The Three Views: Why Most Traders Are Blind in Two Dimensions

How multi-resolution analysis reveals market structure invisible to conventional approaches

Walk into any professional trading floor—from prop shops in Chicago to hedge funds in Greenwich—and you’ll notice something immediately: walls of monitors. Bloomberg terminals with 4-6 screens. Trading desks with elaborate multi-display setups. This isn’t about status or looking impressive. It’s about information architecture.

But here’s what most retail traders miss: it’s not about how many screens you have. It’s about what each screen shows you and why.

After decades of reading price action and technical analysis, I’ve discovered something that fundamentally changed how I read market structure. I call it The Three Views framework—a multi-resolution approach to market analysis that most traders never encounter because they’re stuck thinking in a single dimension.

The Problem With Conventional Analysis

Most trading education focuses on what I call the temporal dimension: multiple timeframes. Look at a 1-hour chart for bias, a 5-minute chart for setup, a 1-minute chart for entry. This is Trading 101, and it’s not wrong.

But it’s incomplete.

The market exists in at least three dimensions simultaneously:

1. Multiple Timeframes (temporal dimension)
2. Multiple Sessions (session dimension)
3. Multiple Resolutions (zoom dimension)

Professional traders use all three. Retail traders typically use only the first. Some advanced traders discover the second. Almost nobody systematically integrates the third.

This asymmetry creates edge.

Understanding Multi-Resolution Analysis

Let me explain the third dimension—the one that changes everything.

When you zoom in on a price chart to see the last 30 minutes in extreme detail, you see things that are invisible on a chart showing the full trading day. Signal bars become clear. Precise entry and exit points reveal themselves. Order flow patterns emerge.

When you zoom out to see an entire 8-hour session on a single screen, different patterns appear. The structure becomes visible. You see how the violent whipsaws of the opening range were actually systematic structure formation. What looked like chaos up close reveals itself as order from a distance.

Neither view is “better.” They’re different. And you need both—simultaneously.

This is multi-resolution analysis: the same market, the same timeframe, but different zoom levels revealing different patterns. It’s the trading equivalent of looking at a forest with binoculars versus looking at it from a satellite.

Most traders spend their time constantly adjusting their zoom level, trying to find the “right” one. They zoom in to see detail, then zoom out for context, then zoom back in to execute, then out again to check their thesis.

This constant adjustment creates two problems:

First, you miss patterns that only reveal themselves at specific resolutions. When you’re zoomed in tight on the 1-minute candles, you miss the larger wave structure. When you’re zoomed out to see the daily trend, you miss the precise inflection points.

Second, you lose cognitive flow. Every time you adjust your view, you’re making a decision about what to look at. These micro-decisions accumulate. They create friction. They slow down pattern recognition.

The solution? See all three resolutions simultaneously.

The Three Views Framework

After months of experimentation, I’ve settled on what I call The Three Views—a specific multi-resolution configuration that gives me complete market visibility without information overload.

View 1: The Microscope (extreme close-up) A zoomed-in view showing only the last 30-60 minutes of price action. This is where I see entries and exits with tick-level precision. It’s where signal bars become obvious. It’s where I watch real-time order flow dynamics as they unfold in the opening range.

View 2: The Command Center (standard resolution) This is my primary workspace—typically a three-pane layout showing longer timeframes for bias, intermediate timeframes for setup identification, and shorter timeframes for execution. This is where I make decisions. It’s where different timeframes converge into actionable signals.

View 3: The Telescope (wide view) A maximally zoomed-out view showing the complete session—often 4-8 hours of price data on a single screen. This is where I see market structure. It’s where I understand context. It’s where patterns that seem random up close reveal themselves as systematic.

The power emerges from seeing all three at once.

What This Reveals

When you trade with The Three Views framework, patterns appear that are simply invisible with conventional approaches.

Pattern #1: The Opening Chaos → Order Transition

On View 1 (microscope), the market open looks like violent chaos. Whipsaws, reversals, contradictory signals.

On View 2 (command center), it’s frustrating. Hard to identify clean setups.

But on View 3 (telescope), it’s obvious: the market is forming its daily range. What looks like chaos is actually systematic structure formation. The whipsaws aren’t random—they’re the market discovering value.

Without View 3, you think the opening is dangerous and random. With it, you understand you’re watching institutional order flow establishing boundaries. Same market, completely different understanding.

Pattern #2: The Invisible Inflection Point

On View 1 (microscope), price suddenly reverses. No obvious reason.

On View 2 (command center), you check your indicators. Nothing special at this level.

On View 3 (telescope), it’s clear: price is testing a level that formed hours ago, during a major swing high. The rejection makes perfect sense—if you can see the complete session structure.

Without View 3, this looks like a random reversal. With it, you understand exactly why it happened and can position accordingly.

Pattern #3: The Multi-Session Confluence

This is where the session dimension (dimension #2) combines with the resolution dimension (dimension #3) to create something truly powerful.

Some institutional algorithms reference VWAP anchored to the electronic trading session start (typically 6pm ET). Others reference VWAP anchored to regular trading hours (9:30am ET). When you display both session VWAPs simultaneously on your telescope view, something remarkable appears: confluence zones where multiple institutional reference points converge.

These confluence zones are invisible if you’re only looking at one session VWAP. They’re invisible if you’re zoomed in too tight. But with the right resolution and the right session overlays, they’re obvious—and tradeable.

The Implementation Challenge

Here’s what stops most traders from adopting this approach: it requires deliberate infrastructure design.

You can’t see three different resolutions of the same chart by constantly zooming in and out. Your brain can’t process that. You need three separate displays showing three separate zoom levels of the same timeframe, updating in real-time.

This is why professional trading desks have multiple monitors. Not for prestige. For information architecture.

You need:

• Sufficient screen real estate (typically three displays)
• Deliberate placement (which resolution goes where)
• Discipline to maintain the views (resist the urge to “just zoom in quickly”)

But once you build this infrastructure, something shifts in how you read the market.

You stop guessing about context—it’s always visible on View 3.

You stop missing precision entries—View 1 shows them clearly.

You stop getting overwhelmed by information—View 2 is your decision workspace, and you only glance at Views 1 and 3 for confirmation.

Why This Creates Edge

Most market edges eventually disappear. If a pattern becomes widely known, it gets arbitraged away. Strategies that worked for decades stop working when too many people trade them.

Multi-resolution analysis is different because it’s not a specific pattern or signal. It’s an information architecture framework. It’s a way of organizing your perceptual field to see patterns others miss—not because the patterns are secret, but because their visual system isn’t configured to see them.

Think about it: two traders can look at the exact same price data, at the exact same moment, and see completely different things—simply because one has better information architecture.

The trader with a single chart, constantly zooming in and out, sees fragments.

The trader with The Three Views sees the complete picture: microscope-level precision, command-level decision-making, and telescope-level context. Simultaneously.

That’s not just an advantage. It’s a different dimension of market perception.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

The Path Forward

If you’re serious about systematic trading, here’s what I’d recommend:

Start with your current setup—whatever it is. Then deliberately add one view at a time. Don’t rush to build the complete infrastructure. Let your brain adapt to each new dimension before adding the next.

First, add the telescope view. Keep your current trading chart, but add a maximally zoomed-out view of the complete session. Trade for a week. Notice what you see that you didn’t before.

Then add the microscope view. Keep both your trading chart and your telescope view, but add an extreme close-up of the last 30-60 minutes. Trade for another week. Notice how your entry precision improves.

Finally, reorganize your decision-making workspace (what I call the command center) to leverage both the microscope and telescope views. This is when the framework comes together.

It takes time. It takes deliberate practice. It takes believing that information architecture matters as much as the strategy itself.

But once you see in three dimensions, trading in a single dimension feels like you’ve been fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

The market has always had depth and structure. The Three Views framework just gives you the perceptual tools to see it.