You add the spread because this is the price used when opening and closing order. If you are setting entry and stops you want to make sure you are doing it based on the correct price, adding spread gets you at the correct price. The buffer is added become sometimes price gets close clearing the high/low of you PA candle and reverses. Price doesn’t always immediately turn around, but sometimes it just pokes out a little bit before reversing. Some people will put a 5-10 pips buffer on their stoploss and entry to make sure they don’t get triggered at the wrong time. The buffer helps filter out false breaks from real movements.
Diablo,
I actually entered on the daily, and the 1 hour candle didn’t form until right after I entered, but it was good confirmation that I made the right choice. The deep retracement wasn’t intentional, I just happened to be checking my charts at the time and saw the setup and they price was at the very top of the range and shorted big. I believe my SL was around 20-30 pips which is why I was able to achieve such a high RR. I would disagree that this is a counter trend trade. Price was going higher a few months back but at the time of this trade price has been stuck in a range with equal highs and lows being formed with each price swing, because of that I treated it as a range trade.
[QUOTE=“krugman25;572016”]
You add the spread because this is the price used when opening and closing order. If you are setting entry and stops you want to make sure you are doing it based on the correct price, adding spread gets you at the correct price. The buffer is added become sometimes price gets close clearing the high/low of you PA candle and reverses. Price doesn’t always immediately turn around, but sometimes it just pokes out a little bit before reversing. Some people will put a 5-10 pips buffer on their stoploss and entry to make sure they don’t get triggered at the wrong time. The buffer helps filter out false breaks from real movements.[/QUOTE]
Buffers are awesome, I have to say I mostly enter on the break but I always add an extra 10 pips to my stop loss. Also if I’m taking a pin bar and their has been a spike or pin bar before at the same area that penetrated further, I always use the high of the tallest to place my stop loss if that makes sense.
Yes, that is my recommendation for retracement entries, that if you have 2-3 potential retracement areas, it’s best to take the lowest one(for a short). This helps for 2 reasons, the first is that price may very well reverse at the first retracement area. You don’t want to miss out on retracements because you are trying to get in at the deepest possible retracement area and squeeze out a few extra pips. The second reason is because of you take the more conservative retracement, then those other retracement areas act as a buffer between price and you stop loss. The reason they were picked as retracements is because you plan on them exerting resistance on price, that same resistance will help keep price from reaching your stop loss.
The only time I am against not taking the most conservative entry is when it is too close to the break of the price action candle. I mentioned this at the end of my article that the reason retracement entries are ok is because the extra profit justifies the extra risk. If you are entering really close to the break of the candle then you are taking on extra risk without much to show for in terms of profit. For a good retracement I am looking for an entry that will get me at least 1/3 to 1/2 distance above an entry at the break, this will make my profits noticeably larger and justify the risk. Sometimes you can get in at a 3/4 retracement which translates as phenomenal profit.
I really just eyeball it. You can tell a trend is strong by looking at how aggressive price in moving in the direction of the trend. Probably the easiest way to tell is if you have a strong trend, is price staying afloat above the 8/21 day EMA, and is they a big gap between the 8/21 day EMAs. This tells you price is moving strongly and solidly in that direction.
You want to manage your S/R levels off of the daily or weekly as these are going to be the best areas to trade from, but you want to manage your actual trade in whatever time frame you took. The timeframe that your price action signal occurred is is going to reflect that signal the best. I.E. if you get a pinbar on the daily, but try and manage it from the 1 hour it isn’t going to work. You have different traders making different decisions at the hourly level compared to what is happening all of the way up at the daily.
Do you mind if I use your real name here? It feels weird calling you wookie, haha. I agree the level you marked would be a very solid level to play from, it looks like you might have up to 4 overlapping resistance areas(horizontal, trend line, fibo, and BRN). This is a pair I watched for the longest time waiting for a good retracement to get short.
I am glad you are here, and I know you will be a huge contribution to this thread. Are you planning on getting back into harmonics? I plan on keeping this thread to just PA, but I do want to hear more about and learn more about harmonics. Maybe very soon we will be comparing our 30-100% weekly profits like we use to do, haha. Thanks for joining up with us here, I hope to talk to you a lot more in the coming days.
I am officially done going through the previous pages I had missed. If I didn’t answer a question you are waiting on that means I missed it, so link to it and I will make sure to get it answered. I have a few things on my to-do list from conversation here such as grouping together and linking to 4-5 star trades. I also plan on making FXCM the official broker of this thread. It’s the only broker I have used and gets you all of the tools you need to view and trade the charts how I do. Due to their large size, I believe their volume more accurately represents the entire population of traders. Overall their software is superior to anything I have found and I think as a broker are in the top tier as far as all other broker related topics go. This means I will add an FXCM group to the quick navigation area and when broker or chart related questions as answered, they will get link to in their. Then any newcomers who join us have questions, if they use fxcm they can have all through questions answered their, if they don’t they will be directed to look for their answers outside of this thread, or can move to fxcm and get all of their questions answered through our quick nav area.
I would like to personally thank everyone for not twerking while I was away 
[QUOTE=“krugman25;572041”]I would like to personally thank everyone for not twerking while I was away [/QUOTE]
Hahahaha, I can’t speak for Willy but I’m innocent!
[QUOTE=“Mr B A Barracus;572042”]
Hahahaha, I can’t speak for Willy but I’m innocent![/QUOTE]
The trader 6000 melted my underpants as my USDSGD trade blew up. Some traders blame their equipment, some blame their signals, others even go as far as to blame themselves - me, I like to blame the people of those particular currency’s, I’m talking about you SGDians!
[QUOTE=“Mr B A Barracus;572046”] The trader 6000 melted my underpants as my USDSGD trade blew up. Some traders blame their equipment, some blame their signals, others even go as far as to blame themselves - me, I like to blame the people of those particular currency’s, I’m talking about you SGDians![/QUOTE]
Just blame your broker, haha. I was also stopped out of my trade for a loss. I opened up a trade on an exotic pair shortly after, which is now in profit and has recovered most of the loss from my other trade. It is a game of averaging so I know in the long run my edge will play out for profit.
What does everyone think about the 4H pin bar that formed on the USD/SGD 4H chart? It is rejecting a strong resistance zone that has been respected before on the daily chart.
4H Chart Showing Pin Bar
Here on the daily chart you can see just how strong the resistance zone is
[QUOTE=“krugman25;572070”]
Just blame your broker, haha. I was also stopped out of my trade for a loss. I opened up a trade on an exotic pair shortly after, which is now in profit and has recovered most of the loss from my other trade. It is a game of averaging so I know in the long run my edge will play out for profit.[/QUOTE]
Haha yes I blame them too. I’m glad you made your loss back, my AudUsd will hopefully cover mine with any luck but it’s a pretty flat week for me, I may take an early weekend what with Thanks giving for you guys tomorrow which will lower volume.
[QUOTE=“JoshuaFx;572080”]What does everyone think about the 4H pin bar that formed on the USD/SGD 4H chart? It is rejecting a strong resistance zone that has been respected before on the daily chart.
4H Chart Showing Pin Bar
<img src=“301 Moved Permanently”/>
Here on the daily chart you can see just how strong the resistance zone is
<img src=“301 Moved Permanently”/>[/QUOTE]
Your a brave man if you do Josh, this pair has been giving me the run around this week, please see my previous few posts. There have been some decent pin bars at a few good levels but they seem to have been ignored, I’m beginning to think that it may now be up trending, good luck if you take it, the Trader 6000 may come in good use for you, please contact me for further info.
I see, thanks for the explanation. Of course i agree with you that it was/is a range trade not a counter trend trade. Don’t ask me where i got that from. I think i was monitoring another chart when simultaneously writing that post, haha! 
Either way, nice trade! Let’s hope the NZDCAD continues south. By the way, my AUDCAD, weekly trade is still running. I took it on the 4th of november and it looks like i won’t close it until december.
How do you know we didn’t?! 
[QUOTE=“Diablo1505;572095”]
I see, thanks for the explanation. Of course i agree with you that it was/is a range trade not a counter trend trade. Don’t ask me where i got that from. I think i was monitoring another chart when simultaneously writing that post, haha!
Either way, nice trade! Let’s hope the NZDCAD continues south. By the way, my AUDCAD, weekly trade is still running. I took it on the 4th of november and it looks like i won’t close it until december. :)[/QUOTE]
Very nice trading Diablo, how do you manage these longer trades? Do you take profit at points and look for a continuation signal or do you just let it run? For the first time since I’ve been trading I find myself in a position where I could potentially let it run on the AUDUSD but right now I am very tempted to take profit at the next resistance level and then look for further continuation signals. I would consider taking half off the table but I was only risking half of what I usually would anyway so it probably wouldn’t be worth it.
Hi All,
Long time no see!
Looks like a lot has changed, Aaron is travelling more than his datas, BA upgraded his BC 3000 to 6000 and lots more.
Just wanted to drop by and say : keep up the good spirit everyone!
Trading is one of the toughest jobs and very compelling. Don’t forget to nourish yourself in order to stay fit.
Cheers