Template for a Simple Day Trading Strategy

Hello.
I am currently just about under a year in trading forex and I found a simple intraday strategy that I thought would work. Its just a simple ma cross and trendline break on the H1 and entry based on m15.
The thing that im struggling with is that everytime i backtested my strategy i would have a win rate of 60-70%. About 100-200 entries backtested across different pairs. Proceeded on forward testing for about a week and I would get about the same result. Proceeded with real account with 0.5% risk, very good result still. But when i go on my real account with 1% risk i would hit stop losses at a rate of 90%.
Would you guys have any idea why this is happening? Is it my psychology that comes into play or did i not do enough backtesting and demo testing?
Its getting frustrating. I would like to just be consistent and not be emotional when I trade.
Any input would help guys. Thanks in advance!

A prerequisite post to this post can be read here; https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/clx0v9/profiting_in_trends_planning_for_the_impulsive/
It will also be beneficial to read this;
https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/clbxk2/shorting_noobs_common_trend_following_mistakes_im/

Before getting into the meat of things, you need to understand the 'elastic band' effect of large moves in the market. What this means is most of the time before a market starts to make a big move in the direction it is ultimately going, it will make a strong and usually fast counter move. You know this already in a way. You've been taught from early on (I assume) that pin bars (hammers etc) are indications the market is reversing. You're told the wicks are formed by price pushing into an area and being rejected from it.

In a trend formation, this is what the intra-week price action would tend to look like when there is the formation of reversal candles at the close of the weekly timeframe.

https://preview.redd.it/nv1nbk0c9th31.png?width=909&format=png&auto=webp&s=f87d94ee33f0d07cde211c05d9234a236a487309
Here we would have been in a down trend and then for a week or two seen bullish momentum. The blue swing is the "elastic band" move. Or what I like to call the "ping swing".

The formation I have drawn here is not arbitrary. A lot of specific things are going on in this chart. Here I've highlighted the relevant ones. When we've seen all of these, we know there is a good chance we have reached the end of a C leg correction (read up on basic Elliot wave theory if you do not understand this terminology).

https://preview.redd.it/8u9bg43nath31.png?width=1066&format=png&auto=webp&s=1ddb04a27b9a99ddbcaab5eef4e3ca7eea78e000

There can be variance in the 4 and 5 area. I am being polite, I should be honest. This area is often a bitch to trade in. Sometimes there are deep retracements and sometimes they are really shallow. Personally I've not been able to find ways to get strong ideas of how to forecast which is more likely. It tends to be an area I lose money and one I continue to work on trying to develop better ways of dealing with.

Here are examples of each type from trades I've taken recently.

https://preview.redd.it/6n0x4k43cth31.png?width=744&format=png&auto=webp&s=f03fdbff3176e1df36727f3606dbf6fc67912e53
This is explained in more context at https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/cks8q1/shorting_noobs_problems_proofs_and_fine_tuning/

This chart is messy because a lot of positions are being taken rather than a specific strategy being followed, but as I've explained in the 'Shorting Noobs' series of posts, I am mot interested in trading off the 61.8% fib.

https://preview.redd.it/97cb1x0wcth31.png?width=719&format=png&auto=webp&s=d49bbac385242184d9f9ba2708d1e9fe92efba42
Here is one with EURUSD that had very shallow sell-off then made the ping swing.

https://preview.redd.it/dbiujru0fth31.png?width=1025&format=png&auto=webp&s=277682a868af7cb2dc2b612243a8abfef54e9de0
You maybe thinking at this point, "But the range bit looks like it should be the 5". I know! I told you it's a bitch. As you can see here regardless of this I have still sold the best price. I am doing this by having a clear SR level I am forecasting in this sort of move. (Explained in more detail in the shorting noob series [2] [3] )
Note, it is still entirely possible that this can make another ping swing and slightly spike out this high. If it does, we have a great opportunity. At this point, we are wiser to look for the better RR trade with trend continuation by considering we are possibly in this part of the move and we have the next (usually stronger than previous) sell off coming.

https://preview.redd.it/15xd09pzfth31.png?width=730&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5e3a70fbc9411b36d74a7e32ebf5c1aabf1ad05

Which actually fits inside another cycle for a ping swing.

https://preview.redd.it/31craqbkgth31.png?width=1018&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d7cc139aa406673213c62009220a3182e7e9e55

Here is a real time forecast of a ping swing we can watch for and set pending orders (or define areas to watch for reversal patterns)

GBPUSD

https://preview.redd.it/uz93cn53ith31.png?width=1082&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b2d9a7fc12c961dafb7ee3cc7aa4c1aec29c927
(Ignore the buy trades on this, they are from a different type of strategy)

This is a lot of information, and to intrinsically understand this you'd have to go over a lot of trending charts and watch how they have developed. I have spent a hell of a lot of time on this. I will round up with leaving you just a few simple rules we can take from understanding this general pattern that recurs in trends. Some of them will help you win, others will help to prevent you losing.

1 - When it starts to chop, it's time to stop.

When a trend that has been in a free flowing form starts to get choppy, it's time to stop following the trend for the time being. You should be aware the next breakout(s) can be false ones, and the next shallow correction for a "Retest & continue" type trade is likely a trap.

2 - Big corrections rarely feature only one leg.

When you see a really big move against the trend it gets really tempting to rejoin the trend once it starts to form price action reversal candles. Any time you're entering without the market having previously faked and then spiked out early sellers at least a couple of times, you have a more risky trade.

3 - Forecast where early sellers will lose.

Quite simply, if you see a downtrend and then a spike up and what looks like the continuation of a downtrend you can assume there are sellers into what they think will be the new downtrend move. It's also quite likely these sellers have it very wrong on their stop area. It will be just above the previous highs and the consolation range. This is the very area we'd expect the ping swing to spike into and then make the proper trend move after whipsawing those who sold too early.
Where they are getting stopped out, you want to be entering. Not sure where this is? Look in Forex forums, they'll tell you.

4 - Velocity does not mean victory!

As price comes into the reversal area it will usually be carrying a lot of short term momentum and moving fast. Moving quickly into an area is not in any way an indication of a break of that area or a reversal. In fact, once you've identified where you think the ping swing will end, the more parabolic that move is into that area the better for the reversal trade. Plan ahead, do not be caught up in the moment. The moment will be deceptive.

5 - Have excellent exit plans on both sides of this sort of move.

If the move fails, the counter move running against you can be persistent. Stop losses should be around 78% of the swing. Small spike outs of the 61.8% level are to be expected. Breaks of the 76% level are not. Similarly, profits can come lightening quickly. Which can actually be a problem if you've not planned the areas you want to exit or how to trail your stops. So be well prepared to exit before you enter.

The things I have explained in this post have validity on all timeframes. I scalp with it, and I swing with it. It transfers readily to any market with trending properties. If you were to master this (especially at an intraday level - which is harder) , it would be highly likely you significantly beat what most people would think are "good returns" when the markets are trending.
It would be possible for someone who has sufficient skill in doing this to make themselves substantial profits even starting from a small amount of money and using moderate risk over the course of just trading 4 - 5 major trend moves on daily and weekly charts. This is quite an easy setup in my opinion (once it's been highlighted at least) and for as long as you can find trends to use it, it will outperform most strategies I see on public display.

(All bets are off in ranges. This will make a mockery of you if you try to do it in ranges)

Happy trend following :)

Im sry if u find some grammatical errors, english is not my mother language. Let me know and i will fix it.
First of all, look for at least half an hour without interruptions to read this manual.
This is the system that has created trading professionals. He has done it and today he continues doing it, as it happened with me.
It is not a system written in any forum, in fact I believe that it has been the first to collect all the ideas and create a structure to follow to carry them out, but these same ideas and procedures have been the ones that the winning traders have used during decades and will continue to use, since they are based on completely objective and real foundations.
Let's go to it:
Hi all.
It is known that the observation time makes the patterns elucidate, and after some time in the forum and throughout this trading world I have found many patterns in the responses of the people, I have reasoned about them, and I have realized their failures, why they fail to be profitable.
There are people who have put effort into this. Not all, but there are people who have really read a lot, studied a lot, learned a lot and tried a lot, and even then they are not able to achieve stable profitability.
The question is: Is there enough in that effort? Is there a specific moment in the line of learning where you start to be profitable? The question is, logically.
There are traders that generate constant profitability. Hedge funds, investment firms ... and the difference is in areas where people for some reason do not want to invest time.
Why are there more messages in the strategy forums than in the psychology, journals and fundamental analysis together?
As human beings, our brain is programmed to look for quick positive responses. In nature, the brain does not understand the concept of long-term investment. There is only a short-term investment made from the difference between what we think will cost us something and what we think it will contribute. If we think that it will cost us more than it can give us, we simply do not feel motivated. It is a simple mechanism.
The market plays with these mechanisms. There are more scalpers created from the search for that positive emotion than from the search for a scalping system.
In short, we are not programmed to operate, and there lies the fact that only a huge minority of operators are profitable.
Among others, I have observed several patterns of behavior that make a trader fail, and they are:
- Search for immediate pleasure: The trader wants to feel that he has won on the one hand, and on the other he wants to avoid the feeling of loss. Following this there are many traders who place a very low take profit and a very high stop loss. This is not bad if the probabilities have been reviewed before, the mathematical factor of hope, the relation with the drawdown .. but in the majority of the cases absolutely nothing of statistics is known. There is only that need to win. They win, they win, they win, until one day the odds do their job and the stop loss is touched, returning the account to its origins or leaving it with less money than it started. This does not work.
- Search for immediate wealth: Again it is something immediate. People want good emotions, and we want them already. The vast majority of traders approach this world with fantasies of wealth, women and expensive cars, but do not visualize hard work, the sickly hard work behind all this.
From there underlie behaviors like eternally looking for new robots or expert advisors that promise a lot of money, or new systems. The type of trader that has this integrated pattern is characterized by doing nothing more than that. Spend the day looking for new strategies Of course he never manages to earn constant money.
- Think that trading is easy: Trading is not easy, it is simple. Why? Because when you get the wisdom and experience necessary to find yourself in a state of superior knowledge about the market and effectively make money, it is very simple; you just have to apply the same equation again and again. However, it is not easy to reach this equation. This equation includes variables such as risk understanding, mathematics, certain characteristics in the personality that must be assimilated little by little, intelligence, a lot of experience ..
This is not easy. This is a business, and in fact it is one of the most difficult businesses in the world. It may seem simple to see a series of candles on a screen or perhaps a line, or any type of graphic, but it is not. Behind the screen there are hundreds of thousands of very intelligent professionals, very disciplined, very educated, very ...
This business is the most profitable in the world if you know how to carry, since it is based on the concept of compound interest, but it is also one of the most difficult. And I repeat. It's a business, not a game. I think you'll never hear a lawyer say to his boss: "We're going to focus all our time on finding a strategy that ALWAYS makes us win a trial, ALWAYS." What does it sound ridiculous? It sounds to me just as ridiculous for trading.
But you are not to blame, you have been subconsciously deceived through the advertising brokers and your own internal desires, to think that this is something easy.
- Lack of discipline: Trading is not something you can do 10 minutes on Monday and 6 on Thursday. This is not a game, and until you get a regular schedule you can not start earning money. There are people who open a graph one day for 5 minutes, then return to their normal life and then one week returns to look at it for other minutes.
Trading should not be treated as a hobby. If you want to win "some money" I advise you not even to get in, because you will end up losing something or a lot of money. You have to think if you really want trading to be part of your life. It's like when you meet a girl and you want to get married. Do you really want to get into this with all the consequences? Because otherwise it will not work.
Visualize the hard work behind this. Candle nights, frustrations, several hundred dollars lost (at the beginning) .. enter the world of trading with a really deep reason, if you lose a time and money that no one will return, and both things are finite!
- Know something and pretend to know everything: Making money in the markets is not based on painting the graph as a child a paper with crayon wax and pretend to make money.
It is not based on drawing lines or circles, or squares. It is based on understanding the operation of all these tools, the background of the why of the tools of trading.
A trend line only marks the cycle of a wave within a longer time frame, within a longer time frame, and so on indefinitely. In turn, this wave is divided into waves with a specific behavior, divided into smaller waves and Etcetera, and understanding that dynamic is fundamental to winning.
It is not the fact of drawing a line. That can be done by an 8 year old boy. It is the fact of UNDERSTANDING why.
There are traders who read two technical analysis books and a delta analysis book and believe that they are professionals, but do they really understand the behavior of the market? The answer is in their portfolios.
After this explanation that only 10% will have read, I will try to detail step by step something that is 90% yearning, and that will have quickly turned the scroll of your mouse to find the solution to all your problems while supporting the beer in a book of " become rich ", rotten by lack of use.
These steps must be carried out one by one, starting with the first, fulfilling it, moving on to the second, successively and growing. If steps are taken for granted, or not fully met, it simply will not work.
I know this will happen and the person who did it will think "Bah, this does not work." and you will return to your top strategy search routine.
That said, let start:
1º Create a REAL account with 50 dollars approximately:
_ Forget the demo accounts. They are a utopia, they do not work. There is infinite liquidity, without emotions and without slipagge.
These things will change when we enter the real market, and the most experienced person in the world will notice a sharp drop in their profitability when it happens to real accounts.
And not only using a demo account has disadvantages, but using a real one has advantages.
We will have a real slipagge with real liquidity. Real requotes and more. The most important: We will work our emotions at the same time. Because yes, we will lose or win a couple of cents, but that has a subconscious impact of loss.
This means that we will begin to expand our comfort zone from the start.
Using a demo account is simply a disadvantage.
2º Buy a newspaper in the stationery or in Chinese (optional), or write one online or in Word:
A newspaper will be of GREAT help. You can not imagine, for those of you who do not have one, how a newspaper can exponentiate our learning curve. It is simply absurd not to have a diary. It's like taking a ticket of 5 instead of one of 100.
In this diary we will write down observations that we make about the operations that we will carry out in points that I will explain later of this same manual.
We will divide the newspaper into 2 parts:

1 part: The operation itself. We will write the reasons for each operation. The why we have done it.
2 part: How we feel. We will unburden ourselves without explaining how we feel, what our intuition tells us about that particular operation and so on.

How to use:
We will read the newspaper once a week, thinking about the emotions we felt each day and in what situations, and the reasons.
Soon, we will begin to realize that we have certain patterns in the way we feel and operate, and we will have the ability to change them.
We can also learn from mistakes that we make, and keep them always in a diary.
3º Look for a strategy that has the following characteristics:

Make it SIMPLE. Nothing of 4 or more indicators or the colors of the gay flag drawn on the graph based on 1000 lines. Why? Because there is always an initial enthusiasm and maybe we can follow a complex strategy for a week, but burned that motivation, saturates us and we will leave it aside.

Therefore, the strategy must be simple. If we use metatrader, the default indicators work. No macd's no-lag and similar tools. That does not lead anywhere. And if you do not believe it, I'll tell you that in all areas of life comes marketing. In addition to trading towards MMA and now I do powerlifts, and there are 1000 exercises to do. However, the classics are still working and work very well. It seems that sellers of strange sports equipment do not share the same opinion, that the only thing they want is to sell!
4º Understand the strategy:

We must gut each process of the strategy and reason about it. What does this indicator do? What does this process? Why this and not another? Why this exit ?. Some strategies will be based on unspecified outputs. This does not suppose any problem because as we get experience in that specific strategy, we will remember situations that have occurred, we will see situations that are repeated (patterns) and we will be able to find better starts and entrances. Everything is in our hands.

5° Collect essential statistical information:

This part is FUNDAMENTAL, and no operator can have as much security in itself when operating as if it uses a strategy that has at least positive mathematical hope and an acceptable drawdown.
Step 1: To carry out this collection of information you need to test the strategy for at least 100 signals. Yes, 100 signals.

Assuming it is an intraday strategy and we do an operation per day, it will take us 100 days (3 months and 10 days approx) to carry out the study. Logically these figures can change depending on the number of operations that we make up to date with the strategy.
I have no doubt that after reading this manual we will go for a quick strategy of scalpers, with 100 signals every 10 minutes where the seller comes out with a big smile in his promotional video.
I personally recommend a system of maximum 2 daily operations to start, but this point is personal.
Is it a long time? Go! It turns out that a college student of average intelligence takes 6 years to finish a career. It takes 6 years just to train, and there are even more races. This does not guarantee any profitability, and in any case most of Sometimes it will get a static return and not based on compound interest. I can never aspire to more.
The market offers compound profitability, there will be no bosses, nor schedules that we do not impose. We will always have work, and we can earn a lot more money than most people with careers or masters. Is it a long time? I do not think so.
As I was saying, we will test the strategy 100 times with our REAL account that we created in step 1. Did you decide to use a demo account? Better look for another manual; This has to be something serious. They are 100 dollars and will be the best investment of all in your career as a trader.

Step 2: Once with the report of the 100 strategies in hand, we will collect the following information:
How many times have we won and how many lost. Afterwards, we will find the percentage of correct answers.
How much have we won and how much have we lost? Afterwards, we will find the average profit and the average loss.
Step 3: With this information we will complete the mathematical hope formula:

(1 + average profit / average loss) * (percentage of correct answers / 100) -1
Example:

Of the 100 operations there are 50 winners and 50 losers, then the success rate is 50%.
Our average profit is 20 dollars and our average loss is 10 dollars.

Filling the formula:
(1 + 20/10) * (50/100) -1
(1 + 2) * (0,5) -1
3 * 0.5 - 1
1,5 - 1 = 0,5
In this example the mathematical expectation is 0.5. It is POSITIVE, because it is greater than 0. From 0, we will know that this strategy will make us earn money over time ALWAYS we respect the strategy.
If after a few days we modify it, then we will have to find this equation again with another 100 different operations. Easy? A result of "0" would mean that this strategy does not win or lose, but in the long run we would LOSE due to the spread and other random factors.
You have to try to find a strategy that, once this study is done, the result of your mathematical hope is greater than 0.2 as MINIMUM.
Finding this formula will also give a curious fact. The greater the take profit in relation to the stop loss, as a general rule more positive will be our mathematical hope. This has given many pages of discursiones about whether to place take profit> stop loss or vice versa.
If our stop was larger than the take profit, then the other ratio (% earned /% lost) should be yes or yes positive.
But this is just curiosities.
let's keep going:

6° Expand our comfort zone:

We will not be able to work with operations of 10 million dollars overnight, but we can progressively condition ourselves to that path.
Assuming all of the above, and with a real account, some experience in the 3 months of information gathering and a positive mathematical hope, we are ready to operate in real with some consistency. But how to carry it out?
The comfort zone is the psychological limits we have before feeling fear or emotional tension. When we get into a fight, we have left our comfort zone and we feel tension, unless we have a psychopathic disorder.
Every time we lean out onto a 300-meter balcony from a skyscraper, we move away from the comfort zone. Every time we speak to a depampanante woman, we move away from our comfort zone.
Our brain creates a comfort zone to differentiate what we usually do and is not substantially dangerous, from the unknown and potentially dangerous to our survival or reproduction. And whenever the brain interprets that these two aspects are in danger, we will feel negative emotions like fear, disgust, loneliness, fury, etcetera.
This topic is much more profound and you would have to read several volumes of evolutionism to understand the why of each thing. The only thing that interests us here is the "what", and the one, that is, that there is a certain comfort zone that must be expanded without any problems.
With trading, exactly the same thing happens. The forex market is a virtual environment in which we lose or gain things, but our brain does not differentiate between reality and what is not, it only attends to stimuli of a certain type.
We can lose food in the middle of the forest or also a crude oil operation.
Our goal is to condition our subconscious so that it is progressively accepting lost and small benefits, and as time goes by, bigger.
The exercise to achieve this is the following:

We will operate on that account of 100 dollars with our mathematically positive strategy for 3 more months.
After these three months, our account should have benefits, because of the mathematically positive strategy.
We will enter 200 dollars more and we will operate a month more raising the lots according to our risk management (I do not advise that the risk is greater than 2%)

At this point, I know how hard it is to resign myself to impatience, but follow those times and do not skip it even if you feel safe, but you will fail, it's simple.
Let's keep going:

After that month, we will raise our capital again with a new income. This time we will enter 1000 dollars (save if you do not have 1000 dollars loose, you will recover later on, do you want to make money, enter 1000 dollars.

We will test the operation one month with this new injection. We probably notice difficulties. More blockages, more euphoria when winning ... how will we know when to move on to the next entry? When we do not feel ANYTHING or at most something very shallow, when win or lose If observing the wall and operating is for you the same from an emotional point of view, it is time to enter more money.

We will follow this procedure until we have a basic account of 21000 dollars. The amounts to be paid will depend on our ability to not feel emotions, a capacity that will be taking over time.

We will raise capital until we feel that we block too much. In that case we will drawdown to a more acceptable amount, and we will continue at that level until get discipline and lack of reactivity at that level. Later, we will go up.

If we want to earn more money, we will continue entering and entering. Always following the conditioning scheme of 1 month.

Why a month?
A study conducted in the United States revealed that the subconscious needs an average of 28 days to create new habits or eliminate old habits. Emotional reactions are part of the habits. If we maintain some pressure of any emotion during the opportune time, in this case 28 days, will create tolerance and the subconscious will need a more intense version of the stimulus to activate.
AND THAT'S ALL!
Follow these steps and you will triumph. Here is the golden chalice, the tomb of Jesus or whatever you want to call it. There is no more mystery in the world of trading. This system will accompany you during the next year, year and a half. It's the one I used and it WORKS. Once done, you will have a very profitable system integrated into your being, since not only will it be mathematically viable, but you will also have the necessary experience to make it infinitely more profitable yet.
In addition, you will have psychology fully worked on a professional level to have conditioned your subconscious gradually.
Happy trading to all of u guys.-

You have a chart in front of you, a buy and sell button respectively, this basically gives you 50% of probability that if you open a buy or sell at any time your action will end up making money after sometime. "Sometime" adds new variables to the game and makes it more complicated: is knowing the direction for sometime, the market needs to move to increase profit or increase loss. You then go into the volatility reports for lets say EURUSD, and you see that during London session and New York session, it's the time where price statistically moves more, so there is where you want to be if you want to day trade (open and close trades in the same day), this can be also noticed if you zoom out for example M5 of almost any pairs, volume will be bigger in this two sessions.
Ok so you have statistics of at what times it may move big, you also know that it may not move or it may range the whole day, but definitely there is going to be big moves. If you analyse the past, with only for example a 30 MA, you will see the 50/50. What else do you need? To be in most of the times you are humanly able following the trend, if price is averaging over any average you want and see useful to add, why would you bet that is not going to average oveunder it for some more time? Add a 1000 MA, what if you waited for each cross and traded it trend following? Here then comes a "must": money management = risk = stay in the game for long = you can lose multiple times and long term it's hard that you even lose 10% of your account. Start with the minimum risk, demo in 0.01. Why? If you can consistently win with 0.01 it's just a matter of optimizing the statistics your demo trading over time has thrown, money will come, lots of it, the amount your confidence as a trader can bear and ultimately because trading is so big and involves almost all of the aspects of your life and personality, your confidence as a human being can bear. But this is skipping to psychology.
So, volatility, an average of some x periods to get the trend (not of the market but of the x periods in relation to the market and time, x is important, x can't be 2000 in M5), money management and time to play. What else? When will you close the trades? There are multiple ways each one with pros and cons, price crossing the average (too slow sometimes), price hitting fibos (gotta have a method for plotting fibos the same time each time, check the "Do it yourself" section, 61.8 a.k.a 0.618 and 61.8, god made numbers), being this last one the one I like. Price plays with these levels, nothing magical about it, is just "nature", a forgotten and violated term these days IMHO. There it is, when to open with probability, when to close methodically, how to play your money so you last as long as you don't fail too much repeatedly. This results after studying Ralph Elliot's, W Gann's, Wykcoff's, Pesavento's, Gartley's, Carney's and some others WAY TO LOOK AT THE MARKET. They all found structure in price actions over time, they all understood natural patterns that occur, they all sat in front of some charts, used or created tools for handling those charts, in the end everything is so simple and easy that our minds, past, maybe present, the t.v, Instagram won't lets us succeed. Why? Your mind is your biggest enemy of what you want to do in life. How? Your past in someway defines you, defines what you are looking for in life.

Psychology, establishment and relativity.

Mark Douglas introduced me (in his videos) to a new way of thinking towards trading. He speaks about beliefs, how they drives us in each decision we make each day from as simple as making coffee, having a bath,
dressing nice or dressing in the first place. Beliefs are what makes your past define you today and tomorrow if you keep believing them. A wrong belief of yourself, a wrong belief of the world outside your eyes,
a wrong belief of the market (you keep trusting other people about the market, in the end after loosing you trust no one), this leads to what lot's of gurus outside the financial world, will say: trust in
yourself. Forex gurus tell you to trust them, pay them so they'll unveil the secrets. No money can change your wrong mindset, that feeling in your chest each time you think about possibilities with Forex (euphoria, dangerous as f not only in forex), that belief that some magical indicator will come, some hidden code of some pro advanced indi if you are more realist, some guy with the answer. You are very alone in this world my friend, money will tear countries apart, cities apart, families apart. People will sell their face for some money, their name, in the end corrupt politicians that don't get caught will enjoy their feasts everyday, with their innocent childs, who see their daddy as their hero, this is not a fair world, what's fair in the first place? A human creation so we can live together in peace, but that's not reality we all know. We are evoluted chimps, we still feel what the cheetah feel's in front of his prey, we share 90% of DNA with most of mammals, as intelligent as we like to think we are, we can't delete our nature, our hunger, our fear, our needs, our instinct (the one rushes adrenaline when you know you are losing too much), because deep inside we all know whats right or wrong, the difference between people is whether you hear that voice, or you shut it with a nicer version. 90% of people in forex (not real statistics, the real number varies from broker hmmm brokers another shady topic), prefers the nice version long term, which results not profitable basically.
It's your version (you + all gurus you've seen) not the version the market shows and the deep-you tries to alert.
I headed far from an important topic: gurus telling to trust them, a killer market killing you, lots of misinformation around the WWW and you not believing in yourself. What else do you have to face the markets?
You are in a triangle: broker (not so hard to get a nice one), market and yourself. Everything else is a lie until the person who is in any way selling you stuff, shows you his profitable record of more than 6 months in any financial instrument, that you look at yourself in the mirror and you can say I trust him, not I want to trust him (even if it's some of each, but hey everything involves risk).
LOOK AT THE CHARTS.
Want to have "fast money" (intraday), look M1 to M30, even H1 for a bird's view, optimize your profitable and consistent demo results to that market; want to look charts once a day, trade D1, I'd say you don't even have to look at something bigger as it is big enough and you can go to H4 or H1 for finesse entries (can become a vicious circle, how much finesse is finesse?).
It's all about trust, confidence and a good plan.
Psychology of yourself is so vast, and so unique to each person that I would dare to say that if you are looking for the answer outside of you, you better befriend a trader who is today making money and pray that he literally gifts you his confidence (not his knowledge even if it can help, hi will be sharing his confidence). Your social mind will spawn the hype, the euphoria, you will succeed for a while, market will kill you sooner or later, you will help the market to kill your account. Why? Because your confidence wasn't real, it may be that that day, that week the market moved nicely, or you felt strong and super.
How many gurus go live and say "hey today, as a human being, I don't feel great, I would not trade today?" none. They say market is not right ATM, cherry picking, they totally exploit that you can't go inside their screens and really know them, here comes the version you want to believe, you will tell yourself anything, you will tell anyone anything.
Here to finish, I'll say that consistency in anything in life starts from yourself. If you can't be consistent everyday with yourself for a long period of time, you will find temporary jobs, temporary stuff, you will keep jumping from gurus, from strategies, you will create better versions on your head, just imagine what version a guru must have created to go and sell forex related stuff instead of searching for how to kill the markets, he may be doing both, in the end none of that will give you anything, you will end up being the stair to the gurus goals. Try to comprehend how human we are, how arrogant we are from a farmers perspective, how or evolution results in our minds plays us tricks, to think the government is real, to think there's order, justice, to think that we can achieve huge things with the help of YouTube videos or paying another human being, the market is flow, manipulation is real (why call it manipulation when you would be doing the same in their shoes(big boys)) is part of the nature of anything you plot with Y and X axis (look for a graph of population changes, harmonics, double bottoms, double tops, in a population changes graph? how can that be?), it may be a cliche but is aaaaaaall an illusion guys, the truth is not good business for the other side of the trades.
See you on the other side.
"I'll be a big noise with all the big boys"

Chart patterns form a key part of day trading. Candlestick and other charts produce frequent signals that cut through price action “noise”.
The best patterns will be those that can form the backbone of a profitable day trading strategy, whether trading stocks, cryptocurrency of forex pairs.
Every day you have to choose between hundreds of trading opportunities. This is a result of a wide range of factors influencing the market. Day trading patterns enable you to decipher the multitude of options and motivations – from hope of gain and fear of loss, to short-covering, stop-loss triggers, hedging, tax consequences and plenty more.
Candlestick patterns help by painting a clear picture, and flagging up trading signals and signs of future price movements. Whilst it’s said you’ll need to use technical analysis to succeed day trading with candlestick and other patterns, it’s important to note utilizing them to your advantage is more of an art form than a rigid science.
You have to learn the power of chart patterns and the theory that governs them in order to identify the best patterns to supplement your trading style and strategies.

Use In Day Trading

Used correctly trading patterns can add a powerful tool to your arsenal. This is because history has a habit of repeating itself and the financial markets are no exception. This repetition can help you identify opportunities and anticipate potential pitfalls.
RSI, volume, plus support and resistance levels all aide your technical analysis when you’re trading. But crypto chart patterns play a crucial role in identifying breakouts and trend reversals. Mastering the art of reading these patterns will help you make smarter trades and bolster your profits, as highlighted in the highly regarded, ‘stock patterns for day trading’, by Barry Rudd.

Breakouts & Reversals

In the patterns and charts below you’ll see two recurring themes, breakouts and reversals.

Breakout – A breakout is simply when the price clears a specified critical level on your chart. This level could by any number of things, from a Fibonacci level, to support, resistance or trend lines.
Reversal – A reversal is simply a change in direction of a price trend. That change could be either positive or negative against the prevailing trend. You may also hear it called a ‘rally’, ‘correction’, or ‘trend reversal’.

Candlestick Charts

Candlestick charts are a technical tool at your disposal. They consolidate data within given time frames into single bars. Not only are the patterns relatively straightforward to interpret, but trading with candle patterns can help you attain that competitive edge over the rest of the market.
They first originated in the 18th century where they were used by Japanese rice traders. Since Steve Nison introduced them to the West with his 1991 book ‘Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques’, their popularity has surged.
Below is a break down of three of the most popular candlestick patterns used for day trading.

Shooting Star Candlestick

This is often one of the first you see when you open a chart with candlestick patterns. This bearish reversal candlestick suggests a peak. It is precisely the opposite of a hammer candle. It won’t form until at least three subsequent green candles have materialized. This will indicate an increase in price and demand. Usually, buyers lose their cool and clamber for the price to increasing highs before they realize they’ve overpaid.
The upper shadow is usually twice the size of the body. This tells you the last frantic buyers have entered trading just as those that have turned a profit have off-loaded their positions. Short-sellers then usually force the price down to the close of the candle either near or below the open. This traps the late arrivals who pushed the price high. Panic often kicks in at this point as those late arrivals swiftly exit their positions.

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Doji Candlestick

One of the most popular candlestick patterns for trading forex is the doji candlestick (doji signifies indecision). This reversal pattern is either bearish or bullish depending on the previous candles. It will have nearly, or the same open and closing price with long shadows. It may look like a cross, but it can have an extremely small body. You will often get an indicator as to which way the reversal will head from the previous candles.
If you see previous candles are bullish, you can anticipate the next one near the underneath of the body low will trigger a short/sell signal when the doji lows break. You’ll then see trail stops above the doji highs.
Alternatively, if the previous candles are bearish then the doji will probably form a bullish reversal. Above the candlestick high, long triggers usually form with a trail stop directly under the doji low.
These candlestick patterns could be used for intraday trading with forex, stocks, cryptocurrencies and any number of other assets. But using candlestick patterns for trading interpretations requires experience, so practice on a demo account before you put real money on the line.

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Hammer Candlestick

This is a bullish reversal candlestick. You can use this candlestick to establish capitulation bottoms. These are then normally followed by a price bump, allowing you to enter a long position.
The hammer candlestick forms at the end of a downtrend and suggests a near-term price bottom. The lower shadow is made by a new low in the downtrend pattern that then closes back near the open. The tail (lower shadow), must be a minimum of twice the size of the actual body.
The tails are those that stopped out as shorts started to cover their positions and those looking for a bargain decided to feast. Volume can also help hammer home the candle. To be certain it is a hammer candle, check where the next candle closes. It must close above the hammer candle low.
Trading with Japanese candlestick patterns has become increasingly popular in recent decades, as a result of the easy to glean and detailed information they provide. This makes them ideal for charts for beginners to get familiar with.

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More Popular Day Trading Patterns

Using Price Action

Many strategies using simple price action patterns are mistakenly thought to be too basic to yield significant profits. Yet price action strategies are often straightforward to employ and effective, making them ideal for both beginners and experienced traders.
Put simply, price action is how the price is likely to respond at certain levels of resistance or support. Using price action patterns from pdfs and charts will help you identify both swings and trendlines.
Whether you’re day trading stocks or forex or crypto with price patterns, these easy to follow strategies can be applied across the board.

Zone Strategy

So, how do you start day trading with short-term price patterns? you will likely employ a ‘zone strategy’. One obvious bonus to this system is it creates straightforward charts, free from complex indicators and distractions.

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Dead Zone

This empty zone tells you that the price action isn’t headed anywhere. There is no clear up or down trend, the market is at a standoff. If you want big profits, avoid the dead zone completely. No indicator will help you makes thousands of pips here.

The Red Zone

This is where things start to get a little interesting. Once you’re in the red zone the end goal is in sight, and that one hundred pip winner within reach. For example, if the price hits the red zone and continues to the upside, you might want to make a buy trade. It could be giving you higher highs and an indication that it will become an uptrend.
This will be likely when the sellers take hold. If the price hits the red zone and continues to the downside, a sell trade may be on the cards. You’d have new lower lows and a suggestion that it will become a downtrend.

The End Zone

This is where the magic happens. With this strategy, you want to consistently get from the red zone to the end zone. Draw rectangles on your charts like the ones found in the example. Then only trade the zones. If you draw the red zones anywhere from 10-20 pips wide, you’ll have room for the price action to do its usual retracement before heading to the downside or upside.

Outside Bar At Resistance Or Support

You’ll see a bullish outside bar if today’s low exceeded yesterdays, but the stock still rallies and closes above yesterday’s high. If the complete opposite price action took place, you’d have yourself the perfect bearish example.
Unfortunately, it isn’t as straightforward as identifying an outside candlestick and then just placing a trade. It’s prudent to find an outside day after a major break of a trend.

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Spring At Support

The spring is when the stock tests the low of a range, but then swiftly comes back into trading zone and sets off a new trend. One common mistake traders make is waiting for the last swing low to be reached. However, as you’ve probably realized already, trading setups don’t usually meet your precise requirements so don’t stress about a few pennies.

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Little To No Price Retracement

Put simply, less retracement is proof the primary trend is robust and probably going to continue. Forget about coughing up on the numerous Fibonacci retracement levels. The main thing to remember is that you want the retracement to be less than 38.2%. This means even when today’s asset tests the previous swing, you’ll have a greater chance that the breakout will either hold or continue towards the direction of the primary trend.

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Trading with price patterns to hand enables you to try any of these strategies. Find the one that fits in with your individual trading style. Remember, you’ll often find the best trading chart patterns aren’t overly complex, instead they paint a clear picture using minimal indicators, reducing the likelihood of mistakes and distraction.

Consider Time Frames

When you start trading with your short term price patterns pdf to hand, it’s essential you also consider time frames in your calculations. In your market, you’ll find a number of time frames simultaneously co-existing. This means you can find conflicting trends within the particular asset your trading. Your stock could be in a primary downtrend whilst also being in an intermediate short-term uptrend.
Many traders make the mistake of focusing on a specific time frame and ignoring the underlying influential primary trend. Usually, the longer the time frame the more reliable the signals. When you reduce your time frames you’ll be distracted by false moves and noise.
Many traders download examples of short-term price patterns but overlook the underlying primary trend, do not make this mistake. You should trade-off 15-minute charts, but utilize 60-minute charts to define the primary trend and 5-minute charts to establish the short-term trend.

Wrapping Up

Our understanding of chart patterns has come along way since the initial 1932 work of Richard Schabacker in ‘Technical Analysis and Stock Market Profits’. Schabacker asserted then, ‘any general stock chart is a combination of countless different patterns and its accurate analysis depends upon constant study, long experience and knowledge of all the fine points, both technical and fundamental…’ So whilst there is an abundance of patterns out there, remember accurate analysis and sustained practice is required to fully reap their benefits.

The source : https://www.daytrading.com/patterns

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When working on the financial markets, traders can utilize dozens of different strategies.
It is worth saying that there is no ultimate one-fit-all strategy that works for all traders, all instruments and all timeframes. Each trader has to develop a trading strategy of his own. What trading strategy is the best? There is no clear answer to this question, as some strategies that have demonstrated decent results in the past do not work today. Put shortly, an optimal strategy is the one that works. Or, in other words, the one that consistently provides positive returns. If the strategy consistently provides negative results (the trader is losing more than he is earning), this strategy should obviously not be used.
As already mentioned, as there is no single «best strategy», traders may want to look at several factors when developing a strategy of their own. First is the instrument they want to trade. It is no secret that that Stocks behave differently than Forex, and ETF trading is quite different from cryptocurrency trading. Hence, the first rule. Decide on the financial instrument before developing a strategy. Secondly, choose the time frame you want to trade. Intraday trading is radically different from value investing. Choose the time frame first and decide on the strategy second. We have covered the time frame and chart types in our previous article. Thirdly, adjust your trading strategy to your trading style. As in life, we are much more likely to be successful in something that we like. The same applies to trading. If you don’t like how a particular strategy works, find another one. It is as simple as that.
Now, to the strategies themselves. As already mentioned, trading strategies are numerous. This article is not enough to list all of them. Nevertheless, we can provide a list of the most notable ones.

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Day trading
Day trading is a strategy that implies that all positions are being opened and closed within the same day. This strategy is common among Forex traders. Currency pairs can demonstrate decent movements over the course of one day. Moreover, the use of leverage can turn miniscule price swings into tangible gains. Forex, however, is not the only asset class to be traded like that. Cryptocurrencies, for example, can also be traded on a daily basis. One thing that is absolutely required for day trading is high volatility, as it is impossible to trade when the market is flat.
Value Investing
A strategy that is commonly used with stocks, value investing implies that the trader first has to find the discrepancy between the market and the intrinsic (real) value of a particular stock. In order to do this, he will go through earnings reports and key financial metrics. If the intrinsic value is higher than the market one, it is wise to buy the stock. Conversely, if the company is traded at a price that is higher than its intrinsic value, it can be expected to go down (the time when this will happen, however, is not set).
Swing Trading Strategy
When using this strategy, traders try to capitalize on the sudden price swings, hence the name. In a lot of markets, and for a lot of assets, sudden price movements are quite common. One way to apply the swing strategy is to find a strong trend and wait for a retracement. A retracement is a short-term move in the opposite direction that doesn’t change the direction of the bigger trend. When the retracement happens, the asset price will depreciate, but since it is only a retracement and not the trend reversal, the price can be expected to go up again. All in all, this is a practical application of the ‘buy low, sell high’ technique.
Scalping
Scalping is a subtype of the day trading strategy. As in day trading, all deals are being opened and closed within the same day. Yet, the number of deals and their duration will vary significantly. When applying the classic day trading strategy, you can open as little as one deal and it will still classify as day trading. In scalping, things are a little bit different. Traders open a big number of deals, stacking up small gains over time. In scalping deals can be as short as a few seconds. All in all, it is an interesting strategy that a lot of traders, especially on the Forex market, find useful.
News Trading

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Political and economic news have the potential to affect the asset prices and move the entire markets. Here are two examples to illustrate how powerful news trading can be. On the Forex market, traders buy and sell national currencies in pairs. Their exchange rate is a good proxy for the well-being of the respective national economy. When the American economy flourishes, so does the USD, and vice versa. When the US economy is in crisis, the USD will also depreciate. Of course, it is more complicated than that, but the general idea is roughly like this.
Forex is not the only market that is affected by the news. The equity market, where corporate stocks are traded, is another example. Corporate news, like an appointment of a new CEO or a new sales milestone, can make the company move up or down. People, interested in stocks trading, have to follow corporate news and evaluate the overall business climate in order to make well-rounded decisions.

These are the 5 common trading strategies. Of course, they are not limited to these, as there are endless opportunities on the market. Yet, for those willing to start somewhere, this list can provide an idea or two. Choose the one that suits your trading style and you are good to go.

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Hey all, First time poster, long time lurker. Just learning until I think of useful/interesting post. I just finished Babypips school. No this isn’t another, “What do I do next?!” eager to consume posts. More just introducing myself and share methods as I progress and chat more in this sub. It’s been a super helpful research tool with just the sidebar alone, but the interactions are also generally positive and research engaged. Forex was on my list of active/sidehobby/internet ideas to try. (Along with selling on Ebay and learning/teaching languages) I’ve always been into stocks/finance and I’m open still open to continuing learning past forex into futures and/or cryptocurrency. Forex to me is kind of an intro to price action and charts for me. Also the physics of it all that I’m hoping to apply more as time goes on. Anyways , started forex 2 years ago. Saw I needed disposable income you could lose (which I didnt have at the time) and put it off. Now I’m about 3 months in with my rediscovery of it with a lot more financial cushion/discipline.I finished the babypips school and try to practice 25-45 mins a day of something forex related the last 90 days or so. Here is my routine and some things I”ve learned since starting.
Demo Trading is overrated. And then it becomes the best thing ever. I’m gunna just go out and say it. IF you’re trading for 9 months on demo you should’ve stopped 8 months ago. I mean don’t get me wrong 9 months, that shows alot of persistence in your habits, but you’re spending time on a variable that doesn’t exchange certainty in the real system. I only even say this because you could be like me. Trade demo all this time then find out the leverage you wanted isn’t even available in your country. (U.S here) So I felt like a dummy from the jump, but that’s part of the learning curve you should be doing sooner rather than later. This does not mean fund your account fully. No, put just $200. I trade with my initial capitol @ $200 and I won’t add a penny more until I’ve developed a profitable system with what’s already in there. A good investment is a good investment and throwing more money doesn’t actually add value to the growth return on your investment.(In most cases) So what’s the big deal with Demo? Well for one you want to work with a system that’s tangible in your country. U.S is capped at 1:50 leverage. I don’t know other countries regulations but it’s something I wish someone told me to look out for before I started testing financial strategies. Another thing is the spreads are often very different from what you find in demo (attention scalpers out there) sometimes dramatically. (After NY close of the day /Weekends ) You have to implement all of these factors to your strategy. Now what is demo good for? Starting out! Learning how to set indicators, trades, stop losses and so on. I’d say 60 days max if you can’t donate much time. Even less than 60 days if you have more free time but then after that it’s time to get your feet wet. One other good thing about demo accounts is that it allows you to practice fundamentally different trading ideas out before trying them out on your actual account. An example would be a scalper trying a new position strategy he learned in demo to set some long term positions next year. I enjoy trading because it’s a discipline on your anxiety. When you deposit your first amount, any amount that's more than a new video game or dvd collection, your brain is going to fire off “Hey you bought something new that can make money let’s test it out! It could be making you money” You have to calm this voice first. IF you even can. This voice makes you check the charts 3x more than you did in demo and caused at least me to trade just so the money’s not going to waste. I lost 40% of my account the first week. I would’ve called myself mentally stable before this too. But that voice broke me and you have to confront it because it’s the impatience in all of us and causes you to force your view of the markets to fit your system. Demo is a great tool but shouldnt be held on longer than it’s purpose.
Immersion This is going to be a little shorter than my last topic because this is more something everyone has to find and listen to. Don’t just study the same website or forum for forex everyday. Try to get a wide view of the financial markets as a whole and various media input. Subscribe to a couple good youtube channels maybe a visual representation of what you’ve been learning could help solidify it. Maybe a podcasts personality makes your brain react differently to topics where a bland textbook reading didnt excite you the same. Watch a documentary on trading one week and hell maybe even Wolf of Wall Street another week, whatever it is that gets your whole body involved in the feeling of trading so 1) you don’t get burned out on the topic and 2) you find more ways to connect with the information you find. Whether emotional or visually. Here are two recommendations of channels that help me break the norm of my study routine:
“Two Blokes Trading” Podcast I discovered these guys a while back in a comment thread. I would recommend this podcast to beginners because you can start from the very beginning of their series and learn with them. They’re young, enthusiastic and open to exploring alot of areas to trading and different philosophies. So sometimes you can find gems in subjects you didn’t expect to encounter. They also bring in advisors and brokerage managers to feature on their subjects. And it’s not all forex focused. Check them out: http://twoblokestrading.com/podcast-episodes/
Barry Burns “Top Dog Trading” Barry Burns I like because you have him walking you through the charts on youtube. One of the few videos I watched on Price action were by him where the lightbulb went off. He offers a great free resource and sometimes I even feel guilty getting it on youtube for free before sharing it because it feels like the things he touches on and how he explains them, even paid classes probably couldn’t get right. He has so many videos on different markets and how to read them just apply them to the type of trader you are. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcjyImdSWDTCGCa7G24faIQ
Routine ( final topic on this post) So every week I try to keep a basic routine of forex and ways to practice. I try to wake up early as I’m on the Pacific Coast so I get up 2 hours early before I have to head to work. 20-30 mins of this time I do something related to forex education. The rest of the time I gather my foundation for the week and arrange goals / meditate/ journal. I’ll look at the charts, when I still had Babypips to finish I’d set a time and study through what I could of the course through that time. Now that I’m finished I’ll either check this sub, watch a video/podcast or try to read something related fundamentally to trading or finance. (I’d like to get some more book ideas about trading and it’s psychology) So that’s one habit. You’ve got to be able to at least schedule 20-45 minutes a day to consistent study + practice time to acquire new skills. 20 minutes uninterrupted is enough. Wake up early if you have to. Then throughout the day you’ll find time to reflect or research more and soon the time will start to add up. This also works on the other extreme too. If you have alot of free time I’d say starting out 1 hour to 2 hours max is what you should dedicate to studying. Forex is a very mentally fatiguing process skill. You’ve got to let your brain recharge (need those MP potions it seems) the whole currency system is heavy and complex enough that starting from scratch you couldn’t learn everything in 24 hours straight. I’d say even a week straight wouldn’t work. It takes time and a habitual familiarity. It’s not dissimilar to learning a language. Where concepts become stacked on a foundation of understanding to be acted upon through your day to day. Even if you can name all the working parts, experience build with how much time you think in that language per day. There’s a reason I chose the word “Immersion” for my second topic. Moving along. Another part of my routine is backtesting 40-50 trades a week of my strongest system. This equates to a little under 10 trades a day. I completely journal and track profits like they were live. Some suggest using a simulator, while that is a great practice for timing entries, I’ve found just using the Metatrader 4 Desktop and using the F12 key to progress forward one tick at a time has been sufficient for my backtesting needs. Backtesting gives you an opportunity to practice way more trades in a week than live session will be able to provide. I’m using M15 - H1 intraday strategies and maybe pull off 5-6 trades a week. BUT I practice 10x that amount per week. Soon you’ll find your live performance is really only a display of how your last week backtesting went. It’s like football practice for the gameday. Now which system I test varies, like I said I’ll try my strongest, but that changes. Just grab any system you think you can pull off and backtest it. Babypips gave me my first few, then I created some ridiculous ones, but over time your experience of a system and how to get them to work for you grows by running test trades. Systems I’ve found and backtested that are online are: the “So Easy It’s Ridiculous” system and the Cowabunga System, both found on babypips and a simple google search. Easy. I know, and really a system is just supposed to make having trading decisions easier for you. But your participation and exit are equally important. Can you follow easy rules you or others make? No questions asked?
So that concludes my post. I hope in the future when I’ve backtested 1,000 trades I can post some of my personal systems I’ve followed, right now they feel to amateur to even share. I am the humble fool, so any ideas on my style or feedback on where I should head are greatly appreciated. I’m open to questions and dialogue so feel free to send a PM or comment. Hearing from other traders is the reason I even started this account to post and interact. This post and future ones I have planned are kind of a new element I wanted to try of journaling that allows me some social accountability and feedback from a community rather than all my entries being hoarded in my notebooks, so my apologies if it’s more wordy than usual on here. Thanks everyone and have fun!
-AP
TL:DR Just browse over the bold sections

I feel like with all the cheating and drama going on with spot fx we should at the very least have a dedicated section on the right for guidance on futures contracts.
The shady Cypriot brokers and ones on other random islands are lying and selling a dream so let's take a look at the reality of spot fx...
Currency markets are the most liquid and active markets of any sector. However, there is also a great deal of misinformation, slick advertising, and even outright deception regarding this $2 Trillion Dollar a Day marketplace. For starters, a large percentage of that $2 Trillion is traded through what is referred to as the interbank market. The interbank market is the top-level foreign exchange market where banks exchange different currencies. This trading between banks is not accessible to retail traders and is estimated to account for the vast majority of the Trillion Dollar liquidity factor that attracts so many retail traders in the first place.
Here are a few of the reasons to trade futures:
-Level playing field for all participants
-Deep liquidity on major currency contracts
-Safety and security of central clearing
If your Forex brokerage firm uses a dealing desk, your buy and sell orders never actually reach the true Forex market. In other words, you do not have access to the inter-bank market. Instead you are buying and selling at prices set, and potentially manipulated by the dealing desk. This is known as conflict of interest.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange guarantees each transaction. Futures contracts are legally binding! This means that if you go long a currency futures contract and your speculation was correct, you will walk away from the trade with your profit even if the person that took the other side of the trade fails to pay. This is what we call counterparty risk.
Take a moment, have a break and take a look at all the horror stories on forex factory, for instance.
Whether you are a large institution or an individual trader, everyone is on equal footing when it comes to pricing currency futures. EVERYBODY gets the same price regardless of who you are (individual or mega bank). Best price wins, it is as simple as that — something that is not always the case in the fragmented OTC FX market. The spreads are also very tight if you trade liquid future contracts.
Spot fx brokers also control their price feeds. They can widen the spreads as they see fit and they can really screw you over if they want to. Believe me when I say that most fx brokers don't want you to win! Even the ones that claim to have liquidity providers... Those are nothing but price feeds. Quotes. Nothing more....
And Forex firms offering a "fixed" 3-5 point spread may not be charging traders commission outright, or even in a form that shows up on an account statement, but there are significant costs built into the synthetic market that they provide to you.
No middle man, no market maker. Yes, Forex is an electronic market, but your order still ends up on a "dealing desk" where a human handles your order. Or an algorithm... Basically, a Market Maker. He could make you or break you. With E-mini Futures you have a level playing field. You trade on a centralised and CFTC regulated exchange. Whether you're Goldman Sachs or Joe from Idaho, you get equal treatment!
If you're worried about Liquidity - 1.5-3m contracts trade hands everyday on the S&P 500 E-mini Futures Contract. If you want in or out of a position, there is almost always someone waiting and willing to take the other side of your trade (24/5) just 1 tick away. This simply isn't true for all Forex Pairs.
Low Cost of Doing Business - Commissions on a self directed SP500 E-mini Trade (ES) should be no more than $3.00 per side or $6.00 per round turn. While many Forex Brokers tout "Zero Commission", we all know there's no free lunch. Forex Brokers don't need to charge a commission because they make money off of the bid/ask spread "they create" and then take the other side of your trade. Run the numbers... for every $100 in profits or loss, you will spend a larger % in "cost of doing business" in the Forex Market than you will in the S&P E-mini Market. Don't take my word for it... go take some real trades and you'll quickly see the truth.
Zero Interest - If you you trade the ES intraday, expect to put up $500 per contract as a "bond" for lack of a better term. That's it. No hidden cost. Forex however, has a "cost of carry" associated which means interest may be charged or paid on positions taken.
Fiduciary Responsibility - Even regulated US Forex firms are not required to segregate customer funds. If a regulated firm goes under, you do not have the protection of the CFTC and the NFA as you do in the Futures Markets.
Turn ON The Volume Please - In Forex, since there is no centralised exchange, it is impossible to get a true read on volume. Not so with the S&P 500 "ES" E-mini. Simply turn on the volume indicator and you have exact numbers for Volume Analysis. GS and CITI have huge research departments with hundreds of employees, but they know nothing about volume that you don't know via a free indicator on your direct access trading platform. Just one more example of the level playing field we constantly speak of.
Centralised Clearing - All trades are cleared via the CME - Chicago Mercantile Exchange. All trades, including time and sales, are public information and posted in real time.
Edit: By the way, if you're worried about discrepancies, currency futures charts look almost exactly the same as their spot fx siblings! So you can easily apply your current strategy to this market, too!
A great example would be "M6E" vs "EUUSD"
SO GUYS, LET'S ACCEPT REALITY AND LET'S DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. DO YOU AGREE?
Source: cfrn.net

Hi y'all!
I feel like it's time to become active here. Time to add some value here.
I started out in my lovely currency speculation journey at the end of January this year.
In the time up to this moment, I joined a "training company" (ended up being another scam network marketing scheme), paid an amount to learn a sub-standard strategy from a crooked "guru" (the experience opened doors for me though), basically locked myself indoors doing some RIGOROUS studying, and made a lot of useful connections via the Telegram app.
Oh, and I also dumped HotForex for Tickmill. Totally love their spreads.
At this point, I'm quite comfortable with my trading abilities. I learnt a WHOLE LOT about fundamentals. The strategy I'm employing is strictly technical, but I love keeping abreast with the macroeconomic and political bits that actually result in price momentum.
Fundies are fun!
Speaking of my strategy, I'm really into moving averages: simple, exponential, weighted, etc. Plug in Bollinger Bands aaaaaaaaaand it's a perfect match. It's worth remembering that the Bollinger mid-line is actually a simple moving average set to Period 20 on default settings.
I use one type of entry/exit strategy based on the MAs. There's another but it's still being backtested by me. Of course, there's the sub-standard strategy (also based on MAs) taught to me by the "guru". I don't use it anymore, but I still have that SMA80 on my charts just because. 😊
I'm also developing a strategy for trading fundies, but it's still in alpha. Sentimental analysis is a bugger as investors can be very dissociative often, so I'm not keen on trading fundies. I used to ride volatility spikes back in the day, but I've gone beyond that phase.
Consistency is the foundation of my trading style.
That's about it. I was going to get back into the market, but it's almost close of trading AKA those few hours when the bid-ask spreads go crazy.
Forgot to add. My style is scalping, but it's sensible scalping. My strategy isn't suited for intraday trading, though I hold some positions for as long as 3 hours until they hit TP. Swinging and position trades are not my thing, though I'll likely dabble in them in the future.
Sooooooooooooooooooo that's it. Remember, there's action from the Fed, ECB, and BoJ ahead this week. The G7 brouhaha and the Trump/Kim summit barely rattled the market, but when central banks cough, you totally want to pay attention.
Let's get those pips!!!!1

FMZ
In the Forex trading system, the Pivot Points trading method is a classic trading strategy. Pivot Points is a very simple resistance support system. Based on yesterday's highest, lowest and closing prices, seven price points are calculated, including one pivot point, three resistance levels and three support levels.
The resistance line and the support line are one of the tools that are often used in technical analysis, and the role of the support line and the pressure line can be mutually transformed. From a trading point of view, Pivot Point is like a combat map, pointing out the support and resistance price that should be paid attention to by investors. As for the specific tactical cooperation, Pivot Point does not specifically stipulate it, depending on the investor itself.
For this trading strategy. Investors can flexibly formulate strategies based on intraday prices and related trends in pivot points, support levels and resistance levels, and can even manage position adjustments based on key points.
Schematic diagram of the R-Breaker strategy
www.fmz.com
R-Breaker calculated six price points based on yesterday's price as the reference price for today's intraday trading, but only one pivot point less than the Pivot Points setting. The difference between R-Breaker and Pivot Points is that the parameter setting makes the distance between the six prices more flexible, and R-Breaker clarifies the specific trading strategy.
According to the intraday price movement, the trend tracking and reversal strategy is adopted at the same time. The area with the color background in the picture can be regarded as the observation area. When the highest price in the day hits the Ssetup and falls back, and falls below the resistance line of the reference Senter, the reverse strategy is adopted,
that is, the short position is opened at the point S1; if there are no position holding, if the intraday price breaks through the resistance line of Bbreak, the trend tracking strategy is adopted, that is, the long position is opened at B2. Similarly, the B1 point is reversed and the S2 point is for open short position.
Since the trigger condition for opening a position involves multiple price positions and is sensitive to intraday price movements, the strategy applies to trading on a one-minute time period. In addition, the number of transactions triggered by this strategy is not many, regardless of the conditions of the cross-cycle.
Source Code:
www.fmz.com
For more information, please see:https://www.fmz.com/bbs-topic/2269

[Only applies to M30 and lower]
What is volatility?
Volatility is the degree of variation in price of a given asset on a defined timeframe. When price moves quickly, market volatility increases. When price consolidates, market volatility decreases (simple definition). It is like the speedometer in our cars.
I usually add an Average True Range (ATR) on my charts to gauge approximately market volatility or market nervousness. However, it is not necessary, when you look at a chart you are able to tell if price is spiking, trending or consolidating.
Volatility is part of any strategy. It gives an expectancy toward future price action. In general, when market volatility is low, we expect significant support and resistance levels to hold price in a range. And when market volatility is high, we expect price to break these levels.
Volatility patterns
Fortunately, in the Forex market, daily volatility is predictable. We tend to see volatility peaks around major markets openings, which are the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the Japanese Exchange. At the late hours of these markets, volatility tends to decrease.
These fundamental patterns are the most exploitable patterns in the Forex market. Yes, at least more exploitable than deceitful technical signals you are looking for. And they happen almost every day. However, there are exceptions. For example, we do not expect volatility peak to happen when countries of these big markets are on bank holiday.
EURUSD hourly volatility
The chart above shows the 4-weeks hourly volatility for the EUUSD pair. It is the average in pip of the difference between the highest and the lowest price of each hour of the day, over four weeks. Each bar represents the average in hourly range over four weeks.
There are two major peaks corresponding to the LSE and the NYSE openings.
Since the EUUSD is the most traded pair, we consider its volatility as "market volatility". In fact, the hourly volatility chart of the other pairs gives approximately the same pattern.
USDCAD hourly volatility
These charts were taken in May 2016. Take a look at Mataf.net’s volatility tool and type four (for four weeks) in the entry box. You will see approximately this same pattern in hourly volatility, with the two major peaks (UK and US opens) and decreasing volatility starting from the mid-US session. (Currently the pattern is disturbed by the brexit monster volatility, it will become clear again within few weeks)
We also have decreased volatility during the Asian session when there is no major news release coming from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) or the Bank Of Japan (BOJ).
Asian sessions
These charts tell us market volatility is predictable. This leads us to define two principles:
First Principle: Around major markets openings (active time), market volatility tends to surge. We expect to see range breakouts, spikes or rallies. It is the best time to trade breakouts i.e., buying new highs and selling new lows.
Second Principle: During the late hours of major markets sessions and when major markets are closed (quiet time), market volatility tends to decrease considerably. We expect to see trading range or congestion in price action. It is the best time to range-trade i.e., buying the lows and selling the highs.
principles
Any trading strategy or system has to adapt to these variations in volatility to perform over time. If you are struggling with a particular strategy, maybe you are ignoring these changes in volatility.
How volatility patterns can help in improving your trading?
One cannot apply a strategy any time and expect to be profitable. When we simulate an automated and intraday trading system over three months without time filtering, we will notice the system is only profitable at certain hours of the day. This simply reflects intraday volatility variations.
You have to determine if your trading strategy is a trend following method or a range trading one.
If your strategy is a trend following approach, you will want to only trade around major markets openings to maximize profits. Otherwise, you will tend to give back profits as price slows down in the mid-session and market volatility decrease.
If your strategy is a range trading or reversal approach, you will want to only trade during quiet market time and avoid trading around market openings or around news releases.
Less trades maximize profits. Most of my trading sessions last less than one hour.
I made a portable document of this.

[Sorry for the long post] So I've looked around this sub and I see a lot of high level or theoretical Algo discussions which I can appreciate but I'm kind of lost when it comes to practical applications and I don't even know if any service even exists that can meet my needs.
Currently, I have a strategy that I think is a little profitable with 1 minute data intraday swing trading on USDJPY, it's very simple and written in Pinescript. I plug the pinescript into a 1 min chart on Tradingview and it spits out alerts for my trades. The alerts are picked up by a chrome addon called Autoview which sends the orders to 1broker using a special alert API. I hate it for many reasons: - Chrome with tradingview and Autoview must be running and checked frequently for glitches (sometimes alerts stop firing randomly) - Tradingview alerts are not meant to be used as orders so I lose any semblance of order management. Basically it fires alerts/orders for every entry point regardless of my current balance or positions. - Pinescript sucks. - 1broker uses bitcoins as currency, I like bitcoins but don't fully trust putting thousands of dollars into them when it could be rendered obsolete at any time without warning.
So the reason I use it is because it meets all my needs. I'm just starting out and I have a fairly large income via my job (US) but it would take me at more than a year to save up 25k for a legit daytrading account. So I need to find a broker + automation combo with the following: - hedging within the same fund (is this not allowed in the US?) - can make unlimited day trades without needing $25,000 USD, low minimum account size - low or no fees - supports 24/5 forex or E-mini trading (options not required) - API for automation with somewhat low coding requirements. I am familiar with python but by no means am I an expert. I like looking at tradingview charts and backtest instantaneously via graphical interface but I realize this is probably not very common.
I've spent a lot of time on both Quantopian and Quantconnect but neither of them can do intraday trading very well if at all. They are primarily focused on fundamental trading and I'm more into technical trading. I tried looking into Ninjatrader, metatrader, whatever but I found them very expensive, unnecessarily complicated, and beholden to the US's stupid trading laws.
TL;DR - Can anyone tell me exactly how to implement my simple automated intraday FX strategy using a simple interface that doesn't require me to have a $25,000 US brokerage account and software that costs 1000's of dollars?
P.S. If any other beginners are in the same situation as me you should look into 1broker.com + TradingView + Autoview, it's pretty sweet given the limitations it's working with.

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90 Day Update / Beginner's Post

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Le Intro

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How I use Volatility to my advantage (UK US open, late US etc)

1Broker + TradingView beginner automation (plus question)

learn forex intraday best breakout forex trading strategy day trading for beginners