I need some clarification about trading in general.
I became interested in forex trading in March 2023. Today I’m passionate about this world but I’m lost. After buying training courses and watching videos on youtube, I don’t have a solid strategy that I can trust. I’m lost because I don’t know who to believe, what to base myself on. We have so many trading styles that I don’t know what to do.
Let me explain, I want to develop my strategy based on price action, supply and demand zones, but when I watch videos on youtube about this. It’s always different, some people will tell you that the SMC is completely stupid and others will tell you that the SMC is the trading style of institutions, who to believe? What should we base ourselves on? After watching several videos on “institutional traders”, they all say that market manipulation is forbidden and super-regulated because yes, we know that the financial market is. But on the other hand, just yesterday I spoke with a trader who is TOP 1 on a prop firm platform (not MFF lol) and he showed me his strategy based on SMC, imbalance etc. He confirmed that market manipulation to get retails out and recover liquidity does exist. I’d like to believe it, but I’ve heard so many things that as a beginner, I don’t know what to do.
So if I come to you on this forum, it’s to have a clear idea of the market and what strategy to adopt on the price action, supply and demand zone.
Go down to the most basic level of TA. Without any indicators, can you recognise a trend on a price chart? Because the only valid reason for failing in trading is if you cannot reply Yes to this question.
Work out your strategy and test it on a demo account, at some point you’ll get it to work. The most important thing about any strategy is the trader, if your using a sound logical strategy and still losing unfortunately that probably means the issue is you! My advice is to try and keep things simple, ditch all the crazy indicators as they just create noise on the chart.
If you’re wanting to trade price action, supply and demand / support and resistance / whatever new phrase somebody comes up with to market their strategy as being different, then I’d recommend you watch the king of forex videos on youtube and see how he trades. He doesn’t give everything away, but he’s clearly got a very good knowledge of when the market is about to turn.
I don’t go with trading his back to EMA strategy, that’s not a good strategy unless the market is ranging, but you’ll see he rarely loses when doing that, so it does still work. I’d suggest this:
Look at daily time frame, is it trending up or down. I don’t mean the last few candles, I mean a significant number of candles with HH + HL or LH + LL.
Only trade in the direction of this trend.
go up several time frames higher than you intend to trade. ie, if you’re tradin M1 or M5, goto M30 or H1.
Plot the S/R lines that have recently turned price.
When price retraces towards these lines, and starts to turn back towards the major trend direction, enter into the trade direction (you can use market orders to help)
Figure out how else you want to use this strategy, where to place SL and TP, add to winners, add to losers (not recommended but can work)
If you want something a little different, try Heiken Ashi candles. I basically trade what I just described but use the candle’s shape to tell me when price is turning direction and use that for when to add to trades. I have backtested using it to get out of trades too with huge winrates, although that also had a cost averaging element to it
You have discovered the “secret” already which is that everybody has their own opinion and can back it up with carefully selected data. You are going to have to pick one strategy/viewpoint and try it out. I can tell you this, whatever you do you will win some and lose some and the trick is to win enough to offset the losses.
Keep your strategy simple and stick to it. when your strategy doesn’t perform well try to improve it not to change it completely. stop watching and reading different books , videos and websites about different approaches. there are tons of trading strategies out there which could waste your time for years easily.
Note these points:
1-Everyone has their method. What works for one might not for another.
2-Large traders naturally sway the market due to their size. It’s not always manipulation.
3-Learn the basics of supply and demand and price action. Test any strategy on past data before using it. Stick to one strategy at a time and always manage your risks.
4-When someone gives you a strategy, test it yourself. Don’t just take their word for it.
My personal opinion is that both are right. On one hand, there is no big conspiracy against us retail traders, because of regulation, to much risk of getting caught and the massive amount of capital required to do so.
On the other hand a SMC trader is able to find an edge in the market with those zones and imbalances etc. The reason why is not because of market manipulation, but because this is just the way market behaves naturally. Sadly, a lot of people love conspiracy theories these days…