavy activity, during a changed supply morning. That is much more informative than 'a hammer appeared'. It still does not show why every buyer acted, whether ₹29 will hold again, or whether tomorrow rises.

One board, four written observations

Four prices: ₹30 · ₹30.40 · ₹29.05 · ₹30.20
Trend: five lower closes before today
Level: low five paise above an earlier ₹29 area
Volume: 180 sacks versus 60–90 on five comparable days
Context: an early supply truck; tomorrow's supply unknown

4answers written before the next board

0claims about tomorrow that those answers prove

When the evidence is missingLakshmi has no reliable sack count for that morning, so the volume filter is left blank — not guessed from the shadow, which is a price measure and cannot carry a quantity. Write unknown and leave it visible. A blank filter is an honest limit on the interpretation, not a failed signal.

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What this card is for — and where it stops

Use the card when a candle or named pattern attracts your attention and you need to decide what the observation actually says. It helps a beginner slow down before attaching a prediction to a picture. It is less useful when the data source, period or market cannot be identified, because the answers would be guesses.

Do not turn the card into a four-out-of-four badge. The filters are not independent votes; an unusual event may also cause high volume and a level test. Nor has Granthara measured a win rate for this checklist. A checklist makes reasoning inspectable. Whether that reasoning has predictive value is a separate empirical question, reserved for 04.05.04.

The next lesson gives you the same shape in two settings and asks you to fill the card before you are shown any answer.

What four answers actually earn youNot a trade, and not a score. They earn you a specific, checkable sentence about what this board shows and what it leaves open — which is the whole job of the card. Whether such reasoning has predictive value is a separate question, and 04.05.04 is where it gets asked.