Very neat
I have been looking at SR zones on a daily chart for a while now. I am not sure how its going to play out on m1 charts. So you have got me drawing lines on a m1 chart now just to see what happens. I am having a hard time seeing why some of your zones are on the chart and why some areas don’t have a zone. Can you explain what you see that makes you draw a box? You might find that a big M1 candle by itself is enough to trigger a trade. I think looking at SR to base targets on is good. I am thinking this is a kind of breakout thing. when PA gets tight wait for a big candle to jump out of the range. Use the next zone up or down as a target. I have been using the edges of the zone as stops not the high low of the trigger candle.
I have been working with daily charts not M1. I looked at using the high low of my trigger candle as stops on my daily strat. In that case I also reversed the trade that got stopped out. This is great when price blows right through a zone, but not so good when it reverses. I found in a daily chart the way I draw my zones I am better off treating a zone as a reversal point until I am proved wrong by a candle closing outside the zone. This might not be the case on short time frames. it looks like on short TF charts price hits a zone, pauses then gets blasted out of the zone going the same direction. This seems to happen more often on a short chart then it does on the daily.
The zones that I use for the 1min chart are zones that I have identified using a top down approach from daily down to 15min charts. (sometimes I fine tune the 15min zone using the 5min chart)
For instance, I might find a zone on the daily TF that is 60 pips wide. Obviously, that’s too wide to be very useful on a 1min chart. So, what do I do? Well, what I do is I look at that zone in the lower time frames and then I’ll end up finding that the zone can most likely be split up into a few smaller zones with some “no zone” space between them.
Does that explain anything? If not let me know and I’ll try to explain better.
As for what makes me place a zone at one level and not at another, that’s based pretty much on the rules from my Trading Plan. I generally look for zones that are “virgin”, ie they have not been revisited by price yet. I look for levels where price moved away forcefully, suggesting a strong imbalance in s/d. I look for zones which can be expected to offer at least 3R. I look for zones where price was only able to stay for a short while before moving away, again suggesting strong s/d imbalance, etc.
This is certainly no perfect science and I least of all I the expert. If you want to learn from the master, have a look at a bunch of his vids. They may be slightly repetitive and his constant ooooooooookays are annoying, but they’re worth watching. They’ve certainly helped me! Sam Seiden
If there are any specific levels you want me to explain, post which zone and I’ll try to explain why I have it on the chart.
Yes, for this approach I use nothing else but the size and location of the 1min candle. Depending on where and in what relation to the zone it occurs, it can be a reversal or a retest of a breakout, or a breakout for that matter.
Using the high/low of the 1min candle makes the R:R much better than if using the high/low of the zone. And, if my assumption about the big 1min candle representing imbalance in the market, by that logic price should not violate the hig/low of the trigger bar. If it does something is wrong and we might as well be stopped out there instead of waiting for price to wander around inside the zone. That’s my thinking, but that certainly doesn’t mean that it’s the best SL approach.
I agree, price behavior differs between the daily chart and the intraday time frames. I personally find the longer intraday TF to suit me much better than the daily charts did. 1H and 4H have become my preferred time frames.
Ah, yes… You’ve identified the big problem for me…
For now, I can’t really trade it live, so I’ll be “paper trading” it in the evenings to see how it performs over time. I have a few measly vacation days planned this spring/early summer so I hope to be able to take the approach out for a drive then.
If it turns out to actually work (which it does seem to), I may in time have to consider reducing my work hours to free up one day every other week or so and if it continues to work, well then watch out Warren Buffet
I’ve been down pretty much that same road. I didn’t get to live trading, but my conclusion was the same.
The differences I see are using 1min instead of 15min, and using seiden’s way of placing zones and then trade price’s reaction to those zones. I have nothing like any stats or evidence that this works yet though, so this may turn out to be a dead end. Only time will tell.
Well, for the broader approach, I do tend to use blind entries yes. I have no choice really since I can’t watch the screen and use some trigger like the 1min approach or a Bollinger bounce or whatever.
In fact, while sleeping during Asia yesterday I missed a perfect short entry on EURCHF. I saw it but as I went to bed price had not reached the zone and I didn’t have the nerves to place the blind order… Missed a 3R trade, bummer.
I promise to post on the 1min approach and what would have been the probable results, but tired now and still some stuff to do before bed. Tomorrow or at the latest Wednesday.
The zones that I use for the 1min chart are zones that I have identified using a top down approach from daily down to 15min charts. (sometimes I fine tune the 15min zone using the 5min chart)
For instance, I might find a zone on the daily TF that is 60 pips wide. Obviously, that’s too wide to be very useful on a 1min chart. So, what do I do? Well, what I do is I look at that zone in the lower time frames and then I’ll end up finding that the zone can most likely be split up into a few smaller zones with some “no zone” space between them.
Does that explain anything? If not let me know and I’ll try to explain better.
I see thanks I was looking at your M1 charts and it looked a little scattered. The above makes sense why drop a M1 zone if its out of a M15 zone. I am going to look at this as the week plays out. I will not get a chance to test it much live as work for me is during the busy trade sessions. Maybe if looks good I will give it a shot next Monday when I can be at the screen.
As promised, let’s have a look at what trading big bars with s/d zones on a 1min chart could/would have resulted in.
This is not hindsight per se, since the zones were placed well in advance. Those who wanted could even download the MT4 template. Since I’m not selling anything, nor will ever, none of that matters much anyway, so let’s get to it.
The red line marks 0200 on Oanda server time, which corresponds to 0800 Central European Time, so not exactly London open. More like Europe open if you will.
As is evident from the first chart image, not much of interest happened during the first few hours. Price did interact with our zones, but the big bars we’re looking for did not appear:
On the second chart image we’re in the London / New York overlap and on the right half of the chart image we’re after London close.
This is where we’re getting some interesting setups. I’ve identified a few big bars that occur in close relation and in a reaction to the zones.
Of these four setups there’s one loser, one that gives a bit less than 2R and two trades that give 5R or more.
I added this chart to show that the last setup would have given more than 5R, we’re not looking for any trades at the right though because that after NY close.
As I would be interested in trading only during London/New York, I stop looking for trades when New York winds down and closes.
Would this have been a profitable day? It depends on what profit taking rules and you had and what nerves you had. I would go as far as to say that an average skilled trader could make this approach work. This was just one day though and to be able to claim that this approach is valid I need many more days to say the least. This is where my full time job keeps getting in the way. (Yes I know, that’s a luxury complaint and I don’t mean to offend anyone).
Thoughts, ideas, improvements, criticism etc is welcome as always.
I’ll try to post the charts and MT4 templates like I did several more times. Best of all would be if I could manage to do it for a full week for instance.
I’ll follow up on this and we’ll see what these zones might have resulted in. Hoping to be able to do this quite often until the picture becomes clearer on the possible merit of this.
Not looked in on you in a great while, nice to see your keeping the thread up. Question though. Back in November last year you were only considering trading the monthly TF. Forgive me, hav’nt back read the posts. Now the 1m? What made you go from monthly to minute? In no way questioning your judgement just curious? Anyways hope its working out.
Actually I’m not trading the 1min, I’m on the 4H charts.
My 1min posts are still experimental in nature and there’s no trading them for quite some time. I think I may have figured something useful out and I’m testing now to see if it does indeed work.
I live trade the 1H/4H charts as it turned out to be the best fit for me and I have to say I like them better than the daily charts.
Monday April 11 offered two possible entries. Neither of them were very big bars and the day could be a no trade day or a 1 or 2 trade day, depending on interpretation and preference.
The first setup offered more than 5R, likely around 9R if one had managed TP at the top. The second setup occurred in the last hour before NY close and would have given around 4R at most.
Ahmm… back read a little… so your zoning in from day and incrementally lower TF’s down to the minute (Multi TF trading). Sounds promising, although personally I have never gone that low on MTF trading. I’ll be following along with interest.
