Trading over longer periods of time

Beginner Questions
1

I want to start demoing longer lasting trades. Right now I’m staring at the 30M and 15M charts, waiting for that morning star, piercing line, dark cloud or inside candlestick patterns. Whether or not I’m doing well with my trades or not, it’s not worth the time invested to maybe make 10 pips after staring at the screen for 2 hours. I have to consider time management as well. 10pips is 10pips, but with an account funded at $1k, 10pips is about a $1.

But I don’t know what to look for. I’ve read Yarcofins blog because I like where he is going with things, and looked at the sample images of whatever he is looking for before setting up trades. I simply can’t see what he is seeing. Identifying trends on 3 different time frames makes sense, but I’m finding that a rarity. I’ve re-read pip school about support and resistance, and I’ve gone over all the indicators yet again. I was just going to go simple and try to follow the support and resistance over the longer term, but I haven’t been able to identify any support or resistance; just a bunch of random movement.

Last night I started looking at USD/JPY, USD/NZD and EUR/USD on the 30M chart and tightened my view so I could easily scroll to see several days. I saw no support/resistance patterns at all. Or at least nothing to help make a decision to even open a trade long or short for the next 6-12 hours. On the USD/JPY, before I went to bed, I did see some candlesticks starting to go up. I almost put some money on it, but there was nothing else there except a couple candlesticks coming out of what might have been a bollinger squeeze. To me that seemed like more of a gamble then a trade, so I passed. Things went up shortly afterwards for about 50pips. Pretty safe too. I could have placed a tight s/l with no worries. But like I said, there was nothing else. A few candlesticks coming out of a very vague bollinger squeeze. Nothing to draw lines around or anything.

I like using Bollinger bands. Maybe I’m comfortable with those. I will be adding the RSI to look for trends once they cross the 50. Everything was making sense whne I looked for reversal patterns, but on the longer term these patterns don’t seem as useful.

Sorry about the long ramble. I want to expand from this scalping mentality and ride things out a little longer. Scalping is fine when I have time, but for a regular routine I need to learn how to read things over the longer term. At least a morning to evening trade, or late night to morning/afternoon trade.

2

you got to keep things simple…
I always look at three different time frames…
The big one, to establish the direction of the main trend. Here i draw my support and resistance lines, my trend lines and fibonacci.
Then i look to a medium timeframe to confirm the bigger one. I never trade against the trend. I do the same analysis here (support, resistance, trend lines).
Finally i look at a smaller timeframe to find the exact moment to put my order. Here is where i place my indicators, such as MACD, BB, stochastics, etc.
I think you should include pivot points in your charts, so you can see the picture a bit more clear.
Try this timeframes: 4h (big time frame), 1hour(medium), 15min (small). :smiley:

3

keep things simple :wink:

It was quite difficult to say what kind of strategy I use - but you said it simply. For example now - I waited two weeks to see GBPJPY touch my trendline… I wait for this event on D1 screen. once it happened, I wait on H1 for good point to open BUY position. once I get close, I’ve changed time frame to M15 and sen an order. at the beginning I’ve expected where it could go and where it should not go. I’ve bought 0.1 lot at 211.20 and sold it at 213.50. quite enough for one day! :wink:

But I’m still not sure where exactly put a trendline, where exactly I should put a stop loss and what’s the right time to take profit… I just know that it hase no sense to do rush actions - it’s better think in advance…

BTW: what are pivot points? thx!

4

I would recommend that you examine the following thread : :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

http://forums.babypips.com/free-forex-trading-systems/7726-how-successfully-swing-trade-markets-has-method.html

Although my candlesticks method has now been developed to pump out more than 60 pips per trade.