My strategy has a 3 consecutive candle rule for 1 min highs/lows — but it keeps costing me valid setups. Need advice.
I trade EUR/USD. My main time frame is 15 and 1 min for entry and I only trade London session. My entry criteria is based on 1 min CHoCH, and I only consider a swing high or low valid if it has **3 consecutive candles** in the move before reversing. The logic being — 2 candle moves can be noise, 3 gives more confirmation.
**Situation 1:** A setup came up with only a 2 candle swing high. I stuck to my rule, didn't take it. Price gave a CHoCH, continued in my direction, and hit what would've been my exact TP. Missed a clean winner because of the rule.
**Situation 2:** A few days earlier, a similar 2 candle structure appeared. I broke my rule due to FOMO and took the trade. Got stopped out.
So now I have one data point each way and I genuinely don't know what to do. The rule exists for a reason I decided during backtesting when I was thinking clearly — but seeing a perfect setup play out without me hurts.
I know two trades isn't enough data to change a rule. But my question is — **how do you guys determine the minimum candle count for a valid swing high/low? Is 3 candles too strict for a 1 min chart? Or is this just variance I need to accept?**
The picture... This is from today. Didn't consider that swing as a valid high because it only had 2 candles. Price said otherwise.
Any traders who use CHoCH/SMC based entries — how do you handle this?
