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Time on a P&F chart
There's no time axis, but month markers keep you oriented.
A P&F chart has no time axis. A column can represent an hour or three months, depending on how long price takes to reverse. That's deliberate, but it helps to know roughly when things happened.
Month markers
The classic convention is to replace the first X or O plotted in a new month with a character for that month: 1 to 9 for January through September, and A, B and C for October, November and December.
Month markers let you see at a glance how long a base took to build or how fast a rally ran, without giving up the time-free structure of the chart.
Intraday time markers
On intraday charts the same idea works with days or hours: the first box of each session can be marked so you can see where today's action began. Some charts also mark the year on long-term charts.
Why ignoring time helps
- Quiet periods take no space. A stock that goes nowhere for two weeks adds nothing to the chart, so it can't distract you.
- Fast moves aren't squashed. A sharp rally gets a full column however quickly it happened.
- Patterns are about price, not the clock. A Triple Top is a Triple Top whether it took two hours or two months to form.
Because there's no time axis, the width of a pattern says how many reversals occurred, not how long it lasted. Use month or session markers when timing matters.
For education only. Nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.