Wyckoff
Accumulation and distribution schematics, the three laws, and the composite man.
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Richard Wyckoff’s early-1900s method reads price and volume as the footprints of large operators: accumulation and distribution ranges, the springs and upthrusts that test them, and the laws (supply and demand, cause and effect, effort versus result) that connect them. It is the grandfather of most modern structure-and-liquidity trading.
The pages follow the method’s own order. The three laws come first. The two schematics map how a range becomes a trend: accumulation, where a spring below support precedes markup, and distribution, where upthrusts above resistance precede markdown. The analytics are the working tools: the Composite Man as a way to read the market as one informed operator, absorption, where price sits inside its range, point-and-figure cause counting, the nine buying and selling tests, and wave and volume studies.
Start here
The method
The framework itself: large, well-financed operators move markets in campaigns, and their activity leaves traces in price and volume.
Laws
Supply and demand, cause and effect, and effort versus result: the three laws the method rests on.
Accumulation schematic
The idealized map of how a downtrend ends and a new uptrend is prepared, with the spring as its decisive test.
Distribution schematic
The topping range where large operators sell into strength, the upthrusts that test it, and the markup and markdown phases on either side of the cycle.
Analytics
The working tools: the Composite Man, absorption, range position, point-and-figure cause counting, the nine buying and selling tests, wave and volume studies, and the shortening of the thrust.