…But what exactly am I studying? How they behave off key zones? What time they have more activity or create liquidity in the market? Apart from studying and back testing your strategy, what’s the best time to enter, things to consider and look out for, which you do for every pair with what ever strategy you’re implementing, what exactly do you need to “study”?
Hi Andre, it’s confusing isn’t it.
In my opinion, which of course could be wrong but I just wanted to tell you my thoughts from 7 years trading Forex.
If you’re trying to ‘study the pairs’. To me, that means study and understand the cause behind the move. For example, today, the USD has been strong. This was caused by jobless claims coming down. less people than forecast are looking for jobs, which means in theory more people in the US will have money to spend, which means interest rates may remain high, hence the dollar has strengthened.
Everyday there is something ‘the market’ focuses on.
This is what you have to find out and study. Then when you feel confident in understanding a move and if it’s likely to continue, you just have to place your stop loss at a point you feel comfortable with (ideally behind a swing) and a profit target you think Is achievable.
I hope this helps. Best wishes
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for me, it has nothing to do with fundamentals at all
one of the things i’ve found it particularly helpful to study is whether a pair tends to break through its levels of support and resistance relatively cleanly (when it does) or whether it more typically “loiters with intent” and often re-tests them once or twice, etc.
this can be very helpful to decide (e.g. if you’re treading breakouts of S/R) whether to take “first breaks” or await “retests/second breaks” before entering a position
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I think study has its limitations, as whatever you can think of, someone else already analysed it to death, and if they didn’t you are going to need thousands of such chart set-ups to come to any meaningful conclusions, by which time the markets are different markets anyway.
start by studying trends. When price is in a trend, understand that the most likely next thing to happen is that price continues the trend.
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And if you day trade watch out for trends on the 5mins chart and even the 1min chart. MAs are useful in trending markets and I find Keltner channel (20 shift of 1) a very good momentum indicator (that is when out of the channel).
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Thanks for your reply John. To be honest, I think I’ve answered my own question (I’ve done this before in another post lol) as well as your input. Like you said, you study how the price behave at certain times, and when they reach certain points of interest. It’s kind of obvious now that I mention it 
But thank you for your input.
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Yup. I think that’s about it…it’s something I’ve not really thought of doing but do unconsciously when I’m drawing out my zones on the charts. This gives clarity for sure.
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I think you basically studying past movements and past market data and analysing the movement of the price and chart in order to try replicate it in the future. Thats my take.