Hi all - beginner forex trader and babypips forum newbie.
I’m trying to get my head around some strategies to get started with and have been watching and reading a lot about finding 3 to 4 strategies and sticking with them for a while. One such strategy being the T-wave strategy; I have read about using the 8 and 20EMA on the bar charts to look for an up or down trend. And I have also been told to look for a low or high test bar to identify the start of a phase 1 or w movement.
However, in all the charts I am looking at in forex, I simply cannot find a low or high test bar to mark an entry point.
Is there something I am doing wrong here, any advice on this strategy would be greatly appreciated.
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It would be better to explain with chart. Then I could know the details.
It would be much better to share the screen and show it through analysis. This analysis is very interesting.
Take ths chart for example. To me, there are clear phase 1 and 2 points - but I don’t seem to be able to identify any low or high test bars to indicate where to enter.
Most videos and articles I have read have stated there needs to be a low test bar or high test.
I doubt it. Whatever the proposed strategy, few of the proponents give the trainee any idea about how many such “ideal setups” one is supposed to find within one “timeframe”. For example, I wrote down a plan based on trend following (believed to provide more frequent wins than, say, a trend reversal strategy), with one baseline, one entry criteria, two confirmation indicators and one exit indicator. On one currency pair I found less than one instance per month that matched all my criteria. On 28 pairs I could find no more than one per two days. I didn’t finish the whole 28 pairs because I was manually backtesting viewing charts. The answer is to automate the backtests, but automation has its issues too.
If you just move to a shorter timeframe, the “noise” of rapid price movement drowns out the trend, and you probably get stopped out far more often than with a longer timeframe.
Only practice with real data can tell you what to expect. Sellers of paid-for “strategies” or plans notoriously find perfect examples to show how their strategies work, but for every chart they show there will be ten more charts that do NOT show that the stategy works. In other words, they cherry pick perfect examples and tell you "you still don’t get it " when there isn’t anything to “get” other than the infrequency of these perfect occurrences of price action.
its a good reply with good information, got some fine lines.
Makes sense - thanks for that.
You should really describe your strategy and where you learnt it before you ask a question. Only T wave strategy I’ve heard is the one by Greg Secker and on tradestation platform. I’ll assume its those, if not please clarify.
The trade is normally on a higher timeframe and if you get a low or high test bar you set your order. If you dont see the entry bars then theres no trade. If you find it hard to see the high or low test bars then use tradestation platform which does all the analysis for you and marks out the entry, SL, TP.
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Appreciate the reply. Ill know for next time.
Is tradestation a free broker or is it a paid subscription software platform just for analysing charts?
If you watch Greg Secker’s (almost constant) advertisements that come along with a subscription-less Youtube account long enough you will know that his “course” consists of a subscription usage of his proprietary Tradestation. This is not dissimilar to his strategy of 10 years ago where he ran his course specifically on one subscription service (one that at the time he had an affiliaite souce of income from). He has now moved up the revenue stream by owning the proprietary software, so to use Greg’s strategies effectively, you are locked into leasing his trading platform ad infinitum. One of the disadvantages that may not be apparent to a newcomer to Forex. But he does state this in his course introductory. He sweetens the course by offering to “reduce the total cost of ownership” by not charging a penny for the “initial software fee” of about $5,000 - only the monthly subscription. But you still have to pay for the course at about $4K. This is more expensive than ten years ago, but that is inflation for you 
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In fact, it is possible to increase the trading profit potential by applying this strategy to the market. Please share.
