Do pivot points work?

I’m seeing lots of guys on YT and Twitter showing charts with pivot points.

I started the lesson here

But I don’t get why these work?

Pivot points are set on Fibonacci’s. Fibs are based on universal sacred geometry. When people see a support. (bottom) or resistance (top) The proper decision can be made, with a better confidence level, to invest or sell. Don’t forget to look at the sentimental value and the fundamental value as well before deciding. Pivot points, used along side other indicators, like stochastics, pattern, etc paint a better picture for the investor. Hope that helps you!

Because trading lemmings like following price action movement from order flow until the order flow increases or withers away, depending on what’s happening in fundamentals, as in currency strength.

If I follow a trend trade,I look at pivot points as to where it is likely that the trend will falter. IMO every trader should examine this.

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So order flow can be taken from Highs, Lows and Close prices, since that’s how you calculate pivots?

Well, as I see it, your question is not a good question! Pivot points do work but the real question is what is a pivot point or how to find one or how to recognize the most important pivot points.

Well the indicator plots them. So there’s the answer to your “how do you recognize them?” If your price is above the average or breaks through, that’s bullish. Below the average, bearish.

Use them for support and resistance as well. They’re not only used in fx.

Good to know, thanks. Still researching the different types. There’s like 5 or 6.

Because Order flow moves price action movement. So, the stronger the flow, the higher or lower the price movement.

there are a lot of candles which an indicator shows as pivots and there are a lot of different time frames with a lot of candles, so knowing which one is the actual pivot is not a simple task!

Maybe we’re talking about two different things. Here’s the pivot point indicator on Tradingview.

The pivot points are the orange lines. The indicator I have on let’s you choose what type/style? you want. This is the traditional one.

I understand what you are saying, what I mean is that, you can easily change the settings of that indicator and get different outputs, for example, another one that I have seen which shows potential pivots is william fractials, idk the one you are using, but I’m sure that this one, just like Fractials, shows different candles if you slightly change the settings. Now the important points that which one is the one that goes well with your trading style. I hope this is clear now.

Okay, I see what you’re saying. Yes, I just went with the traditional default settings. Part of me thinks that’s probably used by most people. And if a lot of people use it, then we should see more action around those levels. But maybe I’m thinking about that incorrectly.

Well, what you say is logically true but statically, almost 90% of people lose in forex trading (a little more or less) so,… you know what I mean?

Good point. So do something different then! :rofl:

Cannot say what other people have done. I’ve tried pivots and was never able to make any profitable strategies with them.
I’m a trading hobbyist and a systems engineer by trade. Others may have had better luck!

The nice thing about claims that people make about their trading strategies and past performance is that you can plug in the numbers and test them.
I have found most people claiming to have profitable systems actually do not.
On the other hand, some do. There’s a person on this forum that went into detail decades ago about fading yen pairs. If you plug in the numbers on historical data (from time period of posts and a while after), you will see he is 100% legit Using the same method of validation, I have found many other people to be selling snake oil.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
The nice thing about trading is we are talking about numbers on a Cartesian plane and stats. Are the mentors you are watching providing good information? Maybe. You have to test it (before putting any money on the table and even then, start small)!
Cheers and best of luck!

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Pivot points work but you have to find out which points are important.

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IMHO, like with many things in trading, pivots work - and don’t work! And there are reasons for this.

It is worth considering that, ultimately, market prices (in free mkts) move purely according to the changing imbalance between buyers and sellers, and not according to any mathematical formulas.

We could say that there are two prime types of mkt participants: There are the longer-term investors and there are the short-term speculators.

On shorter timeframes the speculators are more active and can change their bias intraday, even intrahour! This volatile, speculative activity is clearly observable if one compares price moves on, e.g an NFP release day, with price movements on a national holiday.

Therefore, we could conclude that whilst pivot points do not offer any kind of intrinsic magical or spiritual support/resistance, they can, like many other indicators, “work” in the short term if sufficient speculative traders are watching the same thing. I.e. they can, at least temporarily, change the imbalance between buyers and sellers (simpy because they are the buyers and sellers in the short term). Thus pivot points can provide good levels to use in setting SLs and TPs.

Personally, I only use “Pivot Points” based on the previous week’s range. I extend horizontal lines through the current week based on the previous week’s high, low, close, and midpoint ( I don’t care about the prev. week’s open).

But I don’t use these so much for setting trade entry/exits. Rather, they provide an indication of whether and when the current price action is continuing an existing trend or consolidating or reversing. E.g. if the existing trend from the previous week is up and price is currently above the prev week close and midpoint then I look for buys until and unless price falls below these levels.

But my entry/exit signals/levels are not based on these lines, they only provide a structural framework within which I can work.

I dont know is this helps or hinders any understanding of pivot values, but anyway… :grin:

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You touched a sensitive point as buying or selling at pivot points is one of my main strategies. The most no brainer strategy I come up to play the law of averages.

Let me explain it maybe you will test it out :slight_smile:

First you have to identify the trend on a 4h timeframe using a 50 sma or a 55 ema and if the price is floating above you buy at daily pivot and sell at r3 with sl at s1, and viveversa, if the price is below the moving average you sell at pivot point targeting s3 with a stop loss at r1.

I also used to buy at s1 and sell at r3 or fibo extensions but orders don’t get filled so often.

That’s all, cheers! :beers:

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Cool, I’ll try this. I’ve been going the opposite direction and thinking of them as support and resistance, but that’s hit or miss.

I think it is relevant to use the High/Low/Close from the previous week as potential S/R levels. For example, the weekly close on a Friday is a fair reflection of true value because many/most short term speculators have already closed out their positions for the weekend.

But I would stress that these levels only create a framework within which price is moving and are not a trading “system” as such,

By way of example, here is the XAUUSD hourly chart for this week. I have omitted my trading indicators except for the RSI and the weekly lines.

You can see how price has tested the prev, week’s low (red line) already on 2 occasions (orange circles) and bounced off - this was a bullish sign! Then the price closed above the prev. week’s close line (blue line) and the RSI 50 line, which for me was a buy signal (green boxes).

The first trade ended when price closed back below the midpoint line (purple line) and the second trade is still open and headed for the prev. week’s high line (green line).

This is not the entire story, but gives some idea how such points can be used. ( I am not, however, very keen or convinced about the value of mathematically produced pivot points.

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