How do i get to know the WHEN Please guide mw the possible way you can,Thank you.
Dear @Fatawu,
The WHEN depends on a lot of things.
What market are you trading?
At What times can you trade?
How long can you spend in front of your charts?
How disciplined can you be?
There is nothing Universal in the trading business… market conditions are changing every day… What works today may not work tomorrow.
You dont become a doctor in one day because another doctor tells you the secret… you become a doctor because you learn during years What other doctors have done… you practise for years… And you find your own style … your own practise… your own methods …
It’s not different for a trader… believe me. Just stop looking for the holy grial and spend time looking at charts… Try to define strategies… and test if they work… the more time you spend… the better trader you Will be…
Just do It and get back to us … tell us about your experience
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Thank you very much
You get a chart with all the Stop Loss Orders on it, just like what the Big Banks who control the Forex market have. You have an algo that calculates where the biggest Stop Loss clouds are, and how much it would cost to drive the market into them, and whether it would be profitable to go after them or not, just like all the Big Banks who control the forex market and exercise complete price control have…and when the algo identifies a big ripe juicy apple of Stop Losses ready for the plucking, because too many traders are seeing the market the same way, and the banks could go harvest the liquidity at a reasonable ratio to the cost of driving the market to these targets…then you have a trade idea…namely, always trade in the direction that causes the most pain to the most amount of participants.
Failing having that kind of information at hand, you will just have to spend thousands of hours building up an intuitive grasp of how this game works, circumnavigating the obstacles of false paradigms and red herrings laid out by media, educators, educational material, cluster-dunce traders who think they cracked it cos they had a lucky run in Crude Oil Futures 15 years ago, and the blind leading the blind in general, just like everyone else has to…and maybe, if you are the type who will obsess over this stuff to the point it degrades your mental health and general zest for life, you might just make it into the 5% of retail traders who can actually turn a buck or two over the duration.
Perhaps not what you want to hear, but pretty much the reality of it. There is no easy answer to what you are asking, which is akin to:
“how does one become a shark poker player, without being able to see what cards all the other players are holding, and without being able to decide what the next cards will be”?
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Not that many years, but more than enough hours…enough hours to know not to bother trying to nail this game with any given strategy.
Here is a trade I am looking at right now:
The entry is a tag of 4Hr 100MA, being tested for the first time since it’s tag prior to it flying up on the US inflation figures. It is a tag of a Volume Gap, which invariably is also a pivotal level, and it is a tag of a bull channel gradient of sorts…Nothing ‘sacred’ about any of it. Experience teaches me it is a likely level for price to react off, and that is it…With that said, the level where my SL is, looks like a much more likely level for price to react off, where there is a HUGE volume gap, and a real key S&D zone, with a much more integral bull channel gradient rising up to meet price, but another theory about that huge volume gap, is that it represents a bunch of trapped traders. If price is to continue to push higher to cause these trapped traders yet more pain, then price won’t want to get down that far, and give these trapped traders a chance to save their asses a bit…I will go with that theory, simply cos it suits my bias.
bottom of the screen is a MACD and RSI overlay. Momentum ‘divergences’ were one of the first things I learned about and the undue totally unwarranted importance that I have placed on them, has caused me a lot of aggravation and a lot of lost capital over the years…trying to wean myself off using them, but still addicted to them, just through sheer force of habit, but it really is a pile of old cobblers that won’t tell you anything that price isn’t already telling you. FWIW, there is still ‘consistent’ momentum on the MACD (lines) on the recent high on the 4 hour chart, which is supportive of my trade…however, had I had different ideas, that required different answers, then I could just change the candle interval and I am sure I would find a divergence-convergence argument on some time frame, that would support any given trade idea.
No strategy. I just try to define a good level to get in at, that corresponds to how the market seems to be moving, and what price objectives it might have (price objectives invariably being other traders SL levels)
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Thank you for your reply @MatDerKater!
It seems I don’t have enough knowledge to understand all your comment, I will research it later when I have time today but the last one I can understand clearly
And not an untypical sight, when I get it right:
Essentially, my call was correct, but of course, with missing entry by a few pips, I get absolutely nothing. It’s a very common occurrence.
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Just look at where my entry level was.
Volume gap (that is the Volume Profile bars displayed to the left of the screen, gap is marked by transparent blue box)
Bull Gradient (Trendline) drawn of previous pivots
100MA
That, combined with an eye for how the market is likely to behave, was the sum total of my trade idea. But of course what I feel constitutes a good level will change with circumstance.
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A simple OG but established members have responded to you as it’s a "bare bones question "to start with
Did you follow the book ‘Market Profile’? Since the transparent blue box is similar with the one I see in this book.
Now I can understand your idea trading. It’s a nice trade.
Thank you very much for your explanation again!
Well yeah it is buying and selling at its core just as you would if going on holiday abroad. However, if trying to trade it then the same as any trading you need to think about probabilities of what price will do and how you can raise those probabilities in your favour. That is where trading becomes more difficult.
And it is also best to keep your strategy simple and basic, this will make the market less complicated and easy for you.
Buy low, sell high is the gist of trading. But it’s not something that can be mastered in a day or two. Market analysis, Strategic planning, timing and risk management are some of the essential aspects of forex trading. But there’s more to it including trading psychology which you will discover later on. Placing a buy/sell order is a simple task. But the planning that goes behind the scenes is not that simple.
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Facts. You’re either a shark, shark bait, or doing random shi*. Only one works. As far as the rest, discipline, risk tolerance etc…you work that out over time once you know how the sharks operate first.
To be honest, for me Forex is more than buy & sell! Right now, I am using this money earning opportunity as my 1st way of earning!
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Hello Sir , I’ve been learning forex for a Year now and basically i have no strategy i just have this demo account that i try to trade on , So my simple strategy is i sell when i feel the Market is going downtrend and i buy when the market is heading upwards ,I dont know if that make sense , I’m sorry .
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I agree with you
Thank you Sir
Hi @Fatawu,
I was the same when I first jumped in FR market. This simply strategy could be profitable one but we can’t go long with this because we don’t know when the price will change itself. I have moved to higher time frame such as H1, H4 and D1 to monitor the market (before I just used M5 but it’s supper noisy) and I try to stick on supply/demand or support/resistance zone to trade. There are many strategy on Babypips courses or books or YouTube, let find out the one that suit to you and follow it. One of the good book that I have read is ‘The Candlestick Trading Bible’, you can try it.
Hope it help and good luck!