I’m still pretty new and about half way through the babypip training, so far I’ve just been learning all the different tools but there’s never a mention of any strategy and I’m not sure how to come up with one or where to start. Could anyone help me out with this?
I often find myself sitting there looking at the charts and just not knowing when to go in and that point it’s almost gambling
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The first place to start is with yourself, what kind of trader you think you want to be and what kind of trades will suit your character, circumstances and wallet.
We are all wired differently, some want the challenge and thrill of sitting by a screen trading quick in/outs for a few pips, others will look at the daily close and take a view on the next day, set an order with target and stop level and let it look after itself until the next close. Others trade intraday with positions lasting maybe a few hours, others want longer term positions lasting even weeks.
Your available capital and other time obligations will determine what kind of trading parameters you have and your emotional/psychological makeup will decide what kind of trading will suit you best.
Once you have worked out your own profile you can then start to look at what kind of strategy will fit you best.
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Cheers I think what I like is quick in out kind of trades I kind of just have something that I came up with myself however everywhere I look people are more interested in selling a course rather than explaining anything really and I just don’t know where to find the help
Just share what strategy you’ve come up with here and people will add their own experience to it.
That is understandable but I think you are choosing a very challenging style. It suggests using short-term charts in order to get sufficient volume of trade opportunities but these charts do not move very logically except maybe sometimes after news events.
But there are indeed moves on short term charts but their duration can be short and therefore timing of entry is extremely important and it is easy to make errors of judgement and end up, for example, chasing price only to find it reverse on you immediately! Discipline, patience and accuracy are all-important, as is managing your losses tightly!
As to strategy, not much I can suggest as this is not my area of trading. But I think there are others here that can offer suggestions. However, you say that you have an idea of your own so why not just open a demo account and give it a go and see what happens! In many cases, one’s own strategy ,tailored from one’s own experiences, ends up working the best!
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Yeah well I don’t really know if it’s a strategy but I get a few moving averages and wait for them to cross over and usually use them with like a momentum indicator
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I actually think that’s a good start. You’re just getting familiar. No big deal. Just hit some buttons and see what happens.
Go thru Pipsology and try trading with an indicator that seems to make sense to you. Try it out, place some trades, and get a feel for it. See if you like.
This should all be in a demo account, by the way.
Sovos ive tried a demo account for a good while now and I’d say my success rate is probably like 60 or 65% win but i don’t think it’s very effective I’m kind of just using my head to decide I’m where I should enter.
I know you said this kind of trading is often harder to do but I just enjoy the thrill of getting the quick wins and not waiting for the market to reverse several times before getting a profit. If you don’t mind me asking what would you say is the more beginner thing to do would it be to wait a few hours to close a trade or like day long trades?
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The thing is I’m like seeing things happen in the market after it happens if you get me and I just get frustrated and think to myself why did I not go in there or how do I work out when’s the time to go in. I think it might just be me needing experience because it’s well and good trying to spot it on a example from the past but I just can never get them in real time
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If you have done half of your learning at Babypips, you should have had some clues about finding a strategy. Anyway, I suggest that you keep studying and trading on demo account. You may have to spend more time in learning. Do not be in a rush. You will get there. I am wishing you all the very best.
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This is definitely something you don’t want to just jump into, because as you said it would be gambling.
Feel free to check out the Journal section where members post their own thoughts and ideas. There’s some good stuff there.
Good luck!
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It’s a game of probability. You do the same thing over and over, and after a month, you see what your profit/loss is like.
Do you journal your trades? Journaling can help you figure out what you’re doing wrong.
Keep going with Pipsology, for sure. It’s all confusing at first. Just keep going.
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Cheers sharabelabd I’ll keep going I think I just need to slow down abit and keep on learning
I was looking through all the courses and saw something about journaling near the end so I haven’t done that yet
Is it worth just skipping the section about the like real world analysis stuff first just to get the technical learnt first?
Sounds good. Can you show it on a chart as an example?
I’ll not be able to tonight as my laptop is being used by my brother but I’ll make sure to get something up soon
Also just as a separate thing trading view seems to be what everyone I seen uses, is there any other charting software or is it just best to stick to it
60-65% is a good rate and I’d say there is little need to try and improve that. In fact many traders have a win rate of less than 50% and still make a profit. The reason is that risk/money management is far more relevant to performance than just getting the direction right.
With that success rate you are in a reasonable position for short term trades because you do not need to look for an R:R of greater than 1:1 and still make a profit. Higher risk/reward ratios are not so easy on short term charts/trades.
That is understandable but might lead to erratic trading and the rather soul-destroying experience of working hard for gains over a number of trades, only to then give it all back on one bad trade! And this is precisely why focus on discipline and patience while waiting for the right set-ups is so paramount in this kind of trading style.
One could say that it is harder to know when not to enter than it is to take the trade!
I would say that it depends entirely on what time frame you are trading. If you trade an hourly chart then you could expect to stay in the trade for maybe 0.5 - 4 hours on average? But if you prefer, say, a 15m chart then I would guess maybe 0.5 - 2 hours duration? It depends on the market, time of day, volatility, news events, and all the other fun things that make it all so challenging! 
On a short term chart, MA’s are probably as good (or bad!) as any other approach. For example, S/R lines on a 15m chart do not really have much cause to be reliable, nor do candle combinations, nor chart patterns.
But whilst crossovers might be ok for an entry signal, it is not wise to wait for the same crossovers for your exits. This is because the end of a move tends to be much faster than the original build-up, especially when the change of sentiment is caused by a major unexpected event. Also, whipsaws can be a big problem during quiet periods and tightly ranging markets.
I also base my trading almost entirely on MAs. And I prefer to have two separate pairs of MA’s, one representing the chart TF and the other representing a proxy for the similar pair on a higher timeframe. For example, you could choose a 15-20 EMA pair and a 34-50 EMA pair. Having these two pairs on the same chart is a little like a multiple timeframe set-up but superimposed on only one chart. For example, when the shorter pair is on a 15m chart the longer pair approximates to similar pair on a 1 hour chart. Equally, if using a 1 hour chart, the longer pair approximates to a similar setr-up on a 4 hour chart.
By doing this, you can set some trade rules such as only entering long when the shorter pair crosses and moves through the longer band and the candle closes above the longer band, etc In other words, you are trading the 15m chart in the direction of the 1H chart and trading a 1H chart in the direction of the 4H chart.
That’s a lot of words, a picture would have been better, I guess! But I am only trying to give some ideas of approach rather than suggesting a specific strategy.
I don’t know if that helps or hinders! But it is a few thoughts anyway!
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Woah that was a lot to be honest I didn’t really get much of that but like I got the rough idea I’ll just need to read over it and try take a while to understand it.
And yes I get what you mean with the MA only representing an entry that’s perhaps why I feel it isn’t a good strategy is because I don’t know when to get out so I usually set a stop loss but then no TP and I just close when I think it’s been enough if that makes sense. The other problem I’m having is I don’t know which cross overs to enter like I mostly just go off my gut which I know isn’t the best but i seem to get lucky
with your idea of the pairs of EMAs I think it’s interesting another problem I have is say I’m trading the 15m chart I see a good position to open and then I go check the 30m or 1hr chart and there’s a different trend and that sometimes throws me off abit like one could be bullish other could be bearish and it just makes me question it. Thats why I think I need a more solid strategy with as you say rules when to open and close to be more consistent
Lastly thanks for clearing up about the resistance most videos I watch it’s like make sure you have the support and resistance but anytime I check the charts It’s often a pretty big zone and I just find it a lot handier to forget about them
This is because the chart timeframes we look at are just a process of chopping the price action up into convenient little pieces of time.
The same price movement within a single bar on a 4-hour chart is divided up into no less than 16 consecutive bars on a 15 min chart. And a single bar on a daily chart = 96 bars on a 15 min chart!
So what you describe as “bullish” or “bearish” activity on a 15 min chart is actually only a visual expansion of the random back and forth movement of price during the day as it reacts to all the millions of orders being continually executed around the globe and therefore does not represent a true “trend” as such.
Therefore you will see periods where the short term movement seems to contradict the higher timeframe trend and these are often dangerous to trade because they are actually only a kind of retracement or temporary reversal in direction that can correct very quickly as longer term traders buy/sell into them.
This is the main reason why I like to carry two pairs of EMAs on the same chart so that trades taken on the shorter term pair signals are always in sync with the the longer term pair, i.e. in the direction of the longer term trend (and preferably also with a gap between the two pairs of MAs).
In fact, this process is more or less the same as a “top down” approach watching for signals on, say, a 1-hour chart and then dropping to the 15m chart to time the actual entry.
Ah right thanks that makes a lot more sense now cause I was always very wary about entering a trade that didn’t match the trend of the timeframe or two above but it turns out I’m right to.
I’m not sure if your from the uk or not but I’ve found out about spread betting accounts and was just wondering is there any negatives to using them over a normal account