Measuring moves without inventing precision
Pattern height gives a reference, not a destiny. How we teach measured moves as estimates with clear cancellation rules.
Measured moves are among the most misused tools in pattern work. A trader tallies the height of a flagpole, projects it from the breakout, and treats the tick as a promise. Markets do not owe that tick.
In the Measurement & Invalidation Lab we treat height as a reference band. The classic projection is the centre of attention, but we also mark a nearer scale-out zone and the level that would prove the breakout false. Students leave with three numbers on each chart image, not one.
Precision theatre — quoting targets to four decimals on a daily chart — usually hides uncertainty rather than reducing it. We prefer rounded levels that match how the instrument actually prints. On an ASX equity that moves in cents, inventing fractional fantasy is a distraction from whether the breakout bar even closed beyond the boundary.
If you only take one habit from our training rooms, take this: never project a target without writing the invalidation on the same page. The two sentences belong together. Separating them is how pattern recognition slides into wishful annotation.