Try doing as some others…trade the 1hr by itself for a while.
Trade the crossovers and then only trade the smaller timeframes when the 1hr is outside the 20:2 bollinger & it wicks (50%+) & the MAs cross over.
Trading the 5min by itself is dangerous unless it’s a slow PA day. I say dangerous because it can be done but you need other confirmation like trend direction, SR, etc.
An example attached for 40-50pips (1900 16/Nov/2009): exit all at 1hr middle boll or the 15min bottom 20:2 boll or the 15min 60SMA - these should always be considered an exit point.
You are exiting at the middle boll on the longer timeframes as bollinger bands are about the return to equilibrium (that and trading from overbought or oversold levels).
From page 1:
Swing traders must investigate central tendency in every promising opportunity. Market action should spring back toward a centre of gravity after extending in either direction. This axis tends to support price from below and resist it from above during active markets. In flat rangebound periods, price action commonly oscillates back and forth across the pivot until volatility triggers a new directional impulse.
BBs focus analysis of central tendency in real time. To use the bands effectively, apply a central moving average that tunes into the expected holding period…
A further example is the long that started at 11am GMT. I missed this as I was eyeing up the short trade and went out for a coffee but all the signals were there. That would have been around about 150-200pips! You would have stayed in this trade because the price was hugging the 20:1 and 20:3 area…a strong trend (this is 1 of the trend trading parts of boll bands).
…then the short 3hrs before that, which you either would have exited for 40pips or gotten out at breakeven when the long came back the other way. In fact, I could have given up for the week based on yesterday as that target would have been hit 3 times over 
I saw all these trades but preferred to drink some coffee :rolleyes:, instead getting a small percentage of the move at the end of the day-still ok.
My only regret is I keep missing out on all those TalonD 1H crossover trades I set up on a special chart all it’s own. I check them afterward and each one I miss are killer pip gains. :o
Agreed but you’re gonna have to follow the rules for that one and leave the trade alone until it reaches the exit point.
If you trade the 1hr in the above way and it crosses over the middle boll then you could either:
- leave the trade to run
- close 50% of it for some guaranteed profit and leave the rest to run
That’s 1 way to get in early on the crossovers. If it looks like it’s not going to crossover then you could close the rest of the trade.
