HOW-TO: Spotting Turning Points with Power BarsPHLX SemiconductorTVC:SOXDrOkanErol Profiterol Power Bars delivers its most valuable readings at turning points: the moments when market strength shifts from one extreme of the spectrum to the other. This guide is a reading reference for spotting those turns through the indicator's color sequence. Nothing here prescribes a trading action. Readers form their own interpretation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE ANATOMY OF A TURN Every turn appears in the colors as a three-phase sequence: • Approach: One extreme color dims as strength fades from its previous reading. Bright green darkens toward teal, or bright red lightens toward mild red. • Inflection: The passage through brand blue. The neutral midpoint communicates that the previous directional pull has ended. • Departure: The opposite extreme begins building. Teal deepens toward bright green, or mild red deepens toward bright red. The three phases unfold across multiple bars. The approach begins before the inflection becomes visible. The departure confirms the new direction once the blue passage is complete. The reading is a process, not an instant. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE BLUE PASSAGE Brand blue at the center of the spectrum is the single most informative region. When a sequence of bars prints at or near the neutral midpoint, the chart is communicating that decisive directional strength has dissipated on the perspective shown. The blue passage does not predict where the market will go next. It simply marks that the prior regime has ended. What follows depends on whether the colors continue through to the opposite extreme or retreat back to the side they came from. A completed turn requires the colors to clear the blue band and brighten on the opposite side. An approach to blue that does not clear is a hesitation, not a turn. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TURNS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS Upward turns and downward turns are mirror images of each other. An upward turn moves from red through brand blue into green. The colors progress from bearish strength through neutrality into bullish strength. The price-scale label transitions from red, through blue, to green. The marker on the spectrum scale travels from left to right. A downward turn moves from green through brand blue into red. The colors progress from bullish strength through neutrality into bearish strength. The price-scale label transitions from green, through blue, to red. The marker travels from right to left. The logic of the reading is identical in both directions. Only the destination differs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FAST TURNS AND SLOW TURNS Not all turns unfold at the same pace. Some compress into a handful of bars. Others stretch across many. A fast turn shows a tight color sequence: approach, blue passage, and departure complete within a small number of bars. Fast turns often appear during sharp directional shifts driven by news or volatile sessions. A slow turn shows an extended color sequence: the approach drifts through many bars of dimming, the blue passage may persist for a wide stretch, and the departure builds gradually. Slow turns often appear at the boundaries of longer-term regimes. The pace of the color change communicates the pace of the underlying strength shift. The reading is the same in both cases. Only the timescale differs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COLOR AHEAD OF PRICE Watching color independently of price is the indicator's most distinctive value at turning points. Strength can fade through several bars while price continues to make new extremes. A run of bright-green bars may continue to print at new highs while the green darkens with each bar. The reading is communicating that the move is losing conviction, even as price holds up. The same applies in reverse on the bearish side, where the red can lighten while price still grinds lower. By the time the colors complete the passage through brand blue, the new direction is already visible in the reading even when price has not yet made its decisive move. The colors usually shift first. The price action confirms what the colors have already said. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLES EXAMPLE 1. AN UPWARD TURN The chart shows a complete upward turn unfolding across multiple bars. The left portion shows red losing its depth from late March through early April as bearish strength faded (the approach). The middle shows the brand-blue passage where directional pull eased. The right portion shows green building from teal toward brighter green through April and May (the departure). The new bullish regime is now visible in both the bar color and the price-scale label. EXAMPLE 2. A DOWNWARD TURN The chart shows the mirror image of an upward turn. The left portion shows green dimming through teal across the late January peak as bullish strength faded (the approach). The middle shows the passage through brand blue. The right portion shows red building toward its deeper hues from early February onwards (the departure). The reading communicates a regime change marked by the same three phases, ending in the opposite color. EXAMPLE 3. COLOR LEADING PRICE The example shows two instances of color preceding price within the visible range. At the February peak, green dimmed through teal and brand blue before the sharper portion of the March drawdown developed. At the April bottom, red lightened through brand blue before the dramatic May recovery began. In both cases the color sequence completed its passage through the transitional band ahead of the price action's most decisive move. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DISCLAIMER This indicator is an educational and informational tool, not personalized investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Trading involves risk, including loss of principal. All trading decisions are your responsibility. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ USEFUL LINKS • Profiterol Power Bars: