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Most strategies I’ve read about on here are just made for one specific pair and lots of people prefer to stay with one pair so that they can get used to the way it reacts to news etc. I’d say if it backtests well with one pair, then why not use it just with that pair?
The most profitable strategies will work on any pair on any time frame.
Matt,
The answer to this really depends on the system. There are very different ways to trade and analyze charts. If you are using a very mechanical, indicator driven system then probably no. Chances are that you have back tested and optimized the heck out of it. This means it is really geared for just that pair’s attributes. If you are using a system that is price driven like some of us do then possibly yes. You can read a bit about this type of trading on the “[U]Market intent, pullbacks, and S / R lines - work VERY WELL[/U]” thread in the Newbie section on this website.
Forex is possibly the most chaotic and random market one can trade out there. Techniques from the smoother flowing commodities markets would never work here (trust me, I have tried) and vice versa.
OperationForex
I disagree. I actually think the opposite is true. I think the finely tuned most profitable strategies only work on the pair it was designed for. And then for it to maintain it’s edge it is continually evolving with the change in the market.
Now I do think simple strategies can work on a lot of different pairs and time frames. I trade nothing but reversal pattern off of areas of support/resistance. Something like that is universal as the concept itself is subjective. Areas of S/R adapt specifically to the market, to the timeframe, and to the specific pair being traded. While it is a profitable strategy, I could not say it is the most profitable.
But to say any pair and any time frame isn’t realistic.
why would you dicth a stratergy because it only works on one pair that like saying “i wont buy into that profitable coffe shop because it dont sell Mcdonalds burgers” that makes no sence,
every pair is diffrent in its own right, even price action has its own life from pair to pair, infact i would say a startergy that works across all pairs is completly unrealistic
that’s why i believe most EA’s fail because most of them have to many pairs attacthed
if you find a good stratergy that work’s on 1 pair USE it
i have a thread on here called WIN RATIO i have traded this stratergy as described for 9 months, it took me 12 months of messing around to get to the stage i am at now, but even with a refined stratergy some mornings you will see on my thread that rules are sometimes slightly changed to fit in to that days trading
i concentrate on 1 pair only, im aware that my startergy does work on other pairs, but to be honest not only do i not need those others pairs, im confident with my statergy on the pair that i use because i have the most expeirence with that pair,its also alot more work to incorprate other pairs. i have become very familiar with GBP/USD so why would i start messing with other pairs were i might lose confidents while trading.
Make trading easy,
I’ve been working on my own multiple pair/chain strategy for the past few weeks.
I’m finding that what I’m doing, “should,” work across the eight pairs I’m trading as a basket, but the things that really change if a pair works consistently are the take profit and stop loss.
Some pairs tend to move more steadily and it’s easy to see that they visually are going in a certain direction, other pairs have quick spikes which ruin a reward/ratio calculation and in the moment predictions.
I think though, that any decent system should work across multiple pairs, BUT it will probably have to be curve fitted to each pair, otherwise you are trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
For my strat, so far, I’m finding that my entries are almost always very good and either hang around entry or go postive quickly. So, what I do is have a 40 pips SL and a 20 pip TP. 40 pip SL, because 20 is too easy to hit either way. And any higher of a SL and it would erase to many wins.
I did try the method of having SL at support levels, but I found that sometimes the trades went into to high of drawdown that would erase winners. And even if they did eventually win it too sooooo long. I think the key to what I’m working on is just having very good entries with the tight stop of 40 pips.
So, with good entries, so far, it makes it likely I’ll hit my 20 pip TP. 20 pip TP, because I want trades to be over quickly and be done 8 pairs because I want the possibility of +160 pips in one session, without hours or day of waiting (like if I was trading one pair).
I’ve personally found that the longer I’m in a trade the more chance the pair has of going contrary to what I predicted in the short term from when I opened the trade.
Thus far my wins have far outnumbered my losses. Today out of 8 pairs I had 7 winners and 1 loser. End result was +105 pips. That has been an average day for the past few weeks.
I’m basically trying to develop a, “wash, rinse, repeat,” method, that I can do that same thing over and over and over with definate entry signals and try to exclude hunches, guess work and holding on to losers to long. (My own personal head gnome)
My point I guess is that you will have to either curve fit a stategy to each pair to find it’s maximum postive expextancy and do a lot of back testing, OR find out what the tightest SL & TP are that produce a good win/loss ratio across all the pairs.
I’m actually not trading the, “daisy chain,” method any more. I’m trading using the concept that was taught by that, corolating currencies, to see a larger picture of overall trend.
I’m also using a tottally different template which provides MUCH better entries.
I changed from the orginal daisy chain, because I found too much of it was up to the individual traders opinion and reflected sentiment. With the orginal daisy chain you could have 3 of five hitting +50 and the other two going south -x. While waiting for the +150 they could all switch and you could either be waiting longer for +150 or have all of them go bad.
It became very easy to let things go to far one way or another. Which made it very hard to record a consistent win/loss - risk/reward ratio.
I want to develop it into, “wash, rinse, repeat,” method, that is easy to do and leaves little room for interpretation.
Yes, so far my wins are beating the hell our of my losers. The key is good entries, in line with the current short term trend. I’ve found 40 pips is a good spot to give enough room for the trade to breathe. You just have to be careful around news, so an odd spike doesn’t ruin the trade.
I either don’t trade the news or jump in as soon as I see the direction the news is causing in the short term. With a 20 pips TP you can catch the news reaction if you are quick. (That is of course if there is an entry signal)
Moving my SL to BE after +20 pips would just get me stopped out at BE a lot and kill profit and even make me lose money when you add it to the losers. (Though I have been thinking of using yantz trailing script and just trailing +20 very tightly and see if it results in just a few more pips)
I arrived at a tp of +20 after trying 50 & 25 over the pairs I trade. I found that +20 is quite easy to hit, and hit fast. +25 is a wierd turning point for many currencies IME, from that point it can go +50 and beyond or whip back and take you out. +50 can take quite a long time to hit for some.
I want in and out in a couple of hours at least.
I’m trading as a basket so, after entry, I want my +20 from each one and out.
I’m basically finding all the probabilities I can and looking to put them in my favor. by having at inverse 2:1 ratio it’s more likely my TP is hit, at least mathmatically.
I did that with nickB’s method as well. It often worked better that way for me at least.
I don’t particularly like just trend trading or just using support and resistance, like nickB or the daisy chain. I think you have to consider both, but trend first for direction and support and resistance for possible exits and places to avoid.
By entering on my trend signals I’m finding that on the 1H the -40 SL is often at about a point where the trend I entered in would be considered broken, and the TP is small enough that it doesn’t run a foul of support and resistance bounces often.
When I’ve got it all together and tested live over about 1000 trades I’m gonna post all the nuts and bolts about it for free…if it has a good positive expectancy.
P.S. about trading times. I’ve found with basket trading, and even single pair trading. The best times are 1-2 hours before and or after market closings. I’m having lots of good results looking for entries around 9-9:30 A.M. central time. 3-4 A.M central has also been good, but that just became too damn early for me to get up right now. I tried the asian session. I found good entries around 8 P.M. But, often found that the trades might not even move till after midnight. And I like to babysit trades as I might get out well before my hardstop if my other exit signals pop up.
I think this statement just about sums up this thread perfectly!! 
So, what I do is have a 40 pips SL and a 20 pip TP
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Yikes!! A reverse risk/reward ratio.
Still…
Thus far my wins have far outnumbered my losses. Today out of 8 pairs I had 7 winners and 1 loser.
I trust you know what you are doing.
I’m basically trying to develop a, “wash, rinse, repeat,” …
Make sure you use good quality suds!! 