Analysis

Drawing trend lines and channels that actually hold

A trend line is only as good as the two points you anchor it to. Pick two obvious swing lows in an uptrend, connect them, and stop touching it. Most bad lines come from dragging the endpoint until it fits — that is curve-fitting, not analysis.

Anchor, then snap

Grab the trend line tool (hotkey Alt+T), click the first swing, click the second. Decide up front: wicks or bodies. On BTCUSD a line off the wick lows catches the panic spikes; off the closes it tracks conviction. Either works — just stay consistent across the whole chart. Turn on magnet mode from the magnet icon in the top toolbar and pick Strong Magnet, so the endpoint locks onto the exact high or low instead of a pixel nearby.

Channel and projection

For the channel, grab the Parallel Channel tool from the trend-line group in the left toolbar. Click the first swing, click the second to lock the slope, then drag the copy out to the opposite swings and click to set the width. In the channel's settings, tick Extend right so it projects into empty space where price hasn't traded yet. That forward ray is the whole point; a line that stops at the last candle tells you nothing about the next one.

Touches are overrated

Forget the five-touch rule. Two or three clean reactions on a fresh line beat a stale one that's been touched eight times and sliced through twice. Every retest spends the line's edge. Pair the slope with horizontal levels from support and resistance — where a rising line meets a flat level, reactions cluster.