So there seems to be a lot of new people on this sub. And makes sense if you have questions a lot of time you'll turn to reddit for the answers (I know I do). Well here are some tips that I think would benefit new traders.

Don't trade ANY Euro pairs. Look I know it's the most traded pair it goes up and down really fast and there's so much potential for you to make money. Turns out there's even more for you to lose money. It's way too volatile specially if you don't know what you're doing. EUUSD is the worst offender.
Trade the Daily. Might think you're cool looking at charts every x amount of times during the day. You get to tell your friends and family that you trade all day and they might be impressed at what you're doing but unless you have some years under you stick to the daily. There's less noise. You can see clearer trends and when you don't stare at the screen all day you're less emotional therefore a more effective trader. I only look at the chart 15 minutes a day to either enter close or manage my trades. Whatever happens when I'm gone is what happens.
There is no holy grail indicator Look for it all you want. It doesn't exist. There are good indicators. There are bad indicators. There are some indicators that are so broken if you do the opposite of what they're intended for you'll actually make a profit. But the fact remains that there's no perfect one. Stop looking. What you should be looking for is an indicator that fits with your strategy.
What currencies to pick. I actually never see this brought up. The notion in forex is that all pairs can be traded equally. To a certain extent that's not false. But until you get the hang of it stick to a strict trading diet. Look for pairs that trend a lot. Duh look for the trend I can hear you say. When I say trend I don't mean a couple of days or weeks. I mean a couple of months. Half a year. Pairs that do that have a higher tendency to stick with one direction for a while. That's where you make your money. An easy way to identify those pairs as well is putting together a volatile currency (USD) with a less volatile one(JPY).
USE YOUR SL Trust me even if not putting a SL has netted you all kinds of gains eventually the market will turn around and bite you. With no safety net you'll lose most if not all your profit. The best offense is a good defense.
How to pick your TP and SL level. Most new traders care so much about that. I put it near the bottom because in my opinion you should know everything listed first. This is my opinion and I use it for my strategy I use the ATR(average true range) indicator. It's a really helpful tool that helps you identify the range at which the candles will either rise or fall. Obviously you want to set your TP inside of that range and your SL slightly outside of it.
Lot sizes. Everyone has a different story about how they pick their lot size. The general consensus is don't risk over 2% of your account. But I'm a simple man and I can't be bothered to figure out what my risk is every single time. So what I do is I put $0.10 for every $100 I have on the account. I then assign $300(minimum) to each pair. That's $0.30 per pair. It's easy to remember. 10 cent for every $100. If you're able to blow $100 with $0.10 then you probably shouldn't trade.
How to avoid reversals. Tbh you can't. There's no way to predict the future so eventually you'll get hit by one. What you can do however is minimize the blow. How I do it is for every pair I take two trades. If you remember in the previous tip is said I do about$0.30 per pair well I divide it 2:1. I take one trade with a TP(2) and one without (1). If my TP is hit I pocket that amount and if the trend keeps going in my direction I make even more. If the trend decides to end or reverses my losses are minimal because at least I kept half.
There is NO right way to trade. Stop listening to people telling the best way to trade is fundamentals or naked charts of to use some specific indicator. There are no right way to do this. It's as flexible and unlimited as your imagination. I personally use indicators but if that's not your thing do YOU! Just remember to manage your trades properly and be level headed when trading. Hell if your trading strategy is flipping a coin with proper trade management you'd probably make some money (don't quote me on that).
Trade money you're willing to lose Don't trade your rent money.

That's all I have for now. If anyone sees this and wants to add more feel free. Hope this helps someone.

Hi all,
I just wanted to share my trading experience with you so far, and maybe help some people who may be in the situation as I am. I started trading about 2-3 months ago. I started with baby pips, opened a demo account, and got cocky a couple weeks into it and made a live account with $100, and every other week or so put $20 extra in. (thank God I didn’t put it more than that). Today, my account stands at around $68, with a total P/L of -$131.76. I have been really uncomfortable losing money, even if it’s not a lot, and that uncomfortableness forced me to realize my mistake.
I thought I could half ass a strategy and be a winner in forex, and the market humbled me extremely quickly. I actually didn’t have a strategy at all. It was a lazy mix of a bunch of different typical strategies I saw on YouTube. I also let my emotions get into trades, after a losing trade I would get back in the market in the opposite direction to try and make up for my loss. All bad, I know. I was too cocky.
Just like anything difficult in life, you cannot half ass forex. I spent all of Friday testing an EXTREMELY simple strategy on 4 major pairs, and out of 93 total trades over the last 6 months, the win rate of my strategy is 73%. From now on, I vow to ONLY make a trade when my strategy presents itself. Moral of the story is, if you think you can half ass forex, you better wake up right now. Find a strategy, backtest it, and only trade said strategy. Have some discipline.
Here is my extremely simple, backtested strategy with a 73% win rate that I got from The Trading Channel on YouTube:
Indicators: 200 EMA
Requirements: 2 wicks IN A ROW that TOUCH the 200 EMA, that have candle bodies that both close above or below the 200 EMA. If both candles close above the 200 EMA, go long. If both candles close below the 200 EMA go short. Stay extremely strict with the rules of the strategy.
Here are the pairs that I have tested this strategy on over the past 6 months, that total a 73% win rate:
-GBP/USD: 18/27 winning trades (67%)
-NZD/USD: 15/27 winning trades (71%)
-EUUSD: 15/20 winning trades (75%)
-EUGBP: 20/25 winning trades (80%)
All backtesting was done on the H1 chart. I tried on the daily and H4 charts but the frequency just wasn’t enough. In the video that I got this strategy from he was trying to highlight the importance of the frequency of your strategy. Even if it may have a really high winning percentage, if it only happens once a year it’s not a good strategy.
Also on a side note, I’ve seen a lot of conflicting opinions on whether or not the US election will effect USD pairs, do you guys think the election will mess with my strategy this upcoming week, or should I just trade my strategy and pay not attention to the results of the election?
Thanks for reading, and happy trading
Sincerely, u/emopatriot

Its a bit lengthy and I tried to condense it as much as I can. So take everything at a high level as each subject is has a lot more depth but fundamentally if you distill it down its just taking simple things and applying your experience using them to add nuance and better deploy them.
There are exceptions to everything that you will learn with experience or have already learned. If you know something extra or something to add to it to implement it better or more accurately. Then great! However, my intention of this post is just a high level overview. Trading can be far too nuanced to go into in this post and would take forever to type up every exception (not to mention the traders individual personality). If you take the general information as a starting point, hopefully you will learn the edge cases long the way and learn how to use the more effectively if you end up using them. I apologize in advice for any errors or typos.
Introduction After reflecting on my fun (cough) trading journey that was more akin to rolling around on broken glass and wondering if brown glass will help me predict market direction better than green glass. Buying a $100 indicator at 2 am when I was acting a fool, looking at it and going at and going "This is a piece of lagging crap, I miss out on a large part of the fundamental move and never using it for even one trade". All while struggling with massive over trading and bad habits because I would get bored watching a single well placed trade on fold for the day. Also, I wanted to get rich quick.
On top all of that I had a terminal Stage 4 case of FOMO on every time the price would move up and then down then back up. Just think about all those extra pips I could have trading both directions as it moves across the chart! I can just sell right when it goes down, then buy right before it goes up again. Its so easy right? Well, turns out it was not as easy as I thought and I lost a fair chunk of change and hit my head against the wall a lot until it clicked. Which is how I came up with a mixed bag of things that I now call "Trade the Trade" which helped support how I wanted to trade so I can still trade intra day price action like a rabid money without throwing away all my bananas.
Why Make This Post? - Core Topic of Discussion I wish to share a concept I came up with that helped me become a reliable trader. Support the weakness of how I like to trade. Also, explaining what I do helps reinforce my understanding of the information I share as I have to put words to it and not just use internalized processes. I came up with a method that helped me get my head straight when trading intra day.
I call it "Trade the Trade" as I am making mini trades inside of a trade setup I make from analysis on a higher timeframe that would take multiple days to unfold or longer. I will share information, principles, techniques I used and learned from others I talked to on the internet (mixed bag of folks from armatures to professionals, and random internet people) that helped me form a trading style that worked for me. Even people who are not good at trading can say something that might make it click in your head so I would absorbed all the information I could get.I will share the details of how I approach the methodology and the tools in my trading belt that I picked up by filtering through many tools, indicators strategies and witchcraft. Hopefully you read something that ends up helping you be a better trader. I learned a lot from people who make community posts so I wanted to give back now that I got my ducks in a row.
General Trading Advice If your struggling finding your own trading style, fixing weakness's in it, getting started, being reliably profitable or have no framework to build yourself higher with, hopefully you can use the below advice to help provide some direction or clarity to moving forward to be a better trader.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Do not throw a million things on your chart from the get go or over analyzing what the market is doing while trying to learn the basics. Tons of stuff on your chart can actually slow your learning by distracting your focus on all your bells and whistles and not the price action.
PRICE ACTION. Learn how to read price action. Not just the common formations, but larger groups of bars that form the market structure. Those formations carry more weight the higher the time frame they form on. If struggle to understand what is going on or what your looking at, move to a higher time frame.
INDICATORS. If you do use them you should try to understand how every indicator you use calculates its values. Many indicators are lagging indicators, understanding how it calculates the values can help you learn how to identify the market structure before the indicator would trigger a signal . This will help you understand why the signal is a lagged signal. If you understand that you can easily learn to look at the price action right before the signal and learn to watch for that price action on top of it almost trigging a signal so you can get in at a better position and assume less downside risk. I recommend using no more than 1-2 indicators for simplicity, but your free to use as many as you think you think you need or works for your strategy/trading style.
PSYCOLOGY. First, FOMO is real, don't feed the beast. When you trade you should always have an entry and exit. If you miss your entry do not chase it, wait for a new entry. At its core trading is gambling and your looking for an edge against the house (the other market participants). With that in mind, treat as such. Do not risk more than you can afford to lose. If you are afraid to lose it will negatively effect your trade decisions. Finally, be honest with your self and bad trading happens. No one is going to play trade cop and keep you in line, that's your job.
TRADE DECISION MARKING: Before you enter any trade you should have an entry and exit area. As you learn price action you will get better entries and better exits. Use a larger zone and stop loss at the start while learning. Then you can tighten it up as you gain experience. If you do not have a area you wish to exit, or you are entering because "the markets looking like its gonna go up". Do not enter the trade. Have a reason for everything you do, if you cannot logically explain why then you probably should not be doing it.
ROBOTS/ALGOS: Loved by some, hated by many who lost it all to one, and surrounded by scams on the internet. If you make your own, find a legit one that works and paid for it or lost it all on a crappy one, more power to ya. I do not use robots because I do not like having a robot in control of my money. There is too many edge cases for me to be ok with it.However, the best piece of advice about algos was that the guy had a algo/robot for each market condition (trending/ranging) and would make personalized versions of each for currency pairs as each one has its own personality and can make the same type of movement along side another currency pair but the price action can look way different or the move can be lagged or leading. So whenever he does his own analysis and he sees a trend, he turns the trend trading robot on. If the trend stops, and it starts to range he turns the range trading robot on. He uses robots to trade the market types that he is bad at trading. For example, I suck at trend trading because I just suck at sitting on my hands and letting my trade do its thing.

Trade the Trade - The Methodology

Base Principles These are the base principles I use behind "Trade the Trade". Its called that because you are technically trading inside your larger high time frame trade as it hopefully goes as you have analyzed with the trade setup. It allows you to scratch that intraday trading itch, while not being blind to the bigger market at play. It can help make sense of why the price respects, rejects or flat out ignores support/resistance/pivots.

Trade Setup: Find a trade setup using high level time frames (daily, 4hr, or 1hr time frames). The trade setup will be used as a base for starting to figure out a bias for the markets direction for that day.
Indicator Data: Check any indicators you use (I use Stochastic RSI and Relative Vigor Index) for any useful information on higher timeframes.
Support Resistance: See if any support/resistance/pivot points are in currently being tested/resisted by the price. Also check for any that are within reach so they might become in play through out the day throughout the day (which can influence your bias at least until the price reaches it if it was already moving that direction from previous days/weeks price action).
Currency Strength/Weakness: I use the TradeVision currency strength/weakness dashboard to see if the strength/weakness supports the narrative of my trade and as an early indicator when to keep a closer eye for signs of the price reversing.Without the tool, the same concept can be someone accomplished with fundamentals and checking for higher level trends and checking cross currency pairs for trends as well to indicate strength/weakness, ranging (and where it is in that range) or try to get some general bias from a higher level chart that may help you out. However, it wont help you intra day unless your monitoring the currency's index or a bunch of charts related to the currency.
Watch For Trading Opportunities: Personally I make a mental short list and alerts on TradingView of currency pairs that are close to key levels and so I get a notification if it reaches there so I can check it out. I am not against trading both directions, I just try to trade my bias before the market tries to commit to a direction. Then if I get out of that trade I will scalp against the trend of the day and hold trades longer that are with it.Then when you see a opportunity assume the directional bias you made up earlier (unless the market solidly confirms with price action the direction while waiting for an entry) by trying to look for additional confirmation via indicators, price action on support/resistances etc on the low level time frame or higher level ones like hourly/4hr as the day goes on when the price reaches key areas or makes new market structures to get a good spot to enter a trade in the direction of your bias.Then enter your trade and use the market structures to determine how much of a stop you need. Once your in the trade just monitor it and watch the price action/indicators/tools you use to see if its at risk of going against you. If you really believe the market wont reach your TP and looks like its going to turn against you, then close the trade. Don't just hold on to it for principle and let it draw down on principle or the hope it does not hit your stop loss.
Trade Duration Hold your trades as long or little as you want that fits your personality and trading style/trade analysis. Personally I do not hold trades past the end of the day (I do in some cases when a strong trend folds) and I do not hold trades over the weekends. My TP targets are always places I think it can reach within the day. Typically I try to be flat before I sleep and trade intra day price movements only. Just depends on the higher level outlook, I have to get in at really good prices for me to want to hold a trade and it has to be going strong. Then I will set a slightly aggressive stop on it before I leave. I do know several people that swing trade and hold trades for a long period of time. That is just not a trading style that works for me.

Enhance Your Success Rate Below is information I picked up over the years that helped me enhance my success rate with not only guessing intra day market bias (even if it has not broken into the trend for the day yet (aka pre London open when the end of Asia likes to act funny sometimes), but also with trading price action intra day.
People always say "When you enter a trade have an entry and exits. I am of the belief that most people do not have problem with the entry, its the exit. They either hold too long, or don't hold long enough. With the below tools, drawings, or instruments, hopefully you can increase your individual probability of a successful trade.
**P.S.*\* Your mileage will vary depending on your ability to correctly draw, implement and interpret the below items. They take time and practice to implement with a high degree of proficiency. If you have any questions about how to do that with anything listed, comment below and I will reply as I can. I don't want to answer the same question a million times in a pm.
Tools and Methods Used This is just a high level overview of what I use. Each one of the actions I could go way more in-depth on but I would be here for a week typing something up of I did that. So take the information as a base level understanding of how I use the method or tool. There is always nuance and edge cases that you learn from experience.

Fundamentals
- I keep a general high level Macro outlook for currencies. I dont get too deep into Fundamentals and just keep an eye out for news. If I am already in a trade I will hold it if its far enough away from my entry. However, I wont enter right before/during news as it can invalidate your setup.
Price Action
- I started with the basics of learning the standard price action formations/patterns and candles. You can find tons of free info on that online, google is your friend. Then I stared at charts and said "why did the price do that or do this etc" then after a while I started to understand what's happening without having to think about it and I can see the market structure without having to look as closely as I did in the past.
- After many many hours of staring at 5 min charts for 15 hours a day 5 days a week I learned how to look at 5 min charts and be like "Oh that's a hammer on the 15 min etc. If you keep track of time you can do the same for hourly candles as well and you will start to see market structure naturally. However I typically trade in a two chart panel window so I have a 15 min and 5 min chart up when trading intra day so I dont have to think too hard about it.
Support/Resistance Lines
- Draw support resistance lines on Daily/4hr timeframes. I prefer to use body of the candle instead of the wick for support/resistance.
- You can find support/resistance liquidity levels through out the day as well and trade those if the price retraces back through levels its already been through that same day.
- It would be a bit length to explain exactly the best place to draw them. If your unsure there is plenty of free resources on the internet. Just try to use your head and look for price levels where the price was "Supported" or it "Resisted" that price level then slap a line on it. Draw as few or as many lines as you feel helps you and your style. I tend to lean on the side of fewer. I typically do about 6 lines main support/resistances (3 of each).
Fibonacci Extensions
- Draw two Fibonacci Extensions. One on the daily timeframe, and then one on the 4hr time frame. Then you can trade the Fibonacci levels and use them for TP targets or entry zones if price action respects the level. Also you can use it along with support/resistance and pivots if they happen to line up or are very close.
- I cannot really figure out how to put it into words how to draw a Fib if you dont know how. I will have to make a picture to demonstrate it. If your interested post below and I will draw one up and post a link. Probably the easiest way to understand. Just keep in mind the Fib you draw on the 4hr time frame will be inside the daily timeframe one.
Currency Strength/Weakness
- The TradeVision2020 dashboard that I use just helps me keep a tab on the current market post plus any swing strength/momentum a currency might have on higher time frames. Helps me look for shifts in the market or confirmation that the bias it already has in momentum is continuing. I have found that often currencies when they get really/weak or strong might continue for several days or even longer like a full week or more. We recently had what felt like 1 week or so of flat out Yen weakness which was making some things wonky. All it does is allow me to look at the dashboard instead of a million other charts.
Indicators
- I use two that work well for my intra day style. The Stochastic RSI is just like a RSI but its faster. The second is the Relative Vigor Index which I use to detect swings in momentum and divergences in bullish/bearish momentum. I have used many others in the past, but as I have grown and got better as a trader I have found making my analysis simpler has improved my trading.I dont like the whole idea of have 43 different indicators on 32 different time frames light up a dashboard to be green for me to enter a trade. With how I do it now, I have a clear understanding of what I expect to happen and why. That way when it does happen I understand the move and dont get freaked out if the market moves funny after I am in the trade.

Conclusion
I use the above tools/indicators/resources/philosophy's to trade intra day price action that sometimes ends up as noise in the grand scheme of the markets movement.use that method until the price action for the day proves the bias assumption wrong. Also you can couple that with things like Stoch RSI + Relative Vigor Index to find divergences which can increase the probability of your targeted guesses.

Trade Example from Yesterday This is an example of a trade I took today and why I took it. I used the following core areas to make my trade decision.

Fundamental Bias: I already had a bullish fundamental outlook on EUUSD with expecting the markets to price in future similes due a higher an higher chance of Biden winning on paper as the election closed in and a "Blue wave" coming which would lead to a weaker dollar. Also, the Euro Zone is getting hammered with COVID pretty hard plus Brexit drama so I had a strong Euro bias.NOTE: As frame of reference, all the other pairs I trade I traded as if they were ranging and trade a range. Markets are messed up right now.
Currency Strength/Weakness: I use a tool that gives me a currency strength/weakness dashboard called TradeVision2020. Helps me track individual currency strength/weakness intra day. Took me about a month to get used to it, but helps me keep track of intra day strength/weakness that can add a bias to trade direction as the day unfolds. Like "Will this run have a 2nd or 3rd push higher" or "I should look to TP at the first sign of weakness in the push" type bias data. You still got to use your brain and figure out the best decision. It wont make choices for you, its only a guide.NOTE: I am not trying to adverse the tool (if providing the code is against sub rules let me know), its just a tool I use every day that helps me with directional bias calls. I am sharing the coupon code that was given to me when I found out about the tool in the TradingView forex chatroom and the guy gave me the code to use when I signed up. I dont want someone to read the name and want to try it out then overpay for no reason. The coupon will give you 40% off. Coupon Code: 3F7A0T5T
Higher Timeframe Analysis: Detected some early signs of Bearish Divergence on the 1hr chart using a on a higher time frame using a Stochastic RSI. Then I saw more confirmation on 5 min charts using Relative Vigor Index to help time my entry mid session.
Pivot Points: I treat pivot points like support/resistance and trade them as such using price action to give me some idea how its being treated by the market. Pretty straight forward.

It may seem like a lot of stuff to process on the fly while trying to figure out live price action but, for the fundamental bias for a pair should already baked in your mindset for any currency pair you trade. For the currency strength/weakness I stare at the dashboard 12-15 hours a day so I am always trying to keep a pulse on what's going or shifts so that's not really a factor when I want to enter as I would not look to enter if I felt the market was shifting against me. Then the higher timeframe analysis had already happened when I woke up, so it was a game of "Stare at the 5 min chart until the price does something interesting"
Trade Example: Today , I went long EUUSD long bias when I first looked at the chart after waking up around 9-10pm Eastern. Fortunately, the first large drop had already happened so I had a easy baseline price movement to work with. I then used tool for currency strength/weakness monitoring, Pivot Points, and bearish divergence detected using Stochastic RSI and Relative Vigor Index.
I first noticed Bearish Divergence on the 1hr time frame using the Stochastic RSI and got confirmation intra day on the 5 min time frame with the Relative Vigor Index. I ended up buying the second mini dip around midnight Eastern because it was already dancing along the pivot point that the price had been dancing along since the big drop below the pivot point and dipped below it and then shortly closed back above it. I put a stop loss below the first large dip. With a TP goal of the middle point pivot line
Then I waited for confirmation or invalidation of my trade. I ended up getting confirmation with Bearish Divergence from the second large dip so I tightened up my stop to below that smaller drip and waited for the London open. Not only was it not a lower low, I could see the divergence with the Relative Vigor Index.
It then ran into London and kept going with tons of momentum. Blew past my TP target so I let it run to see where the momentum stopped. Ended up TP'ing at the Pivot Point support/resistance above the middle pivot line.
Random Note: The Asian session has its own unique price action characteristics that happen regularly enough that you can easily trade them when they happen with high degrees of success. It takes time to learn them all and confidently trade them as its happening. If you trade Asia you should learn to recognize them as they can fake you out if you do not understand what's going on.

TL;DR At the end of the day there is no magic solution that just works. You have to find out what works for you and then what people say works for them. Test it out and see if it works for you or if you can adapt it to work for you. If it does not work or your just not interested then ignore it.
At the end of the day, you have to use your brain to make correct trading decisions. Blindly following indicators may work sometimes in certain market conditions, but trading with information you don't understand can burn you just as easily as help you. Its like playing with fire. So, get out there and grind it out. It will either click or it wont. Not everyone has the mindset or is capable of changing to be a successful trader. Trading is gambling, you do all this work to get a edge on the house. Trading without the edge or an edge you understand how to use will only leave your broker happy in the end.

The need for a trading strategy in Forex market

https://preview.redd.it/r6u8stdmeaw51.jpg?width=1320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b0292502d6e68f5c220af5a5851aeb8061b395b
Almost all trading manuals talk about the need to have your own trading strategy. First of all, the process of creating your trading scheme allows you to perfectly understand trading and exclude from it any eventuality that hides additional risk.

Profitable forex strategy: it is a type of instruction for the trader, which helps to follow a clearly verified algorithm and safeguard his deposit from emotional errors and consequences of the unpredictability of the Forex currency market.

Thanks to her, you will always know the answer to the question: how to act in certain market conditions. You have the conditions of opening a transaction, the conditions of its closing, likewise, you do not guess if it is time or not. You do what the trading strategy tells you. This does not mean that it cannot be changed. A healthy trading scheme in the forex market must be constantly adjusted, it must comply with the realities of current market trends, but there must be no unfounded arguments in it.
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Profitable Forex Strategy Reddit

Types of trading strategies
The forms of a trading strategy can combine a variety of methods. However, several of the most commonly used options can be highlighted.

Trading strategy based on various complementary technical indicators
Trading strategy using Bollinger Bands
Moving Average Strategy
Technical figures and patterns
Trading with Fibonacci levels
Candlestick trading strategy
Trend trading strategy
Flat trading strategy
Scalping
Fundamental analysis as the basis of the strategy

Three most profitable Forex strategies

Important! These strategies are the basis for building your own trading system. Indicator settings and recommended pending order levels are for consultation only. If you do not get a satisfactory outcome in the test result or in a live account, that does not mean that the problem is the strategy. It is enough to choose individual parameters of indicators under a separate asset and under the current market situation.

1. “Bali” scalping strategy

This strategy is one of the most popular, at least its description can be found on many websites. However, the recommendations will be different. According to the author's idea, "Bali" refers to scalping tactics, as it facilitates a fairly short stop loss (SL) and take profit (TP). However, the recommended time frame is high, because the signals appear not very often. The authors recommend using the H1 interval and the EUR / USD currency pair.
Indicators used:

Linear Weighted Moving Average. Period 48 (red line).

https://preview.redd.it/9mhs67mxeaw51.jpg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=913d428edd4cab0a3237e7039829a76dd587f1f5
The weighted linear moving average here acts as an additional filter. Due to the fact that LWMA gives more weight to the values of the last periods, the indicator in the long periods practically excludes delays. In some cases, LWMA can give a signal beforehand, but in this strategy only the moving position relative to price is important. Bearish LWMA is a buy signal, sell bullish.

Trend Envelopes_v2. Period 2 (orange and blue lines).

https://preview.redd.it/8bap0s41faw51.jpg?width=627&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6236ad06765280bbfd655fa1fb4153b28aaaf56
The indicator is also based on the moving average, but the formula is slightly different for the calculation. Its marking is more precise (the impact of price noise has been eliminated). It allows you to identify the twists of the trend compared to the usual mobile with a slight anticipation. Trend Envelopes has an interesting property: the color of the line and its new location changes when the price penetrates its old trend line, a kind of signal.

DSS of momentum. The configuration in the screenshot below.

https://preview.redd.it/9ch27cj4faw51.jpg?width=630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00558bbd90378009bef33b7c96c77f884b912667
The indicator is placed in a separate window below the chart. This is an oscillator whose task is to determine the pivot points of the trend. And it does so much faster than standard oscillators. It has two lines: the signal is dotted, the additional line is solid, but the receiver has 2 kinds of colors (orange and green).

Important! Note that the indicators for the “Bali” strategy are chosen in such a way as to ultimately give an early signal. This gives the trader time to confirm the signal and check the fundamentals.

MA is one of the basics on MT4, the other two indicators can be found in the archive for free here. To add them to the platform, click on MT4: "File / Open data directory". In the folder that opens, follow the following path: MQL4 / Indicators. Copy the flags to the folder and restart the platform.
Also Read: Make Money With Trading
Conditions to open a long position:

Price penetrates the orange Trend Envelopes line from the bottom up. At the same time in the same candle there is a change of the orange line that falls to a growing celestial.
The candle is above LWMA. Once the above condition has been met, we wait for the candle to appear above the moving one. It is important that it closes above the LWMA red line. It is mandatory to have a Skyline Trend Envelopes on a signal candle.
The additional DSS of momentum line on the signal candle is green and is above the dotted line of the signal (that is, it crosses or crosses it).

We open a trade at the close of the signal candle. The recommended stop level is 20-25 points in 4-digit quotes, take profit at 40-50 points.
https://preview.redd.it/t48d55s8faw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e93863745e74dec536178539817225767cbeb1c
The arrow indicates a signal candle where a Trend Envelopes color change occurred. Note (purple ovals) that the blue line is below the orange line and goes upwards (in other cases the signal should be ignored). In the signal candle, the green DSS of momentum line is above the dotted line.
Conditions to open a short position:

Price penetrates the Trend Envelopes sky line from top to bottom. At the same time in the same candle there is a change from the increasing celestial line to the falling orange.
The candle is below LWMA. Once the above condition has been met, we wait for the candle to appear below the mobile. It is important that it closes below the LWMA red line. It is mandatory to have an orange Trend Envelopes line on a signal candle.
The additional DSS of momentum line on the signal candle is orange and is below the dotted line of the signal (i.e. crosses or crosses it).

https://preview.redd.it/6uixkl1dfaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd53442c633e80c1e55da72cd5ffe9cda2e85b8a
Some examples where a transaction cannot be opened:

In the screenshot below the signal candle closed at the moving level (red line), it was practically below it.

https://preview.redd.it/2o1wpocgfaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=58d3286bf2884b5f0dfdaa0a62b68d2d50cdabf8

In the screenshot below the signal candle is DSS below its signal line. Also, the celestial line is horizontal and not ascending.

https://preview.redd.it/1nfi1etjfaw51.jpg?width=801&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff9fcbc10a485c5102ef7a135de47332827caf54
The signals are relatively rare, a signal can be expected for several days. In half the cases, it is better to control the transaction and close in advance, without waiting for profit taking. We do not operate at the time of flat. Try this strategy directly in the browser and see the result.
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2. “Va-Bank” candle strategy

This profitable Forex strategy is weekly and can be used on different currency pairs. It is based on the spring principle of price movement, what went up quickly, sooner or later must fall. To trade you will only need a schedule on any platform and W1 time frame (although the daily interval can be used).

You should estimate the size of the candle bodies of different currency pairs ( AUDCAD , AUDJPY , AUDUSD , EURGBP , EURJPY , GBPUSD , CHFJPY , NZDCHF , EURAUD , AUDCHF , CADCHF , EURUSD , EURCAD , GBPCHF ) and choose the largest distance from the opening to the close of the candle in the framework of the week. In this to open a transaction at the beginning of the following week.

Conditions to open a long position:

The bearish candle, which signifies last week's movement, has a relatively large body.

Open a long position early next week. Make sure to place a stop loss at 100-140 points and a take profit at 50-70 points. When it is midweek, close the order if it has not yet been closed at take profit or stop loss. After that, wait again for the beginning of the week and repeat the procedure, in any case do not open operations at the end of the current week.
https://preview.redd.it/vuihnqspfaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7641e9d7701911cc255c4f0c8a53e1660c35c9fe
On this chart it is clearly seen that after each large bearish candle there is necessarily a bullish candle (although smaller). The only question is what period to take where it makes sense to compare the relative length of the candles. Here everything is individual for each currency pair. Note that a rising candle was observed followed by a few small bearish candles. But when it comes to minimizing risks, it is best not to open a long response position, as the relatively small decline from the previous week may continue.
Conditions to open a short position:

The bullish candle, which signifies last week's movement, has a relatively large body.

We open a short position early next week.
https://preview.redd.it/tv4zmf5ufaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61cd1dcfc4aebfa6f80343b6c51f7a6e46358602
The red arrows point to the candles that had a large body around the previous bullish candles. Almost all signals turned out to be profitable, except for the transactions indicated by a blue arrow. The shortcomings of the strategy are rare signs, albeit with a high probability of profit. The best thing is that it can be used in several pairs at the same time.
This strategy has an interesting modification based on similar logic. Investors with little capital opt for intraday strategies, as their money is insufficient to exert radical pressure on the market. Therefore, if there is a strong move on the weekly chart, this may indicate a cluster of large strong traders. In other words, if there are three weekly candles in one direction, it is most likely the fourth. Here you also have to take into account the psychological factor, 4 candles is equal to one month, and those who "push" the market in one direction, within a month will begin to set profits.
Strategy principle:

A "three candles" pattern (ascending and descending) formed on the weekly chart.
It is preferable that each subsequent candle was larger than the previous one. Doji is not taken into account (disembodied candles).
Stop is placed at the closing level of the first candle of the constructed formation. Take profit at 50-100% of the last candle, but it is often better to manually close the trade.

An example of this type of formation in the screenshot below.
https://preview.redd.it/iu7cwa7xfaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9195d24b72d2bda5394614380e9e5bc167f108a5
Of the 5 patterns, 4 were effective. Lack of strategy, the pattern can be expected 2-3 months. But when launching a multi-currency strategy this expectation is justified. Consider swaps!
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3. Parabolic Profit Based on Moving Average

This strategy is universal and is usually given as an example for novice traders. It uses classic EMA (Exponential Moving Average) indicators for MT4 and Parabolic SAR, which acts as a confirmatory indicator.
The strategy is trend. Most sources suggest using it in "minutes", but price noise reduces its efficiency. It is better to use M15-M30 intervals. Currency pairs - Any, but you may need to adjust the indicator settings.
Indicators used:

EMA with periods 5, 25 and 50. EMA (5) in red, EMA (25) and EMA (50) in yellow. Apply to Close (closing price).

https://preview.redd.it/ly7ju8o3gaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61dee5b0d994d09a375e01e2b9afe188dd2ee0ed

Parabolic SAR, parameters remain unchanged (color correct at your discretion).

https://preview.redd.it/sonpv1m8gaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=823e9ce5d279d3a98ef072694766a112a3ece775
Conditions to open a long position:

Red EMA (5) crosses the yellows from bottom to top.
Parabolic SAR is located under the sails.

Conditions to open a short position:

Red EMA (5) crosses the yellows from top to bottom.
Parabolic SAR is located above the candles.

The transaction can be opened on the same candle where the mobile crossover occurred. Stop loss at the local minimum, take profit at 20-25 points. But with the manual management of transactions you can extract great benefits. For example, close at the time of the transition from EMA (5) to a horizontal position (change of the angle of inclination of the growth to flat).
https://preview.redd.it/4un92jlegaw51.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=406a700c00722349622d031e20d0858e4196d18b
This screen shows that all three signals (two long and one short) were effective. It would be possible to enter the market on the candle by following the signal (in order to accurately verify the direction of the trend), but you would then miss the right time to enter. It is up to you to decide whether it is worth the risk. For one-hour intervals, these parameters hardly work, so be sure to check the performance of the indicators for each period of time in a minimum span of three years.
And now that you know the theory, a few words about how to put these strategies into practice.
Ready? Then let's get started!

From the theory to the practice

Step 1. Open demo account It's free, requires no deposit, takes up to 15 minutes, and no verification required. On the main page of your broker there is for sures a button "Register", click and follow the instructions. An account can also be opened from other menus (for example, from the top menu, from the commercial conditions of the account, etc.).
Step 2. Familiarize yourself with the functionality of the Personal Area. It won't take long. It is at the most user friendly and intuitive. You just need to understand the instruments of the platform and understand how the trades are opened.
Step 3. Launch the trading platform. The Personal Area has the platform incorporated, but it is impossible to add templates. Hence, the "Bali" and "Parabolic Profit" strategies can only be executed on MT4.

Characteristics of an effective Forex strategy Reddit

And finally, let's see what makes a profitable Forex strategy effective. What properties should it have? Perhaps three of the most important characteristics can be pointed out.

The minimum number of lag indicators. The smaller they are, the greater the forecast accuracy.
Easy. Understanding your strategy is more important than your saturation with complex elements, formulas, and schematics.
Uniqueness. Any trading strategy must be "tailored" to your trading style, your character, your circumstances, and so on.

It is very important to develop your own trading strategy, but it is necessary to test a large number of already available and proven strategies. On the Forex blog you will find trading strategies available for download. Before using a live account, test your chosen strategy on the demo account on the MetaTrader trading platform.
Conclusion. To successfully trade the Forex currency market, create your own trading strategy. Learn what's new, learn out-of-the-box trading schemes, and improve your individual action plan in the market. Only in this case, the trading results will satisfy you to the fullest. Success, dear readers!
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FOREX Strategies

What are FOREX Strategies?
https://preview.redd.it/ihmphstzguv51.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81f6b73c367d8695605514f8d32aaf3e2aeabc6e
You may have noticed that most of people confuse the terminology and refer to FOREX Strategies in the wrong way. There are methodologies, systems, strategies, and techniques. The most effective methodology is Price Language (Trend Tracking). Combined with a correct reading of mass psychology presented by the charts.
We know that in the Stock Markets there are thousands of strategies. FOREX, like the rest of the markets, presents you with the opportunity to apply similar strategies to win consistently. Taking advantage of repetitive psychological patterns.
First, the Price Language methodology has created great fortunes in FOREX, and the next fortune may be yours. But this methodology must be implemented within a framework of advanced concepts of Markets. Without forgetting the basics. And working hard day by day.
Second, a strategy is a set of parameters and techniques that together give you the advantage to act in any situation. Thus for example in war, generals have attack strategies and counterattack strategies.
FOREX strategies alike are entry strategies and exit strategies. All beginners should know these FOREX strategies for beginners. That way you will get a general idea of the game and understand that trading is a war against the Market and its Specialists. Only applying FOREX strategies revealed by the same Specialists and using their own techniques,
... you can survive in this war.
Do not fall into the trap of the many "systems" and "methods" that are offered on the internet about operating in the FOREX Market. They just don't work in the long run. They are strategies based on indicators for the most part. Using rigid parameters. That if they can work and give profitability during a certain period of time, they will always reach a breaking point when the market changes its dynamics.
Instead, take advantage of your precious time and learn the Language of Price or Price Action.
The Language methodology will allow you to adapt to each new phase of the Market. If you combine this knowledge with the appropriate psychological concepts, you can live comfortably from speculation in FOREX.

Forex Trading Strategies Reddit - Basic FOREX Strategies

You have two basic FOREX strategies, one entry, and one exit. Both follow a general strategy that helps you capitalize on the collective behaviors of the Market. That is, of the total of participating speculators.
This behavior causes the formation of cycles that repeat over and over again. Driven by the basic emotions (uncertainty, greed, and panic) of the speculators involved that can be taken advantage of with the aforementioned FOREX strategies. Specialists identify these emotions in the order flow and capitalize on these events every hour, every day, and every month.
Basic FOREX Strategies - The Price Cycle
These repetitive cycles consist of 4 phases:

Accumulation
Upward trend
Distribution
Downward trend

https://preview.redd.it/6dvk2w0pduv51.png?width=300&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3ab65ca4eab6d20174b3327b862d8b59dcc13b7
The two trends can be easily identified by their notorious breakdown. And the two areas of uncertainty (accumulation and distribution), due to their notorious range trajectories.
This general behavior determines the core of our FOREX strategies.
You buy when the price of a pair has broken and has come out of one of its congestion formations (accumulation or distribution). You implement one of the Forex strategies, in this case, the entry one.
The multi-time technique will help you find the point of least risk when entering your initial buy or sell order. In the same way and using the same strategy but this time to close your position, the multiple timing technique will also show you how to close your operation obtaining the highest possible profit.
The most consistent way to extract profits in the market is by trading the start of trends within a cycle . Once confirmed by their respective breaks from the areas of uncertainty. This is the mother of all FOREX strategies . And in a market that operates 24 hours, we have more frequent cycles and therefore more opportunities.

Forex Trading Strategies Reddit - Advanced Forex Strategies

There are many advanced FOREX strategies that are generally used by professional speculators working for large financial firms.
Among these firms are banks, Investment Fund managers and Hedge Fund managers. The latter is an investment modality similar to Investment Funds, with the difference that Hedge Funds use more complex investment strategies. Its operations are more oriented to aggressive speculations in the short and medium-term.
Among the most common strategies is hedging (hedging), carry trade, automated systems based on quantum mathematics. And a large number of combinations between the different option strategies.

The Carry Trade

The central idea of Carry Trade is to buy a pair in which the base currency has a considerably higher interest rate than the quoted currency. To earn the difference in rates regardless of whether the price of the pair rises or falls.
Suppose we buy a $ 100,000 lot of AUDJPY, which according to the rates on the chart would turn out to be the ideal instrument in this example to use the Forex carry trade strategy.
As our capital is in US dollars we have to assume for our example, the following quotes necessary to perform the place calculations:
AUD / JPY = 80.00 USD / JPY = 85.00
What happens internally in your broker is this.

By placing as collateral $ 1,000 of your $ 50,000 of capital (assumed for this example), deposited in your account, you have access to $ 100,000 virtual (this is what is known as leverage); that is, you put in $ 1,000 and your broker lends you 99,000.
With those $ 100,000 virtual dollars, your broker borrows on your behalf ¥ 8,500,000 Japanese yen (85 × 100,000) at 0.1% annual interest from a Japanese bank.
With those ¥ 8,500,000 Japanese yen, your broker buys A $ 106,250 Australian dollars (8,500,000 / 80) and deposits it in an Australian bank where it receives 4.5% annual interest on your behalf.
One year later (and regardless of the profit or loss generated by the pair's movement), your profit will be the difference between the AUD rate and the JPY rate, that is:

Profit = (AUD rate) - (JPY rate) - (costs of the 2 currency exchanges) Profit = (4.5%) - (0.1%) - (0.1% to 1%)
The great advantage of carry trade FOREX strategies is that this percentage profit is applied to the $ 100,000 of the standard lot; the broker transfers all of the profit to you, even if you only contributed $ 1,000. On the other hand, if you carry out the inverse of this operation, this benefit of the Forex carry trade becomes a cost (swap), and you assume it completely.
Remember that FOREX carry trade strategies are recommended for pairs with considerable interest rate differences, such as the one we have just seen in our example.
These FOREX strategies should also not be used in isolation. The idea is that through technical analysis you identify when would be the ideal time to enter the market using your carry trade Forex strategy and multiply your profits considerably.

What FOREX Strategies Do Hedge Funds Use?

The FOREX strategies used by large fund managers do not constitute an advantage in terms of percentage results for them, nor do they constitute a competitive disadvantage for you.
The vast majority of them fail because of their big egos. In fact, there was a firm made up of great financial geniuses, including 2 winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, who developed a strategy based on quantum mathematical calculations.
With an initial base capital of about 3 billion dollars, and after 3 successful years obtaining annual returns of over 40%, the firm Long-Term Capital Management, begins its fourth year with losses. To counteract these losses the geniuses decide to multiply the initial capital several times, while the losses continued.
The year closed with the bankruptcy of the fund, and with a total accumulated loss of 1 trillion dollars, due to the great leverage used. And all for not admitting that the FOREX Strategies of Long Term Capital Management were not in line with the dynamics of the Market.
There are an overwhelming number of opportunities in the stock markets to make money interpreting the Language of Price.
You don't need to use complex "advanced" strategies that have been created to handle hundreds or billions of dollars.
The reasons for using these FOREX strategies are very different from what a "retail trader" pursues with his small speculation business.
As you can see, you should not worry about wanting to integrate any of these advanced strategies into your arsenal. They are only beneficial for managing hundreds or billions of dollars, where the return parameters are very different when you handle small amounts of capital.
Do not worry about collecting hundreds of free FOREX strategies that circulate on the internet, that great accumulation of mediocre information will only serve to confuse you and waste your valuable time.
Spend that time learning Price Action,
… And you will always be one step behind the Specialists, identifying each new Market condition, and anticipating the vast majority of reversals of all prices.
Ironically, the most successful fund managers indicate that their most profitable trades are those based on the basic trend-following strategies of the Price Language. The same ones that you will learn in this Free Course.
Dedicate yourself to perfecting them and believe me you won't need anything else. As long as you have good risk management, taking into consideration the following points ...

Styles of Investments in FOREX

The Investment FOREX long term is not recommended for small investors like you and me. If we take into account the term investing literally as large investors do who buy a financial product today to sell it years later.
We both have a better niche in the short and medium-term.
You may have noticed that the big multi-year trends in the Forex Market do exist. But minor swings within a big trend are usually very wide.
These minor movements allow us to easily double and triple the annual return of the big general trend, motivating most traders to speculate in the short and medium-term.
These minor oscillations or trends that occur within the large multi-year trends owe their occurrence mainly to two reasons.
First, the FOREX Market presents 3 sessions a day each in different cities of the world with different time zones (Asia, Europe, and America). This causes more frequent trend changes than in the rest of the stock markets.
Second, the purpose for which it was created also plays a role. The modern Foreign Exchange Market, since its inception in 1972, was conceived by the global financial system as a tool for speculation. To obtain benefits in the short and medium-term (from several days to 1 year).
These two points are basically the reasons why we observe the immense speed with which the FOREX market changes trends.
For example, for those who live in America, in the early morning (Europe) the EURUSD pair may be on the rise, in the morning or afternoon (America) it may be down, and then finally at night (Asia) it may return to the rise.

Define your Own Style for your FOREX Investments

One of the first decisions you will have to make is to choose your style as a trader or investor.
There are 4 types of well-defined styles.
Most professional traders tend to have multiple styles, although they always identify with one primary style for their FOREX investments. Study the characteristics of the 4 main styles to make your investments in FOREX :
1. Long Term: recommended for anyone who is going to enter the market for the first time and who can dedicate a minimum of one hour per month to their investments in Forex. The period of an open position ranges from 1 year to 5 years.
2. Medium Term: recommended for anyone who is going to enter the market for the first time and who can dedicate a minimum of one hour per week to their investments in Forex. The period of an open position ranges from 1 month to 1 year.
3. Short Term: recommended for anyone who is going to enter the market for the first time, or who already has a certain time operating in the long and medium-term, showing constant profits, and who can dedicate a minimum of one hour per day to your investments in FOREX. The period of an open position ranges from 1 day to 1 month.
4. Intraday : recommended only for people with a fairly solid earnings record in the short term, and with a capital greater than $ 50,000. As we have noted, this option constitutes a full-time job.
People who start investing in FOREX , should start executing short-term (weeks) and medium-term (months) transactions only, and not pay attention to intraday oscillations (day trading).
If you are interested in being an intraday speculator, I recommend that you first exhaust at least a year doing operations in the short and medium-term to assimilate the correct strategies and to develop the necessary mentality to carry out this work.
The second option would be to participate in some kind of intensive training.
I remind you that self-educating is almost impossible in speculation. You are likely to accumulate a lot of knowledge by reading books and attending courses. But you will probably never learn to make money with all the incomplete "systems" circulating on the internet.

Mistakes to Avoid When Looking for Your Style

Many people who are new to FOREX investments make the mistake of combining these styles, which is a key to failure.
I recommend that if you are not getting the results you expected by adopting one of these styles, do not try to change it. The problem sure is not in the style, but in your strategies or in your psychology.
A successful investor is able to make a profit in any longer trading time than he is used to. I explain. If you are already a profitable operator in the short term, it is very likely that you will also be profitable in the medium and long term,
… As long as you can interpret the Language of Price or Price Action.
In the opposite case, the same would not happen. If you were a medium-term trader, you would need time to adjust to the intraday. The reality is that long, medium and short term traders have very similar personalities. The intraday trader is completely different.

The Myth of the Intraday in Investments in FOREX

If you are already successful in the short, medium and long term, you will notice that the sacrifice and the hours necessary in front of the computer to operate intraday is much greater. The intraday style will be useful to increase your account if it is less than USD $ 100,000 in a very short time in exchange for 8 to 12 hours a day of hard work but ...
You must first develop the necessary skills to operate the intraday.
The ideal is to combine all the styles to get more out of the Market and carry out more effective transactions and have a diversification in your investments in FOREX.
There are intraday traders that are very successful, but the reality is that there are very few in the world that make a profit year after year. If you want to become an intraday, you just have to prepare yourself properly through intensive training.
Otherwise, I recommend that you don't even think about educating yourself to adopt the intraday style. It is not necessary to go against a probability of failure greater than 99%. Unless
... your ego is greater than your common sense.
The main reason why this style of investments in FOREX is not recommended for the vast majority of us "retail investors" (the official term "retail traders"), is the high operational cost.
The real commissions in this market range between $ 2.0 and $ 2.50 for each lot of 100,000 virtual units. This means that a complete operation (opening and closing) is approximately $ 5.00, for each standard lot traded ($ 100,000 virtual).
Another fundamental reason is the advent of robotic traders (HFT = High-Frequency Trading), which tend to manipulate the market in the shorter intraday swings. Please do not confuse HFTs with automated systems that we find daily on the internet, and that can be purchased for a few hundred dollars and often for free on FOREX forums / groups.
These HFTs to which I refer, they are effective. They cost millions of dollars and have been developed by the large Wall Street financial firms to manage their investments in FOREX.
The reality of the intraday trader is that you execute orders for large lots at the same time, to profit from the smallest movements in the market. It is an activity based on reflexes. The slightest oversight or distraction can turn into a catastrophe for your FOREX investments.
I recommend that you start investing in FOREX using slow time periods such as H4 or Daily. For some reason, all Goldman Sachs intraday FOREX investments are made with algorithms.

Finally…

To choose your style as a trader and manage your investments in FOREX, first determine what your degree of experience is, analyze the points mentioned below and the rest you will discover when you execute your first operations.
The points that will affect your decision are:

Capital
Time available each day
Level of Experience
Personality

Discovering your style is a search process. For some it will be a long way to find the right time frame that matches their personality. Don't be put off by the falls. After all, those who continue the path despite the falls are the ones who reach the destination.
And I hope you are one of those who get up over and over again. The next lesson will boost your confidence when you discover the main reason that moves currencies ...

Fundamental Analysis in Forex Trading Reddit

The fundamental analysis in Forex is used mostly by long-term investors. Players as we saw in the styles of operators, start a negotiation today, to close it years later.
I always emphasize the importance that the mass media give to this type of analysis to distract the great mass of participants.
It is all part of a great mass psychological manipulation. For centuries the ignorance of the masses has been organized before the great movements begin.
The important news are the macroeconomic reports published by the Central Banks and other government agencies destined for this work. All reports are made up. 99% of them are corrected months later.
These events are tools to justify fundamental analysis and price cleaning movements. Any silly headline does the job. With this, it is possible to absorb most of the existing liquidity, before the new trend phase is projected.

Reaction!

Except in rare situations, the result of an economic report of the fundamental analysis is generally already assimilated in the graph. In most cases, there are financial institutions that already have access to this information and are organizing and carrying out their operations in advance.
The phrase buy the rumor and sell the news is a very old adage on Wall Street. And its meaning contains what we have just explained. For the investor who can interpret the Language of Price, fundamental analysis is of little importance. Well, in general, their disclosure does not indicate that you have to take any action in your open trades , as long as your entry strategy provides you with a good support cushion.
This reality of fundamental analysis causes a lot of confusion for investors who lack in-depth knowledge of the forex market.

Macroeconomic Data

The data published in these events is irrelevant. Both for speculators and for the people in general. They are false. They lack reliability.
The price can go up or down with the same result of the data. The main ones are:
- Interest Rates - GDP (gross domestic product) - CPI (inflation) - ISM (manufacturing index) - NFP (payroll) - Double Deficits (deficit = fiscal + balance of payments)
If you are initiated, I recommend you avoid operating near these events. It is only a matter of having the time pending. Use the economic calendar for Fundamental Analysis of Forex Factory.
There is a probabilistic advantage in operating these fundamental analysis events. But it takes preparation, experience, and practice. They represent a way of diversifying in the general operation of a speculator.

The Uncertainty of Fundamental Analysis

On many occasions after the disclosure of an economic report, the price movement of the currency pair that is going to be affected tends to move in the opposite direction to the logic of the report.
I show you an example of a fundamental analysis report. Imagine that the EUR / USD pair is trading at 1.2500, and the FED (US Federal Reserve) issues a statement announcing that it has just raised inter-bank interest rates from 0.25 points to 0.75 points. Very positive news for the US dollar that logically implies an appreciation of the currency and consequently an instantaneous collapse of the EUR / USD pair (up the dollar and down the euro)
However, minutes after the release of said fundamental analysis report, the pair after effectively collapsing to 1.2400, returns and returns to its levels prior to the report (1.2500). This situation is very common , but it is not so easy to identify it when it is occurring, but after the damage is done.
Traps like these devour the accounts of beginners who approach the market with little experience, with weak strategies, and especially with very little experience.
That is why I reiterate that you forget the fundamental analysis for now. Just keep in mind when operating, that there is no publication scheduled nearby. Just check the economic calendar for the day and forget about the numbers. Let the economists mess around with the data.

FOREX Market Correlation

The Forex market correlation exists between pairs with similar "base" currencies and not always under the same circumstances. The correlation in the Forex market that is most followed and that has the greatest impact on fundamental analysis is that of the US dollar (USD).
The USD is the most traded monetary unit with a volume greater than 80% with respect to the rest of the currencies. This fact determines why their correlation is the most important, the most followed, and perhaps the only one worth following in the fundamental macro analysis.
The 7 major pairs are usually in sync . These 7 pairs all include the USD and present a fundamental analysis correlation almost 75% of the time. Influencing the rest of the currency pairs.

Advantages of the FOREX Market Correlation

In the fundamental analysis the most basic FOREX correlation is the following. When the USD appreciates, the USD / CAD, USD / CHF, and USD / JPY pairs tend to go up in price. This indicates that the Canadian dollar (CAD), the Swiss franc (CHF), and the Japanese yen (JPY) are losing value against the USD.
We must bear in mind that this correlation does not occur 100% of the time. In fact, the JPY generally tends to move in the opposite direction , since in recent decades this currency has been used as a source of financing to invest in other financial instruments.
On the other side is the FOREX market correlation that generates a movement almost in unison in the other 4 major pairs EUR / USD, GBP / USD, AUD / USD, and NZD / USD. These tend to fall in price, homologous the appreciation of the USD. But not always.
In this case the fundamental analysis correlation works most of the time, between 65 and 85% of the time. Small differences are noted in the extent that each of these pairs experiences.
There is also a correlation in the secondary FOREX market, where the pairs of all currencies that do not include the USD participate, but I recommend you not to waste time on them for now. There are more important things about the Language of Price to know first.

FOREX Commodity Correlation

In this part I will explain to you in a basic way the Correlation Commodities - FOREX of the fundamental analysis.
There are three currencies that have a direct correlation with commodities. They are usually called: "COMDOLLS" which is short for "Commodities Dollars" (Commodities Dollars), since all three obey the dollar denomination. These are:
- The New Zealand Dollar (NZD) - The Australian Dollar (AUD) - The Canadian Dollar (CAD)
These three currencies make up the group of the 8 largest together with the euro, the pound, the yen, the franc and the US dollar. Together, they merge to produce the major pairs traded in the FOREX Foreign Exchange Market.
The FOREX Commodity Correlation has an affinity in most cases greater than 75%. And each of them has its different raw material of correlation. You will notice that the NZD and the AUD are two currencies that act practically in unison. Both present minimal discrepancies in their fluctuations in the short, medium and long term.
This is mainly because their economies are very similar and their economic and fiscal policies are too. Their main production items also show great similarities, despite the fact that the Australian economy is much larger than the New Zealand economy.
The raw materials that follow the movement of the AUD are mainly gold and copper. If you put the history of these three quotes during the last decade of the year 2,000 together on the same chart, you will notice a very similar upward movement between the three quotes. Pure correlation of fundamental analysis.
This strong correlation with commodities in the metals area for the AUD has provided Australia with an economic advantage enviable over the other major powers that have seen their currencies devalue sharply against the AUD. At the same time, they experience a constant decrease in the purchasing power of their citizens.
The NZD maintains a correlation with raw materials related to agriculture and livestock, mainly including milk and its derivatives. It is one of the countries that dominates the world export of these economic items, and also has important exports of metals , although in smaller quantities than Australia.
Finally, you have a correlation with raw materials in the energy area. For historical reasons the CAD, which is not the largest oil producer in the world, but an important supplier to the largest consumer that is the US, has seen its currency oscillate in line with oil prices.
To make long-term investments in the Foreign Exchange Market, it is necessary to take into consideration at least one Commodity Correlation - FOREX in your fundamental analysis.

Forex Technical Analysis Reddit

The technical analysis is the methodology that interprets the movements of the price. Specialists look for liquidity to fund their business. The repetition of the strategies used by the specialists in their work generate repetitive patterns.
If you were an analyst, you would develop the visual ability to identify such patterns on a graph. If you were a programmer you would quantify them mathematically using complex formulas.
And if you could learn to interpret the Language of Price, you would have the ability to anticipate 90% of all movements that occur on a chart. And in this business, anticipating is what will make you money.
Market prices are reflected and framed on a horizontal time axis and a vertical price axis. Prices go up or down according to the aggressiveness of the participating operators. In an efficient or balanced market these oscillations should be imperceptible.
But in reality this is not the case, since the Market works thanks to the digital printing of hundreds of billions of units of paper money systematically distributed by the Central Banks through the banking system. These resources serve as a tool to manipulate 100% of the movements that occur in the FOREX Market.
Are you looking for Technical Indicators? All technical indicators were created from the 70's. How do you think that for more than 200 years the speculators of the past accumulated great wealth?
With the Language of Price. The best timing is given by the price itself. Indicator-generated entry signals usually occur at the wrong time.
The basis of technical analysis is human psychology. Unfortunately, human beings are not perfect and are loaded with emotions that dominate their behavior in similar situations, creating repetitive and highly predictable behavior when it occurs in masses.
The study of technical analysis through indicators and subjective training, originates and shapes the collective thinking on which all the traps that specialists execute every day to maintain their business are designed. If the majority won, the Market would cease to exist.
Although you already know that the patterns are not generated by the masses , but the repetitive behavior of the Specialists in the face of the action response of the masses. It is very easy for speculaists, because they can see everyone's orders in their books.
And they also exert a great influence on the decisions of the masses through the mass media. It is what I call the war between the Egg and the Stone , if you hit me you win and if I hit you also you win.

The Deception of Modern Technical Analysis

Through the centuries thousands of people have been able to extract great benefits from the financial markets by applying the basic strategies of technical analysis and the psychology of the Price Language.
More than 200 years ago when the markets began to operate officially, fundamental analysis predominated, which was only used by large financial institutions. As this analysis tool began to become popular, these institutions began to apply the strategies of technical analysis.
In recent decades and with the massification of internet technology, technical analysis has begun to be handled by anyone who has a computer with internet access. The same financial institutions, which have been present for more than a century and as a result of this overcrowding , establish a strategy to confuse and misinform about the true strategies of technical analysis.
This has been accomplished in the following manner. Currently there are hundreds, if not thousands of technical indicators that have been developed by so-called "gurus" of technical analysis and that sell their magic indicators packed in a "system" or "method" that usually cost thousands of dollars, or simply with the publication of a book with which they generate large profits. Double benefit.
The aim is to confuse the initiates in speculation and create the collective mentality that will originate the same behaviors over and over again. About 95% of these new entrants completely lose all the capital they invest in their early stages as investors.
Leaving them with a negative experience and creating the idea and the image that financial markets are an exclusive area for geniuses with high academic levels and that only they can produce returns in the markets year after year.
The initiate, having lost all his original capital, turns to these “gurus” for help and teachings. You spend more capital on the products they offer you and the cycle repeats itself . Obviously, the vast majority do not relapse and completely forget to re-engage in the stock markets.
I hope you have not been a victim of this drama.
Now I will show you the simplicity of a FOREX technical analysis , without the need to resort to any indicator as a tool to determine an effective entry or exit strategy when planning your operations.

The Price Cycle

Previously you studied in the FOREX strategies lesson, that the typical price cycle when it is reflected in a graph, presents four very specific phases and very easy to identify if you perform a technical analysis with common sense . These are:

Accumulation
Bullish trend
Distribution
Bearish trend

Remember also that the most effective way to constantly extract profits in the markets is by taking advantage of phases 2 and 4 (the trends). Combined with a correct reading of the collective behavior of the masses of speculators interpreting the Language of Price.
You will be surprised by the simplicity with which thousands of people around the world and over the centuries have accumulated large sums of money by drawing a few simple lines and applying responsible risk management with their capital.

How to Identify Trends?

Being able to determine the trend phases within the price cycle is the essence of technical analysis since it is these two phases that provide you with the probabilistic advantage you need to operate in the markets and obtain constant returns.
In the most plain and simple language, in the world of technical analysis, there are only two types of formations: trends and ranges.
The trends, in turn, can be bullish if they go up, or bearish if they go down. The ranges, on the other hand, can be accumulation if they are at the beginning of the cycle, or distribution if they are in the high part of the cycle. As I had indicated in the topic of FOREX strategies when describing the price cycle.
This sounds more like a play on words, but I will show you the practical definition to simplify your life and then you will apply these definitions on the graph so that everything makes more sense to you.

Bullish trend: a succession of major highs and major lows
Bearish trend: a succession of minor highs and minor lows
Floor Range: equal highs and varied lows
Ceiling Range: equal minimums and varied maximums

https://preview.redd.it/vvmsshf0guv51.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=c321679a7dcc03f7184778be86379ef442fddf91
Some key points from the graph:

The start of this big uptrend was detected when the last high (thick green line) of the previous downtrend was broken to the upside, ending the succession of lower highs, while exiting the lateral floor formation.
The succession of major lows in the uptrend (thin blue lines)
The succession of major highs in the uptrend (thin green lines)
The end of the uptrend was detected when the last low (thick blue line) of the uptrend was broken to the downside, ending the succession of higher lows, while exiting the lateral ceiling formation.

A tool that will help you sharpen your technical eye and identify trends on the chart is the Currency Scanner. This application is very effective and will provide you with a much-needed boost in your operations to identify reliable trends. At first, we are not sure how reliable a trend is. You will receive great help to find opportunities with the Currency Scanner .

The Common Sense, The Less Common of Senses

The central idea of technical analysis consists in determining the price situation of a market, that is, in which phase of the pattern of its cycle it is currently conjugated with the collective thinking of the masses and the possible traps that the market would have prepared to remove. the capital at stake by the public.
To carry out a precise technical analysis, you will use the support and resistance lines, which can be static (horizontal) or dynamic (projecting an angle with respect to the horizontal axis).
Your common sense prevails here.
If you show a 10-year-old a chart, they will be able to tell you if the price is going up or down. You will most likely have no idea how to draw the lines, but you will be able to establish the general trend. Simply using your common sense.
By introducing indicators and other gadgets , the simplicity and effectiveness of the technical analysis created by your common sense evaporates.
The following graph conceptually shows you all the possible situations in which you could draw these lines to carry out your technical analysis of the place. You can clearly observe a downtrend delimited by its dynamic trend line and an uptrend on the right side with its respective dynamic delimitation.
https://preview.redd.it/5iehg0r6guv51.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=84c265a5d35da7ea970792c4bf40fe20b33bd8bd

Forex Charts Analysis

I want to remind you that the formations or patterns that develop on the charts (triangles, wedges, pennants, boxes, etc.) only work to execute trades that have initially been confirmed by the static support and resistance lines and to read the collective thinking of the masses.
Chart formations work, but you must know the Language of Price to determine when the Specialists will exploit a chartist figure, or when they will allow it to run. In fact, you will learn with the Language that you can operate a chart figure in any direction.
Much of the "mentalization" that the masses receive is to believe that the figures are made to be respected. Which is an inefficient way of working. Simply because you could wait days or months for a perfect chart figure to occur in order to perform a reliable trade. When in fact there are dozens every day.

Japanese Candles

Of all the tools you have to carry out technical analysis, perhaps the best known and most popular is the Japanese technique of candles (candlesticks).
Candles are mainly used to identify reversal points on the chart without resorting to confirmation of horizontal trend lines and only using a previous bar or candle breaks.
Its correct use is subject to a multi-time analysis (multiple temporalities) and a general evaluation of the context proposed by the market in general at the time of each scenario.
Later I will show you all the important details to take into account so that you use Japanese candles in a simple and very effective way.
Do not forget ... Trading in your beginnings based on formations (chartism) and candlestick patterns conjugated with hundreds of tools and technical indicators, constitutes the perfect path to your failure. Before using any strategy or technique I recommend you focus on learning the Price Language, which includes 3 basic things:

The Price: structure and dynamics
Market sentiment: relative strength, external shocks, etc.
Psychology: flexible mindset and risk acceptance

After you acquire this solid foundation, I guarantee that you will be able to trade any trading system that exists, any strategy, technique or chart figure in a profitable and consistent manner.
Specialists make money every day at the expense of the collective behavior caused by the use of these strategies and techniques. With which you will only manage to lose your capital and your time by putting the cart in front of the horse.
People who do the opposite, at best become,
... Philosophers of Speculation, or indocile Robot Assistants or Expert Advisors.
To make money in any market condition, range or trend, you must use the technical analysis based on the Price Language and combine it with a correct psychological reading of the price. This knowledge can only be acquired through proper education and lots of supervised practice. Like any other career in life.
I hope you've found this guide helpful!

Real quick before I get into my next steps of my FX Journey, id like to say thank you to all the people who commented on my last post! All of the tips I got were really eye-opening and introduced me to different parts of FX trading that I didn't even know existed. So thank you so much, and I hope to get more interesting feedback from you guys in the future! Also Im going to probably change my writing frequency from daily to biweekly. I think writing about every little trade is not going to be as beneficial to me as writing about my overall progress at certain points throughout the week.
I started this trading day out by learning up on order flow. A whole bunch of you guys suggested really interesting youtubers to watch, and I started with Mr. pip's series on order flow. After I finished up watching a few of his videos, I started to tweak my trading plan so that I could get in some chart time. I changed currency pair from EUUSD to the AUD/USD, the time frame from the 4 hour to the 1 hour, and my indicators from RSI, Stochastic, 2 SMAs and ADX to ATR, RSI, and Ichimoku Kinko Hyo. I also added a little fundamental analysis in my trading plan because I think that I am being far too reliant on my indicators. I planned to check the economic calendar and determine the general trend of the currency pairs that are strongly correlated to the AUD/USD before I began my chart analysis. In addition to all of my analysis, I tried to practice using the techniques I learned in Mr. Pip's videos and analyze the order flow of the chart. Even if my analysis of order flow is wrong, as long as I am getting practice I am learning.
Eventhough I planned to use today to back-test indicators and find a solid new plan, I did not have enough time. I ended up getting on my demo account really late in the day, and started to force myself to enter a trade. Destructive habits like this could lead into some massive issues when I eventually get into live trading. To combat this harmful attitude specifically, I will restrict myself to trading on certain parts of the day (for example session overlaps, news releases, and earlier in the day). Despite this mistake I still continued with my trading strategy. I calculated all the currency correlations for AUS/USD using the past weeks economic data, and set my indicators in place. After checking the overall trend of the most strongly correlated pairs (Positive: EUUSD, GPB/USD, Negative: USD/CAD, USD/JPY) I started to analyze the order flow. All the correlated currencies, except for EUUSD, indicated that the AUD/USD would fall, while my order flow analysis indicated the opposite. Seeing as though I am extremely new to order flow, I dismissed this analysis, and ended up forcing a trade on the AUD/USD going short when my indicators seemed to line up correctly. I learned from last time that I should not alter or close my trade purely based on emotion, and to just wait till the market hits my stop loss or take profit. I included a trailing stop loss of 60 pips this time, but I have no evidence to base that number range on. The trade is currently open and I am down about 30 pips.
Although I am not labeling this trade as a loser yet, I can definitely see a lot of holes in my trading strategy. The most obvious mistake in my eyes right now is my use of indicators. Currently all my trades are purely based on what my indicators say, and since I do not have any back-tested data to support the credibility of my indicators, it feels a lot like strategic gambling. Another issue is that I feel far too reliant on indicators alone. I think that if I can find ways to include various types of analysis efficiently and evenly in my trading plan I will become a much more skillful and well-rounded trader. In order to combat these two issues I will begin forming various types of trading strategies this weekend and back-test them all extensively. I also plan on researching more on price action, order flow, and Naked Forex.
Once again any and all feedback is welcome. I am just beginning Forex, but it had been a huge passion of mine and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.

Disclaimer: None of this is financial advice. I have no idea what I'm doing. Please do your own research or you will certainly lose money. I'm not a statistician, data scientist, well-seasoned trader, or anything else that would qualify me to make statements such as the below with any weight behind them. Take them for the incoherent ramblings that they are.
TL;DR at the bottom for those not interested in the details.
This is a bit of a novel, sorry about that. It was mostly for getting my own thoughts organized, but if even one person reads the whole thing I will feel incredibly accomplished.

Background

For those of you not familiar, please see the various threads on this trading system here. I can't take credit for this system, all glory goes to ParallaxFX!
I wanted to see how effective this system was at H1 for a couple of reasons: 1) My current broker is TD Ameritrade - their Forex minimum is a mini lot, and I don't feel comfortable enough yet with the risk to trade mini lots on the higher timeframes(i.e. wider pip swings) that ParallaxFX's system uses, so I wanted to see if I could scale it down. 2) I'm fairly impatient, so I don't like to wait days and days with my capital tied up just to see if a trade is going to win or lose.
This does mean it requires more active attention since you are checking for setups once an hour instead of once a day or every 4-6 hours, but the upside is that you trade more often this way so you end up winning or losing faster and moving onto the next trade. Spread does eat more of the trade this way, but I'll cover this in my data below - it ends up not being a problem.
I looked at data from 6/11 to 7/3 on all pairs with a reasonable spread(pairs listed at bottom above the TL;DR). So this represents about 3-4 weeks' worth of trading. I used mark(mid) price charts. Spreadsheet link is below for anyone that's interested.

System Details

I'm pretty much using ParallaxFX's system textbook, but since there are a few options in his writeups, I'll include all the discretionary points here:

I'm using the stop entry version - so I wait for the price to trade beyond the confirmation candle(in the direction of my trade) before entering. I don't have any data to support this decision, but I've always preferred this method over retracement-limit entries. Maybe I just like the feeling of a higher winrate even though there can be greater R:R using a limit entry. Variety is the spice of life.
I put my stop loss right at the opposite edge of the confirmation candle. NOT at the edge of the 2-candle pattern that makes up the system. I'll get into this more below - not enough trades are saved to justify the wider stops. (Wider stop means less $ per pip won, assuming you still only risk 1%).
All my profit/loss statistics are based on a 1% risk per trade. Because 1 is real easy to multiply.
There are definitely some questionable trades in here, but I tried to make it as mechanical as possible for evaluation purposes. They do fit the definitions of the system, which is why I included them. You could probably improve the winrate by being more discretionary about your trades by looking at support/resistance or other techniques.
I didn't use MBB much for either entering trades, or as support/resistance indicators. Again, trying to be pretty mechanical here just for data collection purposes. Plus, we all make bad trading decisions now and then, so let's call it even.
As stated in the title, this is for H1 only. These results may very well not play out for other time frames - who knows, it may not even work on H1 starting this Monday. Forex is an unpredictable place.
I collected data to show efficacy of taking profit at three different levels: -61.8%, -100% and -161.8% fib levels described in the system using the passive trade management method(set it and forget it). I'll have more below about moving up stops and taking off portions of a position.

And now for the fun. Results!

Total Trades: 241
Raw Winrates:
- TP at -61.8%: 177 out of 241: 73.44%
- TP at -100%: 156 out of 241: 64.73%
- TP at -161.8%: 121 out of 241: 50.20%
Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account):
- TP at -61.8%: 5.22%
- TP at -100%: 23.55%
- TP at -161.8%: 29.14%

As you can see, a higher target ended up with higher profit despite a much lower winrate. This is partially just how things work out with profit targets in general, but there's an additional point to consider in our case: the spread. Since we are trading on a lower timeframe, there is less overall price movement and thus the spread takes up a much larger percentage of the trade than it would if you were trading H4, Daily or Weekly charts. You can see exactly how much it accounts for each trade in my spreadsheet if you're interested. TDA does not have the best spreads, so you could probably improve these results with another broker.
EDIT: I grabbed typical spreads from other brokers, and turns out while TDA is pretty competitive on majors, their minors/crosses are awful! IG beats them by 20-40% and Oanda beats them 30-60%! Using IG spreads for calculations increased profits considerably (another 5% on top) and Oanda spreads increased profits massively (another 15%!). Definitely going to be considering another broker than TDA for this strategy. Plus that'll allow me to trade micro-lots, so I can be more granular(and thus accurate) with my position sizing and compounding.

A Note on Spread

As you can see in the data, there were scenarios where the spread was 80% of the overall size of the trade(the size of the confirmation candle that you draw your fibonacci retracements over), which would obviously cut heavily into your profits.
Removing any trades where the spread is more than 50% of the trade width improved profits slightly without removing many trades, but this is almost certainly just coincidence on a small sample size. Going below 40% and even down to 30% starts to cut out a lot of trades for the less-common pairs, but doesn't actually change overall profits at all(~1% either way).
However, digging all the way down to 25% starts to really make some movement. Profit at the -161.8% TP level jumps up to 37.94% if you filter out anything with a spread that is more than 25% of the trade width! And this even keeps the sample size fairly large at 187 total trades.
You can get your profits all the way up to 48.43% at the -161.8% TP level if you filter all the way down to only trades where spread is less than 15% of the trade width, however your sample size gets much smaller at that point(108 trades) so I'm not sure I would trust that as being accurate in the long term.
Overall based on this data, I'm going to only take trades where the spread is less than 25% of the trade width. This may bias my trades more towards the majors, which would mean a lot more correlated trades as well(more on correlation below), but I think it is a reasonable precaution regardless.

Time of Day

Time of day had an interesting effect on trades. In a totally predictable fashion, a vast majority of setups occurred during the London and New York sessions: 5am-12pm Eastern. However, there was one outlier where there were many setups on the 11PM bar - and the winrate was about the same as the big hours in the London session. No idea why this hour in particular - anyone have any insight? That's smack in the middle of the Tokyo/Sydney overlap, not at the open or close of either.
On many of the hour slices I have a feeling I'm just dealing with small number statistics here since I didn't have a lot of data when breaking it down by individual hours. But here it is anyway - for all TP levels, these three things showed up(all in Eastern time):

7pm-4am: Fewer setups, but winrate high.
5am-6am: Lots of setups, but but winrate low.
12pm-3pm Medium number of setups, but winrate low.

I don't have any reason to think these timeframes would maintain this behavior over the long term. They're almost certainly meaningless. EDIT: When you de-dup highly correlated trades, the number of trades in these timeframes really drops, so from this data there is no reason to think these timeframes would be any different than any others in terms of winrate.
That being said, these time frames work out for me pretty well because I typically sleep 12am-7am Eastern time. So I automatically avoid the 5am-6am timeframe, and I'm awake for the majority of this system's setups.

Moving stops up to breakeven

This section goes against everything I know and have ever heard about trade management. Please someone find something wrong with my data. I'd love for someone to check my formulas, but I realize that's a pretty insane time commitment to ask of a bunch of strangers.
Anyways. What I found was that for these trades moving stops up...basically at all...actually reduced the overall profitability.
One of the data points I collected while charting was where the price retraced back to after hitting a certain milestone. i.e. once the price hit the -61.8% profit level, how far back did it retrace before hitting the -100% profit level(if at all)? And same goes for the -100% profit level - how far back did it retrace before hitting the -161.8% profit level(if at all)?
Well, some complex excel formulas later and here's what the results appear to be. Emphasis on appears because I honestly don't believe it. I must have done something wrong here, but I've gone over it a hundred times and I can't find anything out of place.

Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%
- Winrate: 46.4%
- Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 5.36%
Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%
- Winrate: 65.97%
- Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): -1.01% (yes, a net loss)

Now, you might think exactly what I did when looking at these numbers: oof, the spread killed us there right? Because even when you move your SL to 0%, you still end up paying the spread, so it's not truly "breakeven". And because we are trading on a lower timeframe, the spread can be pretty hefty right?
Well even when I manually modified the data so that the spread wasn't subtracted(i.e. "Breakeven" was truly +/- 0), things don't look a whole lot better, and still way worse than the passive trade management method of leaving your stops in place and letting it run. And that isn't even a realistic scenario because to adjust out the spread you'd have to move your stoploss inside the candle edge by at least the spread amount, meaning it would almost certainly be triggered more often than in the data I collected(which was purely based on the fib levels and mark price). Regardless, here are the numbers for that scenario:

Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%
- Winrate(breakeven doesn't count as a win): 46.4%
- Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 17.97%
Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%
- Winrate(breakeven doesn't count as a win): 65.97%
- Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 11.60%

From a literal standpoint, what I see behind this behavior is that 44 of the 69 breakeven trades(65%!) ended up being profitable to -100% after retracing deeply(but not to the original SL level), which greatly helped offset the purely losing trades better than the partial profit taken at -61.8%. And 36 went all the way back to -161.8% after a deep retracement without hitting the original SL. Anyone have any insight into this? Is this a problem with just not enough data? It seems like enough trades that a pattern should emerge, but again I'm no expert.
I also briefly looked at moving stops to other lower levels (78.6%, 61.8%, 50%, 38.2%, 23.6%), but that didn't improve things any. No hard data to share as I only took a quick look - and I still might have done something wrong overall.
The data is there to infer other strategies if anyone would like to dig in deep(more explanation on the spreadsheet below). I didn't do other combinations because the formulas got pretty complicated and I had already answered all the questions I was looking to answer.

2-Candle vs Confirmation Candle Stops

Another interesting point is that the original system has the SL level(for stop entries) just at the outer edge of the 2-candle pattern that makes up the system. Out of pure laziness, I set up my stops just based on the confirmation candle. And as it turns out, that is much a much better way to go about it.
Of the 60 purely losing trades, only 9 of them(15%) would go on to be winners with stops on the 2-candle formation. Certainly not enough to justify the extra loss and/or reduced profits you are exposing yourself to in every single other trade by setting a wider SL.
Oddly, in every single scenario where the wider stop did save the trade, it ended up going all the way to the -161.8% profit level. Still, not nearly worth it.

Correlated Trades

As I've said many times now, I'm really not qualified to be doing an analysis like this. This section in particular.
Looking at shared currency among the pairs traded, 74 of the trades are correlated. Quite a large group, but it makes sense considering the sort of moves we're looking for with this system.
This means you are opening yourself up to more risk if you were to trade on every signal since you are technically trading with the same underlying sentiment on each different pair. For example, GBP/USD and AUD/USD moving together almost certainly means it's due to USD moving both pairs, rather than GBP and AUD both moving the same size and direction coincidentally at the same time. So if you were to trade both signals, you would very likely win or lose both trades - meaning you are actually risking double what you'd normally risk(unless you halve both positions which can be a good option, and is discussed in ParallaxFX's posts and in various other places that go over pair correlation. I won't go into detail about those strategies here).
Interestingly though, 17 of those apparently correlated trades ended up with different wins/losses.
Also, looking only at trades that were correlated, winrate is 83%/70%/55% (for the three TP levels).
Does this give some indication that the same signal on multiple pairs means the signal is stronger? That there's some strong underlying sentiment driving it? Or is it just a matter of too small a sample size? The winrate isn't really much higher than the overall winrates, so that makes me doubt it is statistically significant.
One more funny tidbit: EUCAD netted the lowest overall winrate: 30% to even the -61.8% TP level on 10 trades. Seems like that is just a coincidence and not enough data, but dang that's a sucky losing streak.
EDIT: WOW I spent some time removing correlated trades manually and it changed the results quite a bit. Some thoughts on this below the results. These numbers also include the other "What I will trade" filters. I added a new worksheet to my data to show what I ended up picking.

Total Trades: 75
Raw Winrates:
- TP at -61.8%: 84.00%
- TP at -100%: 73.33%
- TP at -161.8%: 60.00%
- Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%: 53.33%
- Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%: 53.33% (yes, oddly the exact same winrate. but different trades/profits)
Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account):
- TP at -61.8%: 18.13%
- TP at -100%: 26.20%
- TP at -161.8%: 34.01%
- Moving SL up to 0% when the price hits -61.8%, TP at -100%: 19.20%
- Taking half position off at -61.8%, moving SL up to 0%, TP remaining half at -100%: 17.29%

To do this, I removed correlated trades - typically by choosing those whose spread had a lower % of the trade width since that's objective and something I can see ahead of time. Obviously I'd like to only keep the winning trades, but I won't know that during the trade. This did reduce the overall sample size down to a level that I wouldn't otherwise consider to be big enough, but since the results are generally consistent with the overall dataset, I'm not going to worry about it too much.
I may also use more discretionary methods(support/resistance, quality of indecision/confirmation candles, news/sentiment for the pairs involved, etc) to filter out correlated trades in the future. But as I've said before I'm going for a pretty mechanical system.
This brought the 3 TP levels and even the breakeven strategies much closer together in overall profit. It muted the profit from the high R:R strategies and boosted the profit from the low R:R strategies. This tells me pair correlation was skewing my data quite a bit, so I'm glad I dug in a little deeper. Fortunately my original conclusion to use the -161.8 TP level with static stops is still the winner by a good bit, so it doesn't end up changing my actions.
There were a few times where MANY (6-8) correlated pairs all came up at the same time, so it'd be a crapshoot to an extent. And the data showed this - often then won/lost together, but sometimes they did not. As an arbitrary rule, the more correlations, the more trades I did end up taking(and thus risking). For example if there were 3-5 correlations, I might take the 2 "best" trades given my criteria above. 5+ setups and I might take the best 3 trades, even if the pairs are somewhat correlated.
I have no true data to back this up, but to illustrate using one example: if AUD/JPY, AUD/USD, CAD/JPY, USD/CAD all set up at the same time (as they did, along with a few other pairs on 6/19/20 9:00 AM), can you really say that those are all the same underlying movement? There are correlations between the different correlations, and trying to filter for that seems rough. Although maybe this is a known thing, I'm still pretty green to Forex - someone please enlighten me if so! I might have to look into this more statistically, but it would be pretty complex to analyze quantitatively, so for now I'm going with my gut and just taking a few of the "best" trades out of the handful.
Overall, I'm really glad I went further on this. The boosting of the B/E strategies makes me trust my calculations on those more since they aren't so far from the passive management like they were with the raw data, and that really had me wondering what I did wrong.

What I will trade

Putting all this together, I am going to attempt to trade the following(demo for a bit to make sure I have the hang of it, then for keeps):

"System Details" I described above.
TP at -161.8%
Static SL at opposite side of confirmation candle - I won't move stops up to breakeven.
Trade only 7am-11am and 4pm-11pm signals.
Nothing where spread is more than 25% of trade width.

Looking at the data for these rules, test results are:

Winrate: 58.19%
Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 47.43%

I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes!

Other Technical Details

ATR is only slightly elevated in this date range from historical levels, so this should fairly closely represent reality even after the COVID volatility leaves the scalpers sad and alone.
The sample size is much too small for anything really meaningful when you slice by hour or pair. I wasn't particularly looking to test a specific pair here - just the system overall as if you were going to trade it on all pairs with a reasonable spread.

Raw Data

Here's the spreadsheet for anyone that'd like it. (EDIT: Updated some of the setups from the last few days that have fully played out now. I also noticed a few typos, but nothing major that would change the overall outcomes. Regardless, I am currently reviewing every trade to ensure they are accurate.UPDATE: Finally all done. Very few corrections, no change to results.)
I have some explanatory notes below to help everyone else understand the spiraled labyrinth of a mind that put the spreadsheet together.

I'm on the East Coast in the US, so the timestamps are Eastern time.
Time stamp is from the confirmation candle, not the indecision candle. So 7am would mean the indecision candle was 6:00-6:59 and the confirmation candle is 7:00-7:59 and you'd put in your order at 8:00.
I found a couple AM/PM typos as I was reviewing the data, so let me know if a trade doesn't make sense and I'll correct it.

Insanely detailed spreadsheet notes

For you real nerds out there. Here's an explanation of what each column means:

Pair - duh
Date/Time - Eastern time, confirmation candle as stated above
Win to -61.8%? - whether the trade made it to the -61.8% TP level before it hit the original SL.
Win to -100%? - whether the trade made it to the -100% TP level before it hit the original SL.
Win to -161.8%? - whether the trade made it to the -161.8% TP level before it hit the original SL.
Retracement level between -61.8% and -100% - how deep the price retraced after hitting -61.8%, but before hitting -100%. Be careful to look for the negative signs, it's easy to mix them up. Using the fib% levels defined in ParallaxFX's original thread. A plain hyphen "-" means it did not retrace, but rather went straight through -61.8% to -100%. Positive 100 means it hit the original SL.
Retracement level between -100% and -161.8% - how deep the price retraced after hitting -100%, but before hitting -161.8%. Be careful to look for the negative signs, it's easy to mix them up. Using the fib% levels defined in ParallaxFX's original thread. A plain hyphen "-" means it did not retrace, but rather went straight through -100% to -161.8%. Positive 100 means it hit the original SL.
Trade Width(Pips) - the size of the confirmation candle, and thus the "width" of your trade on which to determine position size, draw fib levels, etc.
Loser saved by 2 candle stop? - for all losing trades, whether or not the 2-candle stop loss would have saved the trade and how far it ended up getting if so. "No" means it didn't save it, N/A means it wasn't a losing trade so it's not relevant.
Spread(ThinkorSwim) - these are typical spreads for these pairs on ToS.
Spread % of Width - How big is the spread compared to the trade width? Not used in any calculations, but interesting nonetheless.
True Risk(Trade Width + Spread) - I set my SL at the opposite side of the confirmation candle knowing that I'm actually exposing myself to slightly more risk because of the spread(stop order = market order when submitted, so you pay the spread). So this tells you how many pips you are actually risking despite the Trade Width. I prefer this over setting the stop inside from the edge of the candle because some pairs have a wide spread that would mess with the system overall. But also many, many of these trades retraced very nearly to the edge of the confirmation candle, before ending up nicely profitable. If you keep your risk per trade at 1%, you're talking a true risk of, at most, 1.25% (in worst-case scenarios with the spread being 25% of the trade width as I am going with above).
Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -61.8% - not going to go into huge detail, see the spreadsheet for calculations if you want. But, in a nutshell, if the trade was a win to 61.8%, it returns a positive # based on 61.8% of the trade width, minus the spread. Otherwise, it returns the True Risk as a negative. Both normalized to the 1% risk you started with.
Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -100% - same as the last, but 100% of Trade Width.
Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -161.8% - same as the last, but 161.8% of Trade Width.
Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread TP -100%, and move SL to breakeven at 61.8% - uses the retracement level columns to calculate profit/loss the same as the last few columns, but assuming you moved SL to 0% fib level after price hit -61.8%. Then full TP at 100%.
Win or Loss in %(1% risk) including spread take off half of position at -61.8%, move SL to breakeven, TP 100% - uses the retracement level columns to calculate profit/loss the same as the last few columns, but assuming you took of half the position and moved SL to 0% fib level after price hit -61.8%. Then TP the remaining half at 100%.
Overall Growth(-161.8% TP, 1% Risk) - pretty straightforward. Assuming you risked 1% on each trade, what the overall growth level would be chronologically(spreadsheet is sorted by date).

Pairs

AUD/CAD
AUD/CHF
AUD/JPY
AUD/NZD
AUD/USD
CAD/CHF
CAD/JPY
CHF/JPY
EUAUD
EUCAD
EUCHF
EUGBP
EUJPY
EUNZD
EUUSD
GBP/AUD
GBP/CAD
GBP/CHF
GBP/JPY
GBP/NZD
GBP/USD
NZD/CAD
NZD/CHF
NZD/JPY
NZD/USD
USD/CAD
USD/CHF
USD/JPY

TL;DR

Based on the reasonable rules I discovered in this backtest:

Date range: 6/11-7/3
Winrate: 58.19%
Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 47.43%

Demo Trading Results

Since this post, I started demo trading this system assuming a 5k capital base and risking ~1% per trade. I've added the details to my spreadsheet for anyone interested. The results are pretty similar to the backtest when you consider real-life conditions/timing are a bit different. I missed some trades due to life(work, out of the house, etc), so that brought my total # of trades and thus overall profit down, but the winrate is nearly identical. I also closed a few trades early due to various reasons(not liking the price action, seeing support/resistance emerge, etc).
A quick note is that TD's paper trade system fills at the mid price for both stop and limit orders, so I had to subtract the spread from the raw trade values to get the true profit/loss amount for each trade.
I'm heading out of town next week, then after that it'll be time to take this sucker live!

86 Trades
- Date range: 7/9-7/30
- Winrate: 52.32%
- Adjusted Proft % (takes spread into account): 20.73%
  - Starting Balance: $5,000
  - Ending Balance: $6,036.51

Live Trading Results

I started live-trading this system on 8/10, and almost immediately had a string of losses much longer than either my backtest or demo period. Murphy's law huh? Anyways, that has me spooked so I'm doing a longer backtest before I start risking more real money. It's going to take me a little while due to the volume of trades, but I'll likely make a new post once I feel comfortable with that and start live trading again.

IMPORTANT: OVER 75% OF PEOPLE LOSE MONEY WITH CFD TRADING. IF YOU'RE A NOOB, DON'T EVEN THINK OF OPENING A CFD ACCOUNT. TRY MAKING CONSISTENT MONEY SWING TRADING ASX STONKS FIRST. THEN KEEP DOING THAT UNTIL YOU GET BORED AND WANT TO LOSE BIG MONEY VERY QUICKLY. ONLY THEN YOU MAY HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO TRADE WITH LEVERAGE.
You most likely don't have my discipline and pain tolerance. Or my feel for risk/reward math. On top of this you need markets to play nice and a bit of luck.
I'm no wiz, but I know my strengths and weaknesses. I smell a good setup and prepare accordingly.
Hope you all nail your big opportunity when it shows up. If not, that's okay too. You'll keep getting chances. Be patient. Focus on small wins. Plus there's far more important things in life than being loaded.
------
How I lost 5k trading CFDs then turned it around
Back in April, I was playing with CFDs and nearly blew up my account. Started with $5k and dropped to almost zero because trading forex with leverage is a very stupid game. This is why IG gives you a demo account. But instead of using the demo account to learn how not to fuck up massively, I was using it to place giant YOLO shorts on US markets.
By being a bit less retarded on the forex trades I clawed back some losses then topped up the account with another $2.5k before starting to open small positions in gold. From 3 to 10 contracts depending on how confident I felt. Then smelling a massive opportunity, I ramped up the leverage by going with much larger positions.
Day 5
https://preview.redd.it/oqd955abwak51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=84aa309284c22117630899e39b8b1bfb89c670f3
Entering the silver trade
It was only after making decent profits in gold that I dared venture into silver. I wanted to enter silver around $18 but missed the boat after waiting too long for a dip. $20 was still great. Tons of upside left.
Silver is one nasty motherfucker to trade. It's a much smaller market than gold so the swings can be wild. Silver will play along nicely then suddenly fuck you really hard. If you use too much leverage you're basically waiting for your account to blow up. Stop losses will save you, but they can also kill your best trades. I didn't bother with stops for most of the ride because I'm an ASX_bets retard but also because I had ultra high conviction in the $25-27 price target.
Started with 25 contracts. I very nearly missed out on this mini pump. Some might call it luck.
Day 18
https://preview.redd.it/de8jozlexak51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=79d174c67a86754c7d9fd78aa594f88282c08834
Adding to my silver positions
Increased my position size once I had a profit buffer to protect against sharp drops. It's WAY easier to blow up a CFD account than it appears. When trades are going well you feel like you can keep adding leverage and make millions. But even small swings will kill you if your positions are too big. Discipline is key.
Buying 50 contracts in silver is not the same as 50 contracts in gold because silver moves are 2-4 times bigger. When gold moves 100 points, expect a 200-400 points move in silver. Having an equal mix of gold an silver contracts helped lower the overall volatility of my account.
Anything over 10 contracts in silver is big. You can lose hundreds within minutes. Buy 50 contracts, the price drops $1 and you're $5000 in the hole. I knew when to push and when to hold back. This was EXTREMELY important. I did not get greedy. I was happy to let price moves do most of the lifting.
Started the day with 3k profits. Went to bed that night with big beautiful bhags. 17k
https://preview.redd.it/qcbeoxvnxak51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=4228593b9d86cc5f0460f44af06c7292ea644625
Day 19
Woke up the next morning with even bigger bhags. 30k
https://preview.redd.it/9b439y5qxak51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=19e3ad27d7237bc88fdeb329ebcd113e11349554
Day 24
More pump. I added 50 silver contracts that day after a decent drop. Profits now up to around 41k.
Held through the big swings...
Like a proper bitch, Silver dropped another 5% soon after I added those 50 contracts and my 41k profit became 20k very suddenly. But no stop loss and I held firmly. What's a 21k drop when you've been down 35k on BBOZ before. Metals bounced back hard later that evening. Still not selling. High conviction made all the difference here.
Five days later and I was up to 50k profit.
At that point, I felt safe enough to add another 50 contracts.
https://preview.redd.it/j2at0n95zck51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a0ea2fabe6a245807fb9ee8a8d0bc4ce854ba3a
And it paid off BIG
Both gold and silver keep pumping. Profit now 86k.
Day 28
https://preview.redd.it/f3pz0an8zck51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ca765b6cad423786dee33a1366c70d324e39b8d
Why sell now?
Not selling yet. GV's silver target was $25-27 so I was confident holding through some wild swings.
GV = Gold Ventures https://twitter.com/thelastdegree
A turbo chad from Belgium who made a massive fortune trading options during 2008-2011 when silver went from $9 to $50 before crashing hard. GV is a certified wizard when it comes to timing the gold and silver cycles. Started with his wife's 32k savings and is now worth 18 million EUR or USD, I'm not sure and who cares. GV is pretty low key but commands plenty of respect from other metal traders on Twitter.
Meanwhile GV was on holiday but still shitting money.
https://preview.redd.it/ixsxwjx30dk51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=9fd5741634a7a5b0f913f5ea12edf05722f9fddf
GV also has a junior miner portfolio worth several millions. I believe it's true. I went deep into his Twitter history. He was buying heavily into the March crash and some of his picks like AbraPlata have since made 10x. Junior miners are like call options on metal prices with no expiry date but you still need to pick winners and enteexit at the right time.
Magical Six Figure Milestone
Not long after... BOOM! Hit 100k in profit.
When starting, I knew there was potentially 40k-50k to be made from this setup even without playing it perfectly. I would have been okay with 20k.
Day 32
https://preview.redd.it/oy8sqsgz1dk51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=a8c628670578b81d72b9a41bd9d2307a27a2fbf7
Start taking profits
Silver was still going strong but I felt it was time to de-risk.
So I started taking profits on both gold and silver around that time.
https://preview.redd.it/gvdqs67a2dk51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=64a77d3ccca86fe6e29eb43e0c2eaf096f68867c
Okay I'm out
The way silver kept pumping, I knew a big correction was imminent. By 12pm I was completely out with over 110k profit. Home and dry.
I went on with my daily work routine, a bit more relaxed and not checking charts every 5 minutes.
And then metals dumped hard.
There was money to be made on the short side but there was also a strong possibility of shorts being squeezed. So I didn't bother.
https://preview.redd.it/opoio79i2dk51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=80187384d37e03eec8d01814248bbe4c5a48cc4f
After the dump, I had no appetite to get back in with big positions. In hindsight I could have made tons more if I held to $29 but the ride from $24 to $29 is far more risky than $20 to $26. I'm quite okay with my 40x performance. Plus I needed to reset mentally after this rocket ride. More often than not, the best thing to do after a huge trading win is to take a break. Wisdom gained from the BBOZ days :)
Withdrew my initial capital and 90% of the profits from IG. Left around 6k on the account to keep playing.
https://preview.redd.it/1djdhz1m2dk51.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c028a06d4e0cf73bfb80f8ac48dd18e333b791d4
Feels good to have extra funds to invest with but I also need to set some aside for the monster tax bill next year. You're welcome Australia, and all the JobSeekeJobKeeper leeches.
Hey everyone, check out my insane stats!
That 85% win rate though...

IG MARKETS - TRADE ANALYTICS - 29 JUNE TO 29 JULY

https://preview.redd.it/slkmhrlq2dk51.png?width=1272&format=png&auto=webp&s=b15b261144d3cd55c1d28530a80efd30c49f3125
Less impressive when zooming out to include the forex train wreck in April and my more recent metal trades.

IG MARKETS - TRADE ANALYTICS - 1 JANUARY TO 17 AUGUST

https://preview.redd.it/jam28zau2dk51.png?width=1272&format=png&auto=webp&s=99fd332c319984f1de28d1ec7e6a58df2754946d
-----
Credits to:
https://twitter.com/thelastdegree - already covered above
https://twitter.com/DaveHcontrarian - called the metals and S&P500 bull runs
https://twitter.com/AdamMancini4 - simple yet powerful charts
https://twitter.com/badcharts1 - advanced silver charts
https://twitter.com/graddhybpc - advanced gold and silver charts
https://twitter.com/Northst18363337 - another master of charts
https://twitter.com/bhagdip143 - ultimate master of monster position and making bhags
BTW fuck Facebook groups, you'll hardly learn anything there. Full of losers. Twitter is where the elite traders and big dick fund managers bounce ideas. A solid Twitter list is worth thousands if not millions in the right hands.

Hi there guys,
Welcome back to my weekly rants. Decided to add some info that should be pretty useful to your daily trading, thanks to the comments of u/Neokill1 and u/indridcold91.
If you have not read the rest of the series, I recommend you take your time and read those before continuing with this piece (check my user activity and scroll down...)
This rant is based on this little comment I posted on the last post:
Price moves because of the imbalance between buying and selling. This happens all the time. Price move where liquidity is, and that seeking of liquidity makes the price to go up and down.
Why price extends on a particular direction? Because longer term players decide it.
So the idea behind what I'm writing about is to follow that longer-term trend, taking advantage of a counter-trend wave that is looking for intra-day liquidity. If I'm bullish on the week, I want to pair my buying with intra-day selling. Because I expect longer-term traders to push price by buying massively. And instead of riding a big wave, I want to ride that push and get out before it retraces.
And also answers to this: why for example would it make sense to draw support/resistance lines on a EUUSD chart? Why would anyone "support" the price of a spread? What are you predicting to happen by drawing those lines, that someone will exchange their currency there simply because it's the same price they exchanged it for in the past and that number is special to them?
A good question that deserves an answer
That question is a pretty good one, and one any trader worth of that name should ask himself why. Why price reacts the way it does? Why price behaves in predetermined ways? Why if I draw a line or area on specific candle places, I expect the price to react?
And the answer is simple and at the same time kinda complicated and fascinating. Why price rallies and rallies andd rallies and then suddenly it stops at a point ,and reverses? . The answer is , because there are sellers at that point. There is liquidity there. There is people at that point that decided it was worth to sell enough to reverse that rally.
All the market does is to put together buyers and sellers. If you want to buy something at some price, someone must agree with you. If no ones agrees, then you will have to offer more. When buyers and sellers agree on similar terms, price is stable. Buying and selling happens on a tight range, because both consider that particular price range worth.
But then, perhaps, someone wants to buy big. And there are not enough sellers. This big boy will dry the available liquidity , and it is hungry for more. So price will move from a balanced state to an imbalanced state. This imbalance in volume between buyers and sellers will cause the price to move up, taking all available liquidity till the monster is satiated. Then the exhaustion of bids, or buying, will cause the price to reverse to a point where buying interest is back.
The same applies for selling activity. The main take away you should get from this is simply that the market keeps moving from balance to imbalance to balance to imbalance all the time. And the points where the big bois deploy this activity of buying , of selling, of protecting levels, of slowly entering the markets, are mostly predetermined. Surprised? Most of the institutional activity happens at : 00 ,20, 50 and 80 levels.
So why drawing a line makes sense? It makes sense because when price stalls at some point, is because sellers or buyers stepped in and stopped the movement. Its a level where something interesting is happening.
It's a level where liquidity was present, and the question is, what is going to happen the next time price touches the area? Is someone stepping in to buy or sell at this point? Or perharps the first touch dried the liquidity, and there is nothing preventing price from going up again??
Lets see a real example of a trade I took today on GBPUSD, where I analyze step by step the balance and imbalance of the market liquidity in real time at those levels. The only way to see this is usingfutures. Because forex is a decentralized market and blah blah blah, and futures are centralized so you can see the volume, the limit orders through the DOM and blah blah blah....
So first things first, read well this articule : https://optimusfutures.com/tradeblog/archives/order-flow-trading
Understand well what is said there. Take it easy. Take your time. And then come back to me.
If you have followed my work, you know how I like to ride the market. I want a retracement on the most liquid moment in the market - the NY-London Overlap, and I need a daily BIAS on the pair.
For today, I'm bullish on the GBPUSD.
So lets check the pics.
https://imgur.com/a/kgev9lT
The areas you see marked on the 30 min charts are based on the price relationships that happened last Friday. As you can see, those areas are always in a place where price stalled, retraced, pushed through,came back to the area and reacted in some way. Are those black magic? Why price reacts so smoothly today on them? Ah you Criptochihuahua, this is 20/20 insight, you are lying....
Those points are marked before today's open, simply because of the price relationship I described earlier. And if you remember the earlier rant, price stalls in there because sellers or buyers were present.
So I would expect that the levels are still interesting, and we should be watching carefully how price reacts in real time.
Now, today I got at 1.2680 and got out at 1.2725. Let's check the 2nd pic, keep following the narrative with your own charts.
What you are seeing is the first touch at the big figure with the total volume chart, and the bid/ask order flow chart. You can see how the price is pulled toward that level through the exhaustion of offers being filled. You can see how exactly they are depleted at 15:51. Why? Because at the next min, you can see how there are no offers being filled, compared to the bids.
Remember, when offers are getting filled , price pulls up. When the bids are predominantly being filled, price is pulled down.
And also take a look on the volume. This is key. If an imbalance is to happen, is because there should be a huge difference between bids and asks. Good volume on such a level, good sign. Price hugging the level without good volume, the level will most likely be broken.
Look at the next pic. See the price behavior in combination with the volume? Price is hugging the level on low volume. Great signal. That means the level is not that greatly defended, at this point.
What are we looking for? We are looking for the bids to be exhausted at our next level with a good volume reaction. Watch what happens.
Next pic is our retracement , and we are watching carefully. And look at that beauty. Do you see the volume? Do you see the bids exhaustion? Do you see how the market orders are getting absorbed by the limit orders at that point? Someone does not want the price to go down. Price jumps as a result. It does not huge the level. Do you see? I'm all in, I want to take part of this trade.
But wait, there is more.... look at the next pic, because you yet have another opportunity to get into this train.... at 17:23.. Even a bigger reaction, while on the other side.... we got more hugging...
No more pics for today. You see what happens next. The level gets broken and price rallies to take the previous day high. Trade was a success.
So I hope this added some value, and explained why drawing lines is useful, and how levels are indeed defended.
P.S - I lied: Extra Pic, you got a VWAP chart with Standard Deviations. You can see how the pullback nicely fits in our long framework as well and adds confluence to the trade. Research about this :)

Howdy all, I work professionally for a proprietary trading fund, and have worked for quite a few in my time, hope I can offer some insights on trading etc you guys might have.
Bonus for you guys
Here are the columns in my trading journal and various explanations where appropriate:
Trade Number – Simply is this the first trade of the year? The 10th?, The 50th? I count a trade
that you opened and closed just one trade number. For example if you buy EUUSD today and
sell it 50 pips later in the day and close out the trade, then that is just one trade for recording
purposes. I do not create a second trade number to describe the exit. Both the entry and exit are
under the same trade number.

Ticket Number – This is ticket number / order ID number that your broker gives you for the trade
on your platform.

Day of the Week – This would be simply the day of the week the trade was initiated

Financial Instrument / Currency Pair – Whatever Financial Instrument or currency pair you are
trading. If you are trading EUUSD, put EUUSD. If you are trading the EuroFX futures
contract, then put in Euro FX. If you are trading the emini S&P, then put in Emini S&P 500. If
you are trading a stock, put in the ticker symbol. Etc.

Buy/Sell or Long/Short – Did you buy or sell to open the new trade? If you bought something to
open the trade, then write in either BUY or LONG. If you sold(shorted) something to open a
trade, then write in SOLD, or SHORT. This is a personal preference. Some people like to put in
their journals as BUY/SELL. Other people like to write in Long/Short. My preference is for
writing in long/short, since that is the more professional way to say it. I like to use the lingo
where possible.

Order Type – Market or Limit – When you entered the trade was it a market order or limit order?
Some people can enter a trade using a combination of market and limit orders. If you enter a
trade for $1 million half of which was market order and the other half was limit order, then you
can write in $500,000 Market, $500,000 Limit as a bullet points.

Position Size / Units / Contracts / Shares – How big was the total trade you entered? If you
bought 1 standard lot of a currency pair, then write in $100,000 or 1 standard lot. If you bought 5
gold futures contracts, then write in 5 contracts. If you bought 1,000 shares of stock, then write
in 1,000 shares. Etc.

Entry Price – The entry price you received entering your opening position. If you entered at
multiple prices, then you can either write in all the different fills you got, or specify the average
price received.

Entry Date – Date that you entered the position. For example January 23, 2012. Or you can
write in 1/23/12

.
Entry Time – Time that you opened the position. If it is multiple positions, then you can specify
each time for each various fill, or you can specify the time range. For example if you got
$100,000 worth of EUUSD filled at 3:00 AM EST, and another $100,000 filled at 3:05 and
another $100,000 filled at 3:25, then you can write all those in, or you can specify a range of 3:00
– 3:30 AM EST.

Entry Spread Cost (in pips) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in
pips. If you executed a market order, how many pips did you pay in spread.

Entry Spread Cost (in dollars) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in
dollars. If you executed a market order, how many dollars did you pay in spread.

Stop Loss Size – How big is your stop loss size? If you are trading a currency pair, then you
write in the pips. If you are trading the S&P futures contract, then write in the number of points.
If you are trading a stock, then write in how many cents or dollars your stop is away from your
entry price.

% Risk – If you were to get stopped out of the trade, how much % loss of your equity is that?
This is where you input your risk per trade expressed in % terms if you use such a position sizing
method. If you risked 0.50% of your account on the trade, then put in 0.50%

Risk in dollars – If you were to get stopped out of the trade, how much loss in dollars is that. For
example if you have a $100,000 account and you risked 1% on a trade, then write in $1,000
dollars

Potential Reward: Risk Ratio – This is a column that I only sometimes fill in. You write in what
the potential reward risk ratio of the trade is. If you are trading using a 100 pip stop and you
expect that the market can reasonably move 300 pips, then you can write in 3:1. Of course this is
an interesting column because you can look at it after the trade is finished and see how close you
were or how far removed from reality your initial projections were.

Potential Win Rate – This is another column that I only sometimes fill in. You write in what you
believe the potential win rate of this trade is. If you were to place this trade 10 times in a row,
how many times do you think you would win? I write it in as percentage terms. If you believe
the trade has a 50% chance to win, then write in 50%.

Type of Inefficiency – This is where you write in what type of inefficiency you are looking to
capture. I use the word inefficiency here. I believe it is important to think of trading setups as
inefficiencies. If you think in terms of inefficiencies, then you will think in terms of the market
being mispriced, then you will think about the reasons why the market is mispriced and why such
market expectations for example are out of alignment with reality. In this category I could write
in different types of trades such as fading the stops, different types of news trades, expecting
stops to get tripped, betting on sentiment intensifying, betting on sentiment reversing, etc. I do
not write in all the reasons why I took the trade in this column. I do that in another column. This
column is just to broadly define what type of inefficiency you are looking to capture.

Chart Time Frame – I do not use this since all my order flow based trades have nothing to do
with what chart time frame I look at. However, if you are a chartist or price action trader, then
you may want to include what chart time frame you found whatever pattern you were looking at.

Exit Price – When you exit your trade, you enter the price you received here.

Exit Date – The date you exited your trade.

Exit Time – The time you exited your trade.

Trade Duration – In hours, minutes, days or weeks. If the trade lasts less than an hour, I will
usually write in the duration in minutes. Anything in between 1 and 48 hours, I write in the hours
amount. Anything past that and I write it as days or weeks as appropriate, etc.
Pips the trade went against you before turning into a winner – If you have a trade that suffered a
draw down, but did not stop you out and eventually was a winner, then you write it how many
pips the trade went against you before it turned into a profitable trade. The reason you have this
column is to compare it to your stop loss size and see any patterns that emerge. If you notice that
a lot of your winning trades suffer a big draw down and get near your stop loss points but turn out
to be a profitable trade, then you can further refine your entry strategy to get in a better price.

Slippage on the Exit – If you get stopped out for a loss, then you write in how many pips you
suffered as slippage, if any. For example if you are long EUUSD at 1.2500 and have your stop
loss at 1.2400 and the market drops and you get filled at 1.2398, then you would write in -2 pips
slippage. In other words you lost 2 pips as slippage. This is important for a few different
reasons. Firstly, you want to see if the places you put your stop at suffer from slippage. If they
do, perhaps you can get better stop loss placement, or use it as useful information to find new
inefficiencies. Secondly, you want to see how much slippage your broker is giving you. If you
are trading the same system with different brokers, then you can record the slippage from each
one and see which has the lowest slippage so you can choose them.

Profit/Loss -You write in the profit and/or loss in pips, cents, points, etc as appropriate. If you
bought EUUSD at 1.2500 and sell it at 1.2550, you made 50 pips, so write in +50 pips. If you
bought a stock at $50 and you sell it at $60, then write in +$10. If you buy the S&P futures at
1,250 and sell them at 1,275, then write in +25 points. If you buy the GBP/USD at 1.5000 and
you sell it at 1.4900, then write in -100 pips. Etc. I color code the box background to green for
profit and red for loss.

Profit/Loss In Dollars – You write the profit and/or loss in dollars (or euros, or jpy, etc whatever
currency your account is denominated in). If you are long $100,000 of EUUSD at 1.2500 and
sell it at 1.2600, then write in +$1,000. If you are short $100,000 GBP/USD at 1.5900 and it
rises to 1.6000 and you cover, then write in -$1,000. I color code the box background to green
for profit and red for loss.

Profit/Loss as % of your account – Write in the profit and/or loss as % of your account. If a trade
made you 2% of your account, then write in +2%. If a trade lost 0.50%, then write in -0.50%. I
color code the box background to green for profit and red for loss.

Reward:Risk Ratio or R multiple: If the trade is a profit, then write in how many times your risk
did it pay off. If you risked 0.50% and you made 1.00%, then write in +2R or 2:1 or 2.0. If you
risked 0.50% and a trade only makes 0.10%, then write in +0.20R or 0.2:1 or 0.2. If a trade went
for a loss that is equal to or less than what you risked, then I do not write in anything. If the loss
is greater than the amount you risked, then I do write it in this column. For example lets say you
risk 0.50% on a stock, but overnight the market gaps and you lose 1.50% on a trade, then I would
write it in as a -3R.

What Type of trading loss if the trade lost money? – This is where I describe in very general
terms a trade if it lost money. For example, if I lost money on a trade and the reason was because
I was buying in a market that was making fresh lows, but after I bought the market kept on going
lower, then I would write in: “trying to pick a bottom.” If I tried shorting into a rising uptrend
and I take a loss, then I describe it as “trying to pick a top.” If I am buying in an uptrend and buy
on a retracement, but the market makes a deeper retracement or trend change, then I write in
“tried to buy a ret.” And so on and so forth. In very general terms I describe it. The various
ways I use are:
• Trying to pick a bottom
• Trying to pick a top
• Shorting a bottom
• Buying a top
• Shorting a ret and failed
• Wrongly predicted news
• Bought a ret and failed
• Fade a resistance level
• Buy a support level
• Tried to buy a breakout higher
• Tried to short a breakout lower
I find this category very interesting and important because when performing trade journal
analysis, you can notice trends when you have winners or losing trades. For example if I notice a
string of losing trades and I notice that all of them occur in the same market, and all of them have
as a reason: “tried to pick a bottom”, then I know I was dumb for trying to pick a bottom five
times in a row. I was fighting the macro order flow and it was dumb. Or if I notice a string of
losers and see that I tried to buy a breakout and it failed five times in a row, but notice that the
market continued to go higher after I was stopped out, then I realize that I was correct in the
move, but I just applied the wrong entry strategy. I should have bought a retracement, instead of
trying to buy a fresh breakout.

That Day’s Weaknesses (If any) – This is where I write in if there were any weaknesses or
distractions on the day I placed the trade. For example if you are dead tired and place a trade,
then write in that you were very tired. Or if you place a trade when there were five people
coming and out of your trading office or room in your house, then write that in. If you placed the
trade when the fire alarm was going off then write that in. Or if you place a trade without having
done your daily habits, then write that in. Etc. Whatever you believe was a possible weakness
that threw you off your game.

That Day’s Strengths (If any) – Here you can write in what strengths you had during the day you
placed your trade. If you had complete peace and quiet, write that in. If you completed all your
daily habits, then write that in. Etc. Whatever you believe was a possible strength during the
day.

How many Open Positions Total (including the one you just placed) – How many open trades do
you have after placing this one? If you have zero open trades and you just placed one, then the
total number of open positions would be one, so write in “1.” If you have on three open trades,
and you are placing a new current one, then the total number of open positions would be four, so
write in “4.” The reason you have this column in your trading journal is so that you can notice
trends in winning and losing streaks. Do a lot of your losing streaks happen when you have on a
lot of open positions at the same time? Do you have a winning streak when the number of open
positions is kept low? Or can you handle a lot of open positions at the same time?

Exit Spread Cost (in pips) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in pips.
If you executed a market order, how many pips did you pay in spread.

Exit Spread Cost (in dollars) – This is optional if you want to keep track of your spread cost in
dollars. If you executed a market order, how many dollars did you pay in spread.

Total Spread Cost (in pips) – You write in the total spread cost of the entry and exit in pips.

Total Spread Cost (in dollars) – You write in the total spread cost of the entry and exit in dollars.

Commission Cost – Here you write in the total commission cost that you incurred for getting in
and out of the trade. If you have a forex broker that is commission free and only gets
compensated through the spread, then you do not need this column.

Starting Balance – The starting account balance that you had prior to the placing of the trade

Interest/swap – If you hold forex currency pairs past the rollover, then you either get interest or
need to pay out interest depending on the rollover rates. Or if you bought a stock and got a
dividend then write that in. Or if you shorted a stock and you had to pay a dividend, then write
that in.

Ending Balance – The ending balance of your account after the trade is closed after taking into
account trade P&L, commission cost, and interest/swap.

Reasons for taking the trade – Here is where you go into much more detail about why you placed
the trade. Write out your thinking. Instead of writing a paragraph or two describing my thinking
behind the trade, I condense the reasons down into bullet points. It can be anywhere from 1-10
bullet points.

What I Learned – No matter if the trade is a win or loss, write down what you believed you
learned. Again, instead of writing out a paragraph or two, I condense it down into bullet points. it
can be anywhere from 1-10 bullet points. I do this during the day the trade closed as a profit or
loss.

What I learned after Long Term reflection, several days, weeks, or months – This is the very
interesting column. This is important because after you have a winning or losing trade, you will
not always know the true reasons why it happened. You have your immediate theories and
reasons which you include in the previous column. However, there are times when after several
days, weeks, or months, you find the true reason and proper market belief about why your trade
succeeded or failed. It can take a few days or weeks or months to reach that “aha” moment. I am
not saying that I am thinking about trades I placed ten months ago. I try to forget about them and
focus on the present moment. However, there will be trades where you have these nagging
questions about they failed or succeeded and you will only discover those reasons several days,
weeks, or months later. When you discover the reasons, you write them in this column.

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