Ichimoku Theories

What are the Ichimoku Theories?

The Ichimoku Theories are the three doctrines Goichi Hosoda (who wrote as Ichimoku Sanjin) built beneath the five-line chart: time theory, wave theory, and price observation theory. Hosoda treated time as the dominant dimension. Time theory rests on his basic numbers (9, 17 and 26, with longer counts composed from them), counted forward from significant highs and lows to mark windows where a trend may turn, and on equalized spans, the idea that a developing phase often mirrors the length of a completed one. The familiar 9/26/52 settings of the Ichimoku System descend from these numbers.

Wave theory classifies movement into a grammar of I waves (one leg), V waves (two) and N waves (three, the basic trending unit), with contracting and expanding forms in fuller treatments. Price observation theory turns a completed A-B-C swing into four measured targets: N projects the first leg's length from the pullback low, E stacks that leg on top of its high, V doubles the correction's depth above the prior high, and NT projects the A-to-C span upward from C. Together the theories supply the forecasting layer that line-and-cloud reading alone, including the standard Ichimoku Signals, leaves out; every projection is a candidate window or objective, not a promise.

How traders use it

• Counting time: bars are counted from major pivots in basic-number increments to flag windows where turns become more likely, and phases are checked for equalized spans; kindred in spirit to other fixed time cycles work.
• Framing structure: swings are labeled with the I/V/N grammar so that targets and signals are applied to a defined wave rather than to noise.
• Setting objectives: the N, V, E and NT calculations give measured targets for the current wave, usually read alongside the cloud and cross signals rather than in isolation.