Three questions before you draw a level
12 June 2026 · Mara Ellison
Most crowded charts fail for the same reason: the trader marks every pause as if it were structural. Before the pencil touches the printout, ask:
- Where did price actually change behaviour? Look for a swing that forced a sequence of higher lows or lower highs, not a single doji that felt dramatic in the moment.
- Has the market returned to this area with a reaction? One touch is a candidate; a second reaction with similar urgency earns more ink.
- What price retires this idea? If you cannot name an invalidation level in one breath, the mark is decoration.
In the Mapping Workshop we force these answers onto paper before anyone opens a drawing tool. It feels slow. It also empties the chart of lines you would have abandoned after the next London open anyway.
Keep the answers in your journal beside the screenshot. When you review on Sunday, you are grading the quality of the questions — not rewriting the past to match the close.