Harmonic Trading with the ZUP Indicator

G’day all. Recently while surfing around the net trying to figure out how to improve my own technical strategy I stumbled upon this style of trading called Harmonic Patterns and a very clever but complex indicator called ZUP. And well I like it. A bit more searching revealed that finding useful information about this style of trading is very hard even though there appears to be a dedicated group of practitioners out there. Not even here at babypips could I find a dedicated thread to this style of trading or the use of the ZUP indicator (correct me please if I am wrong).

So lets crank one up!

Here I hope practitioners of all levels will gather and share their experiences. I also note that the ZUP indicator is to harmonic traders as mt4 is to forex. There is so much one can do with ZUP that it can easily become overwhelming. And there’s no guide or manual for it. So lets share our knowledge of this indicator here as well.

So here’s some resources for those like me, whom are new to this trading style.

Go to this website and download “The Harmonic Trader By Scott M. Carney” PDF File. Very good read. Welcome to Harmonic Trader - The Official Harmonic Trading Website Don’t pay any attention to the rest of the site. Just download the book.

Harmonic Trading Forex TSD Harmonic Trading forum link. Forum reference to Harmonic Trading with ZUP indicator. First two post are roadmaps to the thread. Need to join first and make introductory post before you can download anything from the site.

Price Patterns(Gartley,Butterfly,Bat,…) Forex TSD Price Pattern forum link. Reference to Price Pattern trading

ZUP was developed by Nen, a developer from Russia.

ZUPv-136.zip (220 KB) Most recent update of ZUP indicator I can find

Forex Harmonics - www.for-exe.com An alternate Harmonic pattern indicator (completely free) from the good people at for-exe.com

ZUP Harmonics - www.for-exe.comThis is a version of the ZUP indicator I am currently using again from the good people at for-exe.com

Closest thing to a user guide for ZUP that I can find can be found at ZUP - Universal ZigZag with Pesavento Patterns. Part 1 - MQL4 Articles and ZUP - Universal ZigZag with Pesavento Patterns. Part 2 - MQL4 Articles

Look forward to talking with you all!

and i was wondering how to kill time inbetween all the parties going on the forthcoming holidays season

Thank you for sharing this, HT is all about unknown territory for me, i even cheated for passing the relative test in babypips’ school lessons.
Will keep an eye here, and contribute when possible.

Cheers!

This is really a very interesting system…

OK, So lets get some opinions on this set up. Its on the GBPUSD. Here’s the daily chart


Here is a nice bearish Partizan pattern. It could be ripe for the pickings. I would be happier if the price had pushed up to the 1.65000 mark. That would have made the final fib retracement bang on the 1.618 mark. This tells me there might still be a final push to test the 1.65000 mark. A pretty obvious resistance level. But if we drop back to the 4Hr chart


we see the same bearish partizan pattern played out only completing over a week ago. Since then it’s been bouncing around inside it PRZ. Looks like the GBPUSD is waiting for a sign on which way to go. But once it does well i predicted 200+pips will be up for grabs. My call, get ready to go short. Sell at 1.63450 (retracement of 23.8% from the 1.65000 level set stop loss at 1.64450 (last highest high) and TP well I reckon this pair will retrace back to the 61.8 level so TP at 1.6100, a 245 pip gain. Although I will be reviewing the trade around the 38.2, 44.7, and 50 retracement levels moving my stop loss to the 23.8 mark as soon as I’m happy the price has broken though the 38.2 level.

On a personal note, I like interday trading so will be looking closely at this pair to make some pips on the 15min and 5min charts which I’ll go into in my next post

Well its always good to put your money where ones mouth is. I see the GBPUSD has fallin overnight below my entry level and a resistance level of 1.63550 seems to be inplace so I have jumped on board


Lets see how it goes. Hopefully there’s lots of pips ready to be made.

Call it luck , but I managed to bag 75.9 pips on the GBPUSD pair. The price challenged the 1.63550, I got on board as it dropped back 1.63431 and with a lot of sweet in-between manage to nail an exit point. Cheers to the power of price patterns!


After talking to a member on a different thread this Golden EURUSD short opportunity was spotted. There is alot to like about this trade but would you trade it?


Pros’s
[ul]
[li]Higher time frame analysis has suggested (my opinion) that the market is bearish
[/li][li]A bearish Gartley variant and Butterfly variant have both formed
[/li][li]On the last pattern (butterfly) the difference in pips between D(X) and G© is 41.4 pips. This gives the market sufficient volatility for the trade to work. I like to see a min 40 pip difference on either the XA or XC leg.
[/li][li]Has a min RR of 1:1, Target of 1:1.8 and possible 1:5+
[/li][li]Has a tight SL and loose TP
[/li][/ul]

Con’s
[ul]
[li]Formed on the 5min chart. I usually like to work in the 15min chart
[/li][li]Formed at close of trade Friday. My personal rules are no trading Friday afternoons and Mondays.
[/li][/ul]

So me, personally, I wouldn’t take the trade. But if I did heres how I look to manage it.

First establish my SL. I’ll place this at 1.3745. This corresponds to X. If the pattern is true then it will find it hard to pass through the 78.2 mark of the XC retracement. If it does the patterns will fail and I want to get out quick. It doesn’t get much sooner than point X.

Establish a TP. I usually don’t pay to much attention to it. I manage my trades right through to the end. I think its just good to establish one. So I generally set TP at the 1.618 retracement of the XA line, so at 1.36920


Establish my PRZ. I like to trade true patterns. If you have studied PP’s, many times you will see that the price will not always make it to the true retracement level before reversing. Resistance at the PRZ is just too strong. This chart might turn into a classic example of that. Doesn’t make the pattern any less valid. I choose not to trade them. Money management is everything to me. Minimize my risk and maximize returns. I could enter the trade now but I’m 13 pips from my SL and only 6 pips from my PZ. Thats a RR > 2:1. That’s unacceptable. If I wait until it it reaches the PRZ that ratio becomes 1:1 and if the trade goes in my favour, I can let it run for a lot more. For the pattern to be a true butterfly variant the CD leg must retrace to the 78.6 mark of XC. This mark sits between the 127.2 (1.3744)and 141.4 (1.37480) retacement mark of the BC (FG) leg so I will use them as my upper and lower level. If it does this then the trade will meet my MM requirements and I will trade.


Establish a Profit Zone. This is the area I will look to secure and protect my trade. It is found between the 38.2 and 61.8 Mark on the final CD leg. At This stage point D is still to be determined but as I’m looking to enter in a pretty narrow range I will consider the lower level value of my PRZ as my point D value. My PZ now is between 1.37324 and 1.37249. Beyond the 61.8 mark all the way to my TP level I call the Greed Zone (GR)


Enter the trade. As I’m trading the pattern, I want to price to turn inside the PRZ. I will drop down to the 1min chart and start monitoring PP on that while the price is within the PRZ. First sign I get that the price is reversing I will enter. If the price moves through the PRZ and doesn’t reverse I will consider the pattern invalid and finish up. There will be a next time.

Manage the trade. So with a bit of luck the trade will go my way and start heading to the upper level of my PZ at the 38.2 mark. Its hard to explain what my mind processes at this point but basically I am back in the 1min chart monitoring PP. What I’m trying to do is secure my profit by moving my SL as quickly as possible to the 38.2, 44.7, 50 and finally 61.8 mark as the price moves down though my PZ. Sometimes the price reverses straight away triggers my SL and the trade ends. Only to watch it reverse again and I watch a lot of pips disappear. I just accept that. At this point I have made at least a one percent profit and I should be happy. A lot of times the price won’t reverse and if I haven’t locked in my profit I pay the ultimate price and that’s a loss. Now if the trade continues my way, the price moves through my profit zone and into what I call the Greed Zone. The greed zone is where I am going to let my trade run and try and capture as many pips as I can. I call it the greed zone because if I wasn’t greedy I would have exited the trade by now and taken the profits. Again I will be in the 1min chart. First thing I will do is get my SL at the lower level of my PZ, the 61.8 mark. This secures a profit of 1.8% a good trade. Again I will be watching the price as it moves through each retracement mark looking to move my SL. However price can start to fluctuate a bit more now so I don’t want to get to close with my SL. Is takes a bit of time to master but when it works and everything comes your way its a thing of beauty and a lot of pips can be made which = profit.

Exit the trade. Exit the trade will be a SL or TP trigger. However if the trade goes all the way and gets to the TP level there is absolutely no reason why one can’t move the TP level and keep capturing pips. Lets face facts. If the price breaks through the TP level at the 1.618 retracement of XA then it is likely to continue to keep going in that direction.

Now as I said I personally won’t take this trade but I will be looking forward to examining the chart Monday afternoon to see whether I should be kicking myself or if the power of Price Patterns comes true again.

What would you do?

1 Like

Love your contribution !

Harmonics are great, i don’t always trade them but when opportunity is good, i will take it

what i do is i don’t always trust the zup indicator by itself, i use another harmonic indicator as well , so basically i have two mt4’s running running. So i can compare. Occasionally the indicators don’t draw the legs correctly if we were to do it by human eye, which i had found last friday with my eurusd - the one you commented on the other discussion.

what i find is try to stick to minimum 15min, - better is 30min / 1hr if your a scalper

Anyways, good work

I would love to have you in my contact list on skype so we could chat sometimes for potential setups!
(htsang68)

Cheers

hi there

I read your post about the ZUP indicators. i downloaded some of them and they don’t show in the chart, also look greyout in the custom indicators.

is something wrong with the file or i did something wrongly?

can you help me with this?

regards

Leon


Hi! Anyone can help me fix the issue on my chart - circle in white? I have set MT4 to run in full screen and the chart is maximize but the text still stick together. I try to zoom in and out, it helps a bit but they still stick together making it hard to see. Please advice.

Thank you,

Wow, didn’t think anyone followed this thread any more. Sorry can’t help you with this. But if no-one can help here, head off to the forex-tsd link and ask the question there. They will be able to answer it as this is a dedicated thread to z-up

all the best

I have post the issue to the site you suggested and waiting(hoping) to get a fix on the matter. In the meantime, would like to learn something about this indi from you. Could you tell us how you utilize the indicator to help in your trading? Thanks.

Bro. I don’t. Love to help but I had a light bulb moment while practicing harmonics. The only two things that matter is price vs time. Where is the price now, where has it been. Is the price forming higher highs or lower lows. Or both. So I just use donchian channels now. All the best in your journey but. There are worse ways of learning to trade. :slight_smile:

plzzzzzz plzzzzzzzz someone help me…i am using mt4 version 4 and i have also given screenshot…i have problem in mt4 when i install zup v62 or zup v110 or any available version of it will only show in the indicator list but will not work and i am also giving screenshot u can see my zup v63 in mt4 …plzzzzz could u tell me what possible problem i could have???


first add a new differant indicator to mt4. does that one install and work properly?

if it does work then perhaps something is wrong with the zup indicator [maybe it does not support the newer mt4 builds or something.

if the new indicator you try DOESNT work then this suggests something is wrong with your mt4. it happened to me a while ago. for some reason ALL new custom indicators stopped working. i couldn’t work out why and tried to fix it to no avail. the only reason it got sorted out was because i decided to switch operating systems [other one was getting old], and when i installed a new mt4 the indicators worked fine.

I know this is an old thread but I’ve been getting head around ZUP on a demo account.What I could do with is a text explanation of the phrases that pop up on the chart such as,“Bearish AB-CD”,“Bearish Total” etc.
Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

don’t hate me for speaking my opinion but zup got popular around 2008 and it’s since died because it repaints. trying to use zup now is like watching an old VHS tape instead of using something like netflix. suggest you look for a non-repainting indicator that does harmonics even if it cost you, will be well worth the money. just my belief but using an indicator that does repaint will cost you more in the long run.

There are ways around this, such as only using the indicator as a guide for a potential trade. Waiting for confirmation before placing a trade is always best. But the Zup indicator doesn’t appear to work for MT4 anymore, anyway. So it’s useless to people using the most recent version of MT4.

i have found another harmonic indicator , probably it must be stolen ,dont worry you wont be caught i am using this from many months , a friend of mine gave this to me …
i am using this and having good signals , for m15,m30 , and h1 TF .

it is actually a paid indicator in pointzero-trading.com
but i have it here for you guys for free , you people install it in your charts . give it a try . since you are not paying for this you wont be getting an update .
enjoy

i am not able to post the link , if anybody wants the indicator mail me , i am giving it at free :slight_smile:
anjanbfx@gmail.

there is a team of traders , called imarketslive , they trade with harmonics and are very successfull . if you are interested you can contact ,i personally do not reccomend anything , but if you are a newbie that is the right place . any questions with harmonics are welcome .
peace :slight_smile: