London Breakout Strategy - 1H Timeframe Modified

Hey Samit265, thanks for the comment.

The 4 main EUR and GBP pairs I am trading I am having the most success with. These are: EURUSD, EURGBP, GBPJPY and GBPUSD.

I have also heard about that too that Monday and Friday prices can move can quite funnily but that hasn’t happened to me. I still trade on those two days. But do what works best for you, neither are wrong or right.

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Hey BigBull09, thanks for the comment.

Not sure what you mean actually, the last 3 candles BEFORE the London session opens are used to determine the range, so hence they’d have to be inside the range :laughing:, so how can they be outside the range already before the London market opens? A bit confused there.

If you could explain a bit further I can try to assist :smiley:

Hey Sam, nice trade once again and that’s definitely a good looking EA.

I don’t employ a lot of other indicators on this same strategy either, it’s already simple enough and it’s good to be kept that way.

The only thing I can see (based on the photo) anyways, is the SL and TP, it seems like the SL is quite far and not at the bottom/top of the range like I do. But once again, one to their own, each person might prefer to do it differently :slight_smile:

Lol…nevermind…i thought you meant mark the range of the 3rd candle not the H-L of all 3… my bad…thanxs

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Hi Onyedika, thanks for the comment.

May I ask what charts system are you using? Just metatrader or tradingview?

No worries at all. There is actually a strategy that runs similar to that but rather the range of the first candle of the London open. I have not tested it yet though :smiley:

Hey Cloudnine thanks for sharing. I think this is pretty interesting! I actually was testing something similar to this when I ran into this thread. So I guess the universe is trying to tell me something? :smiley:
I just had one question, what made you choose the last three candles? And not four, or even two? Was there something specific that stood out to you? I am trying to test some things out and I like your method on the London open but unfortunately that is 2am here in Central US. So I am just trying some theories. Thanks for the help! Cheers

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Hello everyone, nice to see this is getting a bit of traction perhaps thanks to Babypips for giving me a shoutout on their recent email, and I am hoping that it’s helpful for a lot of people.

Here are my trades from yesterday, Wednesday 1 July 2020:

GBPJPY - WON +$126

GBPUSD - WON +$300 TP hit

EURUSD - LOSS -$200 SL hit

EURGBP - WON + $300 TP hit

Overall: 3/4 with 2 hitting TP, 1 hitting SL and 1 closed in partial profits - banked a nice $526 for the day/night.

This has been doing quite well I’m actually getting a bit scared :laughing:, but, regardless, I am prepared for whatever to come whether that’s another winning week or perhaps a lost. Not to complain though, take all the profits I can get :rofl:

Have a nice day everyone.

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Going to test it on New York session…i live in California so London open is midnight my time…i go to bed at 9pm because I have to wake up at 2am…so…im going to see how this works with new york session…it opens at 5am my time

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Hey Maduran, thank you for the comment.

Perhaps it’s destiny! :rofl:

The last 3 candles just happen to be something I backtested and found that it works.

To be honest with you I tested probably about 15 different variations before landing on this one and before I posted it here I tested it myself first to make sure it works well.

I think there are 3 other most common variations relating to determining the ranges:

  • The high and low of the WHOLE Asian session
  • The high and low of the LAST candlestick of the Asian session
  • The high and low of the FIRST candlestick of the London session

There are also variations of this on the 15m timeframe and so on, literally hundreds of ways you can trade it.

You just have to pick one and test it out for yourself or find one that suits your trading style the most.

This strategy is perfect for me because the first candle closes at 6PM my time, which means I’d finish work and already be home or can be ready to check if there is a breakout and if not, I just need to check at the end of every hour, nice and easy. Once I place my trades, I let it run and forget about it.

It is a bit harder for those in a different timezone where the London open might be their sleepy time.

All the best on your trading journey.

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Only issue I can see is what ranges are you going to use to determine the breakout? Obviously not going to be the last 3 candles of the Asian session as most likely it’d be broken well before you are awake.

If you use candles in the London session then most likely it’d be huge due to massive movements (as London is the busiest session of them all).

The main strategy I use is use the slow movement of the Asian session as range and momentum as to then trade the breakout as London opens.

Just check it out and test to see what works for you, best of luck :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the quick reply Cloud! Yeah I agree, that is the name of the game in regards to trading. There are a million ways to skin a cat, as they say. I am actually testing some variations as we speak. :rofl: But this method doesn’t seem to have the same success at the NY Open. So I guess I’ll have to keep testing some things.

Also, another question, I am sure you’ll be asked after this anyways. But I noticed in the most recent post you just uploaded, you made the range smaller than your rules would normally apply to. Was this because of the long wicks leading up to the open? Do you have a specific rule for that?
Thanks again

Hey Maduran,

NY open is tricky as it’s after the London session (busiest session of them all so there are huge movements) although I have never really tested anything for it so best of luck and I am hopeful of something great for you!

And no, the range is smaller because there are not much movement in the last 3 candles of the Asian session.

If you take a look at my chart closely, you can see the London open is the part where the background is “slightly green”. So you can see the 3 candles before that are the last 3 of the Asian session that I use to determine the range. So I have not changed this rule at all, it’s actually one of the most important rule out of them all as it determines the range and in turn the breakout.

Let me know if anything is unclear there for you?

I appreciate the support!
And you are right on that one, I guessed I must have looked at them in a hurry and mistook the openings. That was pretty rushed question I suppose lol
Thanks again, and good luck!
I will keep an eye on this thread. Cheers!

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BigBull09 - the way I define my range is from the overlap found here:
https://www.forexmarkethours.com/
I start the range after the Tokyo close and then stop the range before the New York open. So I make that 4 hours. Is that how you’d approach it?

Cloudninee - absolutely, I am just giving it some breathing space, for me to learn of the typical range the pair experience before the breakout move. So TP and SL are both 100pips at the moment. I will move the SL much closer, and as you say maybe to the bottom of the range. Will run it for a month say before before deciding on a more appropriate SL, and I’ll then start experimenting with trailing stop as well maybe…we’ll see how it goes, but I’ll keep you posted!

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Hey Sam,

On the first point to BigBull09, I think I mentioned it a couple of times to some others too, the issue with using the London ranges is because it is the largest and most volatile session, usually the top and bottom of the range can be quite huge. But again, that’s another strategy that can be tested out to see it’s performance.

On the second point, yea this is definitely not a long term strategy I think so 100 pips is rather massive. Don’t get me wrong, check it out and as you said, you are giving it space to breathe so it might work out well after all.

Thanks for contributing and best of luck on your trading journey! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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@Cloudninee Point taken on the volatility. The EA does allow me to define the range from the bodies high and low as oppose to the wicks, so I may experiment with that if as you say the volatility results in a too large a range. The EA also allows me to ignore trade if the range’s height is above a certain pip range. Yes 100 TP is probably too much, but I never intend on reaching the TP. I find that the move tends to max around 6pm(GMT+1) so I auto close trade at 6pm at the moment, which serves me well. Only been running this for 5 trades so far so i’ll fine tune it as I go along. No loss yet. Will probably lose today now that I’ve said that!! Thanks for your input.

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Hey Sam,

The only reason why I’m saying it is if you risk managing properly, you could be limiting your wins.

For example, for a trade that moved 50 pips in your direction and you are risking $100 per trade:

  • With 100 pips SL - you would have placed 0.1 lot size which = $50 win.

  • With 50 pips SL - you would have placed 0.2 lot size which = $100 win.

I hope the above makes sense?

Of course, there is nothing wrong with being safe and giving the trade space to breathe and all, so once again, not saying wrong or right, each to their own with what works best :relaxed:

Hi Cloud
Nice little strategy
I just did a very quick backtest and it was about 50/50
I then popped an Aroon Up & Down Indicator on it (with very little modification I added a 67 line) If Shorting, when say the Up line crosses down through that 67 line, it’s almost as good as the down line being on top but doesn’t need to be. Vice Versa for a long.
It kept me out of a couple of good trades, but kept me out of a stack of losses.
It also kept me in trades that came to fruition well after the NY close.
Have a play - its good fun - I have never applied it to a 1 hr chart before as I usually only trade Daily, but it appears to work OK.
Cheers

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Hey thebrettski2, thank you for your input.

As you can see in my thread here if you have a look through, I have not had a losing day since last Monday. In saying that, I am not saying that my strategy works 100% of the time, nothing is in the trading world.

Also, I trade 4 currency pairs for this and with a 1.5 R:R, so even if I lose 2 trades and win 2 trades a day, I still profit. One can often cover for another most of the time, so it’s been good for me.

Lovely to hear it might work better with the Aroon indcator though. I don’t usually trade indicators with this as it’s a simple breakout, set and forget strategy for me. Some others might take it up though and incoporate that into their own strategy.

So thanks for your contribution and best of luck on your trading journey.

P.S. I actually trade the daily timeframe too (that’s my main trading method), using only candlesticks and bollinger band and nothing else.