On the 5min chart, of the 4 majors, wait for a intra day trend to reverse. Once the reversal has been spotted wait for that first pullback then enter as soon as the pullback losses steam…
entry and exit are crucial…
It takes a lot of patience, pratice, and hard work…
cut your losses quick, no more than 7 pips
depending on the currency I take profits at around 8 to 10 pips
Its grueling work but it works. I belive the only way to make a consistant profit is to keep nipping and nipping…and dont get frustrated when your currency keeps soaring in your direction and you would of made 60 pips. Keep the emotions in check and trade like a robot…
He does it from experience.Screen time will help you on this.I have been trading live for 2 weeks and believe me you know what is going on when you watch your money instead of a demo.My advice is closely watch how a trend forms and completes itself…when you really watch it …you will get it.
Thanks for the advice.
I’ve been trading live for over 20 years.
I can show 10 people the same screen and get 10 different opinions on the existence and nature of any trend you want to look at.
The trend is in the eye of the beholder.
I hear what your saying.My point was you get a feel for what you see.You can do this without MA’s.Sorry I got the newbie feeling from you.No harm done.
Chris Tait, a well known Australian trader and author has the best answer for this. Print out the chart, magnify it, put it on your wall, get your 5 yr old to stand the other side of the room and ask them if its going up or down. If they cant tell there is no trend
You clearly have not been trading for 20 years since babypips says that you are a newbie.
I’m coming around to the view that scalping is a reasonable way to trade forex. I utterly failed at it when I started and switched to long term trading - daily and weekly charts and buying dips to the 25 MA area. If it goes too much further then I get out in case price is going the other way.
The only problem is that my profits are small since don’t want to risk too much on any trade. I’ve started applying the the same rules in the 5 minute timeframe, and it seems to work ok there too. Entries are easy though, it’s exits that are hard!
One option I’ve tried is looking for a pullback and then setting a grid of limit orders in the direction I think the trend will resume to. I like to do this with EUR/USD where I have a 0.9 pip spread and use 1 or 2 pip grids with take profits at 3-5 pips. I try to gauge the size of the move and set the grid so the last take profit is about 2/3 of the estimated distance. ATR has been helpful with this.
So far, I’ve had a few danglers that I’ve closed with a loss, but my success rate has been reasonable. At least I find out if I’m right or wrong in a matter of minutes or hours instead of days or weeks!
Hi Dr Zeus,
We’re neighbors. I love between Dallas and Fort Worth, close to the airport.
Yep, I’m a newbie:-)
I remember trading gold in 1975. Back then I would sneak down to my brokers office at lunch time and watch his big chalk board to keep up with my trades. He had about 20 or 30 chairs with traders setting in them watching the board and marking up their charts. You had to calculate your MAs and stuff, by hand, and plot them on your chart. Actually you had to keep the chart, itself, updated.
The alternative was to subscribe to a paper ticker tape feed for about $500 a month. You still had to phone in your trades.
The funny thing is, I made a lot more money back then than I do now with all the frills and bells and whistles that I have…LOL
I want to write to you saying I am sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way.I am not one out to attack people.I just misinterperated your post I guess…but anyhow goodluck,and goodtrading in your future.
I tried a system using candle stick reversal patterns (especially Engulfing bottoms). Made spectacular gains when I was right making 40 pips. But I was wrong most of the time so I ended up breaking even only.
can I ask where your getting a 1 pip spread on the euro
I use Oanda. They widen spreads on weekends and during news events, but I don’t trade during that time anyway. I like them because they are well capitalized and have been around longer than most brokers, and they also allow you to enter trades as small as $1. This is perfect for beginners to practice good money management without needing $1000s.
Hi Dr Zeus,
We’re neighbors. I love between Dallas and Fort Worth, close to the airport.
Yep, I’m a newbie:-)
I remember trading gold in 1975. Back then I would sneak down to my brokers office at lunch time and watch his big chalk board to keep up with my trades. He had about 20 or 30 chairs with traders setting in them watching the board and marking up their charts. You had to calculate your MAs and stuff, by hand, and plot them on your chart. Actually you had to keep the chart, itself, updated.
Hey, it’s good to see another DFW trader on the board! I actually live in Plano but list Dallas on my profile since most people know where it is. I ride the DART rail to work each day and do most of my trading on the way to work - I thought I was the only one around here trading currencies until last week when I saw someone else reading EUR/USD charts on the train.
I think new traders would do a lot better if they had to perform their own indicator calculations. It would teach them how the indicators work and also force them to trade at higher time frames.
I’m very new myself. I’ve researched trading in general for a few years and finally settled on forex a year ago for my high risk capital due to the great leverage (I try to stick to 10:1). So far, I’m breaking even after an initial losing streak.
