Schiff Pitchfork — Andrews' fork with a shifted origin

Picture dropping a classic Andrews fork onto a fast uptrend and watching it drift away from price — the median line is so steep that the channel hangs somewhere above the candles and has nothing to do with what the market is actually doing. That is a common problem on strong moves, and it is exactly what the Schiff Pitchfork answers. Jerome Schiff moved the point the median line starts from, and the channel suddenly began to hug the body of the trend. It sounds like a detail, yet it can change the entire drawing.

What the Schiff Pitchfork is

The Schiff Pitchfork is a modification of Andrews' fork, the tool that builds a median line and two parallel channel edges from three pivot points. In Alan Andrews' original, the median line starts exactly at the first pivot, usually labelled P0, and runs through the midpoint of the line joining the next two pivots, P1 and P2. Price tends to return to that median line and oscillate around it, which is why the fork can help when you trade with the trend.

Jerome Schiff noticed that on strong moves this layout often becomes too steep. His idea came down to a single change: he moved the start of the median line from P0 to the midpoint between P0 and P1. Everything else stays the same. The effect, however, is noticeable, because the median line tilts more gently and the channel sits better on the whole move instead of being stretched by one unusually deep high or low.

Standard and Modified Schiff — where the difference lies

Schiff comes in two flavours that differ in how many axes you shift the starting point in. In the Standard Schiff the median origin moves horizontally only — in time — while its price level stays the same as at P0. In the Modified Schiff you move it horizontally and vertically at once, so the origin lands exactly at the midpoint of the line joining P0 and P1, in both time and price. That full, two-axis shift is what people usually mean when they simply say "Schiff".

In practice the Modified version gives a gentler, better-centred slope and can feel more comfortable on very fast moves, while the Standard version stays closer to Andrews' original and is plenty for many people. There is no point hunting for one perfect version here. The most sensible approach is to overlay both on the same chart and check which median line more honestly reflects where price already turned before.

When to use Schiff and when the classic Andrews fork

"Markets move in trends. The purpose of drawing trendlines and channels is to identify those trends at an early stage and to follow them until there is evidence that they have reversed." — John J. Murphy, Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets, New York Institute of Finance, 1999.

Murphy's point leads to a simple conclusion: both the Andrews fork and its Schiff version are just different ways of drawing the same trend channel. Choosing between them is not a matter of fashion but of matching the tool to the character of the move. The classic Andrews fork works best in a calmer, channelling trend, where price waves evenly around the median line. Schiff only starts to gain an edge once the market runs hard in one direction and the first pivot is deep enough that the classic median line becomes unnaturally steep.

It helps to keep the question of trend strength in mind before you even pick a version. If the move is clear and one-sided, start with Schiff. If price is swinging broadly, reach for the classic fork. I covered recognising and trading the trend itself in the piece on trend-following systems, and the starting point for this whole family of tools remains the Andrews fork.

How to draw and trade the Schiff Pitchfork

Drawing begins by marking three pivot points, exactly as in the original. First you pick P0, the start of the whole move, then P1 as the first clear high or low after it, and finally P2 as the next pivot in the opposite direction. In any common charting program you only need to choose the Schiff or Modified Schiff variant from the tool palette, and the median line and channel edges draw themselves with the origin already shifted.

Trading it then looks much like trading the classic fork. In an uptrend the lower channel edge acts as a demand zone where you look for a long, and a return to the median line is often a continuation spot. You do not, however, enter on the first touch of the line blindly — you wait for a reaction from price, such as an engulfing candle in the direction of the trend, and only then plan the entry. The stop loss goes on the far side of the zone you are defending, and the target sits at the opposite channel edge or the nearest visible liquidity. The whole logic rests on the plain role reversal of support and resistance, which is worth understanding on its own — the piece on how to draw support and resistance helps with that.

To keep this out of the abstract, trace a purely hypothetical, illustrative setup. EUR/USD pushes up from around 1.0750, leaves a first clear high at 1.0900 along the way, and then pulls back to a low at 1.0820. Those are P0, P1 and P2 in order. After you select the Modified Schiff variant, the median origin lands at the midpoint between 1.0750 and 1.0900, so the line is clearly less steep than in the classic fork. When price drifts back down to the lower channel edge over the following days and leaves a reaction candle there, you have a long candidate. The stop loss goes a few pips below that edge, and the target aims at the median line or the upper channel edge. With this layout the reward-to-risk usually works out favourably — though that is a probability, not a promise.

An honest caveat — this is interpretation, not a certainty

Here is the part many guides skip. The Schiff Pitchfork is an interpretive and inherently subjective tool. The whole drawing depends on which three points you pick as P0, P1 and P2, and two traders looking at the same chart will often mark them slightly differently and get different channels. It is not an objective indicator with a single value — it is a way of narrating where price is heading. There is no credible study showing that Schiff's version has a higher win rate than the classic Andrews fork.

That is why it is wisest to treat the fork as a frame for organising your thinking about a trend rather than as a standalone buy or sell signal. Confirm entries with plain price action, add higher-timeframe context, and never drop your risk management. Forex and CFDs are high-risk instruments — according to ESMA data from 2018, between 74 and 89 percent of retail accounts lose money. No cleverly drawn line changes that. For a broader, course-style treatment of trendlines and channels, see the technical analysis section on ForexMechanics.com.

What to do tomorrow

1. Open the chart of one pair you know well, find a clear one-sided trend and overlay both the classic Andrews fork and the Schiff variant on the same three pivot points, so you can see with your own eyes how much the slope of the median line differs.
2. Switch the fork between the Standard and Modified Schiff versions and check which median line better matches the places where price already turned before — a practical way to choose the variant that fits the move in front of you.
3. Scroll back through the chart and trace several reactions off the lower and upper channel edges, paying attention to whether a readable price reaction preceded them, instead of assuming every touch of a line is an automatic entry signal.
4. Write your own rule for choosing the P0, P1 and P2 points in your trading journal, along with a risk cap for a single trade of no more than one percent of your balance, and practise the whole setup on a demo account before you risk real capital.