Stop had been taken so the market could take some profit, it was an 80% OTE at a 20 level, Stochs OB, can’t remember what else I was thinking about at the time, but it never materialised anyway.
This is exactly what I am going through. Watched and read about all the tools understood them but not able to apply them appropriately, especially I am struggling with identifying the directional bias. I do the exercise like how ICT explained in the ‘Inside the Range’ video from the higher time frames. When it comes to identifying the directional bias for a specific day, I am struggling.
From the macro indicators like COT report, Interest rates, CRB, Yields, higher time frame support and resistance, to a specific day’s directional bias is something I am struggling with.
I feel I am going through a phase where I have all the weapons but when the time comes to draw a gun, I am struggling to decide which one to
I think I am going through a phase.
I will be there.
Thank you ICT for sharing all your knowledge and inspiration.
Get familiar with a few, then learn some more, I’d suggest Market Structure (Of Course), Support and Resistance, goes without saying, but there’s more to S/R than you initially think, so stick with that, and Fibs are a must, so I’d say those 3 are essentials, then look at time theory maybe, see how you go and keep posting, you’ll get plenty of suggestions, just ask.
Thank you so much.
When you say there is more to S/R, can you please give me some pointers so that I can start observing those things.
When you say time theory, are you talking about how price behaves in specific kill zones like Judas? Is that correct?
S/R, there’s a good video from ICT on the guild thread.
Time theory is where you need to take account of news times, opening sessions, Asian session, they all behave differently, then again that Asian session has been misbehaving a little recently, before news the market will stagnate, it grinds to a halt anything up to an hour and a half before an announcement, it’s vague, but just remember to take what happens at certain times into account and you’ll get the feel for it.
The very first thing I do is ask the question “where has price come from” ie: what support or resistance level has price bounced off of? Has priced just reacted to a higher TF OTE?
I then ask the question “where is price going to” ie: what Fib extensions is price trying to reach to? What highs and lows is price trying to reach? Where are the stops above or below the current level?
I like to trade inside of a higher TF move. If there is no move underway on the 4hr or daily then we are most likely range bound.
A brief example is that of EJ 4 hour chart
See the 78.6% retracement level at 100.30 to get long? From that point onwards I am only looking to go long. A higher TF move is underway [U]from[/U] 100.30.
I then ask. Where is price reaching to? The red cross above that significant high is a nice target. The high at 101.91(not show in screenshot, refer to your own chart) is also a likely target. You then look at fib extensions and higher TF OTE’s to get short (green dash at 102.94 is the 78.6% retracement to get short) These are all possible areas where price could reach [U]to[/U].
Daily Chart
Now look at the daily and count how many days your daily bias should have been long from the day price ran into the OTE to get long at 100.30. 5 days.
If you trade using the power of 3 then you would wait for a 3 bar swing low to form which means you had 3 days with a long bias.
Yes it is all easy to spot in hindsight but you need to learn to anticipate these kind of moves. This in my opinion is where your focus should lie.
The killzones, judas swings, pivots etc are all tools you can use to get you in a long trade on one of these days.
sure, i see what you mean.
the way i think abut HTF analysis is to find areas and s/r levels of good movement potential. by taking a trade at a htf s/r level and presuming a trade between 2 levels on that frame, it’s more pips and possibly avoid doing battle with the market every day for a good entry. while htf gives potential it won’t give precision, so killzones-ote-judas come into play on the m15/m5 frames. h1 is more of a long frame, at least with respect to a killzone which is only a couple of h1 bars. with the TT example, position in weekly buy/sell zone along with structure, flow would have been processed into a htf bias already at the time of the killzone.
in my opinion it’s the same tools all the time. used on the larger frame they define the zone. used on the lower frames they aim to give a good entry with small risk. bias comes before risk. hope this helps, (certainly tried! lol)
This is what I have been missing and this is what I have been looking for. Bingo. Now I am going through each point you made and understand with examples.
Thanks hopiplaka. I think us humans try to complicate things, “It can’t be that easy”. The best part about that post is that it is only an OTE on the 4 hour chart and you still get your bias down for 5 straight days. All that and we did not even mention the divergence on the lows between EJ and GJ which confirmed the long at 100.30. It doesn’t matter if we missed the entry at 100.30 because we can surely find our 1.5% weekly goal in one of the 5 days that followed. You can find 1 hour charts of EJ and GJ on post #7
If we don’t see something for the week, we just don’t trade. If a weekly goal puts you under pressure if you fall short consider a monthly goal or a quarterly goal once break-even status has been achieved.
Here is an example of the daily chart on EG. EURGBP
Here you have the trend up, a retracement follows, we get the 78.6% at 0.7930 a level that has shown to be support and resistance in the past and you get at least another 5 good days with a long bias. Repeat the process.
