You draw an Andrews pitchfork across a clean trend and it looks perfect. The price rides the lower prong, taps the middle, rolls over at the top. Then the next trader loads the same chart, anchors a slightly different swing, and draws a fork that points somewhere else entirely. Same price, two maps.
That is the whole tension with this tool, and by the end of this guide you will know how to anchor it so it describes a real trend, how to trade the median line without fooling yourself, and where a fixed level is the safer bet.
Key Findings
- Three points, three lines: the fork is anchored to a starting pivot plus the swing high and swing low that follow, then projects a center line and two parallels forward.
- The median line is the magnet: price tends to drift back toward the center prong, which is why most traders watch it rather than the outer lines.
- Your anchors decide everything: pick different swings and you draw a different fork, so the tool is only as honest as the pivots you choose.
- It does not repaint, but it can flatter you: the lines stay put once placed, yet re-anchoring to fit old price is a self-inflicted version of the same problem.
What is the Andrews pitchfork, and what is the median line?
The Andrews pitchfork is a set of three parallel lines that fan forward from three swing points, and the middle one is the median line. You give the tool a starting pivot, then the next clear swing high and swing low. It draws the center line from the starting pivot through the midpoint of that high and low, and runs two outer lines parallel to the center through the high and through the low.
The result looks like a three-pronged fork tilted along the trend. The outer prongs act as a channel, roughly bounding the swing. The center prong, the median line, is the part Alan Andrews built the method around. Andrews, an engineer and trader, taught his median-line approach from the 1960s onward, and the StockCharts ChartSchool reference documents the original construction if you want the source.
His core observation was simple and worth stating plainly: after price leaves the starting pivot, it comes back to test the median line more often than not. Not every time. Often enough to be useful as a reference for where a move might pause or reverse.
How do you draw an Andrews pitchfork correctly?
Everything rests on the three anchors, so pick swings that any trader would recognize, not candles you cherry-picked. Start on a decisive pivot where the trend turned. Set point two on the next obvious swing high and point three on the next obvious swing low. The platform draws the rest.
Two habits keep the tool honest. First, use pivots with space between them; three points crammed into a few candles produce a fork so steep it describes noise. Second, if you find yourself hunting for the anchors that make the picture look neat, stop. The right pivots are the ones you would have marked before you knew where price went next.
How do you trade the median line and its channels?
The working idea is that price returns to the median line, so the center prong is your decision point, not the outer ones. In an established trend, watch how price behaves as it drifts back toward the middle. Price that reaches the median line, stalls, and turns back in the trend direction supports the fork staying valid. Price that cuts clean through the median line and holds on the far side is your warning that the channel is breaking.
The outer prongs give you context, not entries. In a healthy trend price often rides between the median line and one outer prong, using the far prong as an extreme it rarely reaches. Treat a tag of the outer line as a place to manage risk or take partials, not as a reversal signal on its own.
One honest caveat: a pitchfork works far better in a trending market than a ranging one. Sloped lines drawn over sideways chop will always find something to touch, and that is the trap. If the trend is not obvious to the naked eye, the fork is decorating noise. Pair it with the broader read you would get from support and resistance mastery so you are only trusting the fork when a real trend is there to frame.
RelicusRoad Pro
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Get RelicusRoad ProAndrews pitchfork versus fixed levels: which should you trust?
A pitchfork gives you sloped, trend-following lines; a fixed level gives you a price that does not move. They are different tools for different questions. The comparison below lays out where each one earns its place.
| Feature | Andrews pitchfork | Fixed horizontal level |
|---|---|---|
| Line behavior | Sloped, tracks the trend’s angle | Flat, marks a specific price |
| Set by | Three swing anchors you choose | A price where buyers or sellers reacted before |
| Discretion involved | High: different anchors, different fork | Low: the price is the price |
| Best market | Clear, directional trend | Ranges, breakouts, key reaction zones |
| Main weakness | Invites false structure in chop | Says nothing about trend angle |
| Moves after you draw it | No, but re-anchoring shifts it | No |
Both belong in a toolkit. Many traders keep fixed levels as the primary map of where price has actually reacted, then add a pitchfork or a linear regression channel as a secondary read of how steeply the current trend is moving. The RelicusRoad road levels approach leans on the first camp: structural zones that stay fixed and do not depend on which swings you happened to anchor.
Does the Andrews pitchfork repaint?
Once the three anchors are set, the lines are locked, so the drawing itself does not repaint. This is worth being precise about, because “repaint” gets thrown at every tool. A repainting indicator is one that quietly redraws its own past signals after the fact, so a back-test looks flawless and the live version fails. An automatic Elliott wave tool that keeps relabeling its counts is a textbook case. The pitchfork does not do that on its own; the geometry is fixed the moment you place the points.
The genuine hazard is discretionary, not coded. Because you choose the anchors, you can slide them until old price action looks perfectly framed, then convince yourself the tool called the move. That is a back-test you fooled yourself into. The discipline is to anchor once, on pivots you would have marked in real time, and leave it. If you want the deeper version of why a moving signal destroys a strategy, the case for a non-repaint indicator covers the coded side of the same problem.
This is where a structural approach has an edge over a hand-drawn fork. RelicusRoad Pro plots its levels from the same rules on every chart, so the read does not change based on which swing you felt like anchoring today. It will not do the thinking for you, and it will not fix loose risk, but it removes the “which three points” argument from the equation. You can see how it treats fixed structure on the RelicusRoad Pro page .
Frequently asked questions
What is the Andrews pitchfork indicator? The Andrews pitchfork is a channel-drawing tool that projects three parallel lines forward from three chosen pivot points. You pick a starting pivot and the next significant swing high and swing low. The tool draws a center line from the starting pivot through the midpoint of the high and low, then two outer lines running parallel to it through the high and through the low. The center line is called the median line, and the whole shape resembles a pitchfork, which is where the name comes from. It was popularized by Alan Andrews, who taught his median-line method from the 1960s onward.
How do you draw an Andrews pitchfork correctly? Find a clear swing pivot to start from, then mark the next obvious swing high and the next obvious swing low that came after it. Anchor point one on the starting pivot, point two on the high, and point three on the low. Most platforms then draw the fork automatically. The whole read depends on those three points being genuine turning points that other traders can see too, not random candles. If the pivots are unclear or too close together, the fork will not describe the trend and is better left off the chart.
Does the Andrews pitchfork repaint? Once you place the three anchors, the lines are fixed and do not move on their own, so in the strict sense the drawing does not repaint. The catch is different from a coded indicator: the anchors are a manual choice, and if you slide them to a new swing later the whole fork shifts. That is you redrawing the tool, not the tool redrawing itself. A trader who keeps re-anchoring to make old price action look clean is fooling their own back-test the same way a repainting indicator would.
What is the median line used for? The median line is the center prong of the fork and the part most traders watch. The idea Andrews taught is that price, after leaving the starting pivot, tends to return toward the median line more often than not. Traders use it as a magnet and a decision point: price accepting the median line supports the trend continuing along the fork, while price slicing straight through it and holding on the other side warns the channel may be breaking down.
Is the Andrews pitchfork better than horizontal support and resistance? Neither is better; they answer different questions. Horizontal support and resistance mark fixed prices where buyers and sellers reacted before, and those levels sit still. The pitchfork gives you sloped, moving lines that track a trend’s angle. In a strong directional move the fork can frame the swing better than a flat level, but in a range or a choppy market its sloped lines invite you to see structure that is not really there. Many traders use fixed levels as the primary map and the pitchfork as a secondary read of trend angle.
Draw one fork on a trend you already understand, mark the anchors, and watch how price treats the median line over the next week before you trade it. If you would rather start from levels that stay fixed no matter who is looking, see the RelicusRoad Pro page .