A Scalping/Day Trading strategy 5minute timeframe

Today I wanted to share a scalping strategy that works on any market. I mostly use it in Forex but I have also traded indices and precious metals using it. What I like about this system is that;

  1. It prevents you from over-trading.
  2. You only need 1 to 3 trades daily.
  3. It is easy to understand and implement.
  4. It keeps you out of barbed wire and choppy markets
  5. Higher chance of best times entry.

The Theory
This system isn’t new by any means. It’s just my way of interpreting other highly effective systems like the Wycoff spring. The ABCD pattern or many other patterns that just happen to present themselves at the time of trading. These all have one thing in common: market strength, powered up by accumulation. I have just taken bits and pieces of other strategies and backtested them, and I found something that is consistently profitable that I can relate to. So when you see this strategy and take a deeper look at the price action you will spot other supportive patterns at play.

Indicators

I understand a lot of people are against the use of indicators but with this system, they are used to filter price accumulation and strength. More important, they are used as a reset back to step one if momentum shifts. Which I refer to as a new campaign for a valid setup. Price is most important but there is no harm in putting as many tools in the toolbox as long it does the job of extracting money from the markets.

  1. Bollinger bands - Period 10. Shift 1. Deviation 0.66
  2. MACD - Fast EMA 6. Slow EMA 17 and MACD SMA is 1.

Let’s Put it Together

Buy Signal

Step 1. Wait for MACD to cross the ZERO line. (New Campaign).
Step 2. Wait for Price to pull back into the Bollinger bands. It doesn’t matter if the price closes below the bands.

(IMPORTANT! IF MACD CROSSES BELOW THE ZERO LINE THEN A NEW CAMPAIGN WILL BEGIN FOR A SELL SETUP)

Step 3. After the pullback into the bands, draw a resistance line at the highest point where the price hits before the pullback.

Step 4. Now sit on your hands and wait for the market to confirm its strength in buyer momentum. If and when the price breaks and closes above the high that was marked in step three. Place a Buy Stop order 1 pip above the high.

(IMPORTANT! IF THE PRICE DOESN’T BREAK THE HIGH BUT WICKS ABOVE IT. GO BACK TO STEP 3. THIS WILL MARK THE NEW HIGH WE NEED PRICE TO BREAK ABOVE).

This keeps you out as the market tests volume and liquidity at these highs.

When to Cancel Buy Stop order?

If the buy-stop order is not triggered. Cancel it when the price crosses below the zero line.

Stop Loss & Take-Profit targets

This is entirely up to you but it must be consistent. There is 3 ways to manage these trades and pocket the profits;

Method 1. Shoot for a 1:1 risk-reward ratio. For this method, you must place your stop loss 1 pip below the breakout signal candle and target for an equal amount of money between your entry price and stop loss price.

Method 2. Shoot for a 2:1 risk-reward ratio. For this approach, place your stop loss 1 pip below the lower band and target double the amount of money between your entry price and stop loss price.

Method 3. Make the most out of the trend. This approach is a bit more advanced but some backtesting will train your eye on exactly when to exit the trade. That would be to exit on an overshoot of the third touch or break of a wedge. This signals to many traders when to exit their trades. By using this approach you are squeezing as much as possible out of trends and have a higher chance of entering at the top.

THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE FOR A SELL SIGNAL.

I hope you all enjoy this one. :smile:

As with every new system, don’t forget to back-test until confident.

Any questions I am happy to answer

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

That’s just the same as an EMA-6/17 crossover.

You don’t need an MACD, if the last number of the three is a 1.

A one-bar moving average of anything is the same as “the thing itself”.

Don’t take my word for it: check it out for yourself. Put both on the chart and you’ll see that the bar where the histogram of an MACD-6/17/1 crosses the zero-line is the identical bar to the one where the EMA-6 and EMA-17 cross over. Every single time.

“Amazing coincidence?!” No - that’s just how the MACD works, if you think about it.

Beginners’ forums, and Youtube, and promotional PDFs are full of systems with MACD settings where the third number is 1, and they’re all based on the same misunderstanding.

People are often inventing “trading systems” without understanding what the indicators they prescribe are displaying! At least, promotionally-motivated people who are trying to draw traffic to a sales-page link in their profile often are. :smile:

No kidding? :sweat_smile:

Brilliant. Im Saying Fast EMA is 6 and Slow EMA is 17 and your telling me its the same as EMA :joy: :rofl: Brilliant

If you had read the post you would have seen that I only use the MACD to measure strength in price. Has nothing to do with the MACD indicator. I just don’t like clutter on my charts. Plus I was under the impression that this forum was for beginners. Yes, I do have a blog and my link is added to my BIO. I don’t gain anything from getting visitors. I have zero affiliate links and I have only written 2 articles. Someone had asked if anybody has a blog so I responded. Isn’t that the point of a FORUM?

Who are you anyway? The BabyPips Police?

You sound like you already know what you’re doing. Why are you looking at the Forex strategy section?

Hi, I was interested in trying this strategy out on the futures market. Specifically ES which is tracks the S&P. I use TradingView as my charting platform, but when entering the indicator settings I’m not seeing or maybe I’m unaware of the equivalent term for the settings.

For BB indicator I don’t see a input for “shift” on TradingView.

And for the MACD SMA, I don’t see a SMA for the MACD settings.

Again I was hoping you could log onto your TradingView chart and input the settings and screenshot the settings.

Hi Taejon. On trading view the setting is called offset. This strategy works on all markets aslongs as the market and will do for aslongs tbe market is traded by human emotion.

Im am going to post later the trades of the day including losing trades.

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Hi. Have try this strategy today, have made few trades. I must say, that concept of the strategy is good, but we must have some filters.
Strategy as is now is for away from consistency. I have traded with sell or buy stop orders with calculation of the spread, but have terrible rezults.
This can not be traded in real market, not like this.
It need to have improvment.

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That’s for sure. :+1:

But - as explained above - the whole thing is based on a really basic misunderstanding anyway. Including additional indicators as “filters” won’t change that. :sweat_smile:

I can see how it would be a problem with a big spread. I noramlly trade using ECN accounts with tight spread. What instruments have you traded today? Just so i can see abit more of your experience

Major forex pairs