The 1-hour chart

One timeframe, one chart. Everything I need to read a market lives on a single 1-hour layout, and every indicator on it earns its place by answering one specific question. This is the exact stack:

Vol (20)
EMA (20, close, 0, None, 14, 2)
EMA (50, close, 0, None, 14, 2)
EMA (200, close, 0, None, 14, 2)
Pivots (Traditional)
VRVP (Number Of Rows, 30, Up/Down, 70)
Zig Zag (3, 5)
OBV (EMA, 20, 2)
Stoch (14, 1, 3)
Stoch (40, 1, 3)
Stoch (60, 10, 1)

Trend — the three EMAs

The 20, 50, and 200 EMAs answer the first question: which way is the water flowing? The 20 tracks the immediate move, the 50 the swing, the 200 the tide. Their order and spacing tell the story at a glance — stacked and fanning apart means a trend with room to breathe; braided together means chop, and chop means patience.

Volume — Vol, VRVP, and OBV

Price says what happened; volume says whether to believe it. The plain volume bars (20-period average) flag conviction on individual candles. VRVP — the volume profile — shows where the fighting happened: the high-volume nodes that act as magnets and the low-volume pockets price slips through quickly. OBV with a 20-period EMA smoothing answers the quieter question of whether money is accumulating or distributing while price goes sideways.

Momentum — three stochastics, three speeds

Three stochastics at 14, 40, and 60 are the same instrument tuned to three tempos — fast, swing, and slow. When all three agree, momentum is unambiguous. When the fast one turns against the slow ones, it is usually noise; when the slow one turns, it is usually news.

Structure — Pivots and Zig Zag

Traditional pivots mark the levels everyone else is watching, which makes them self-fulfilling furniture. Zig Zag (3, 5) draws the swing skeleton over the noise — higher highs and higher lows become visible instead of arguable.

The full stack on MSFT, 1-hour chart.

These are notes on my own screen, not a recommendation. Markets take money from people who borrow other people’s setups without knowing why each piece is there.