What Every New & Or Aspiring Forex Trader... Still Wants To Know

Beginner Questions
1983

Morning guys,

I was looking back at my previous trades, and realized that the majority, if not ALL, of my losing trades have been through pending orders 15-30mins before the session starts. I started noticing this a couple weeks ago, but thought it was part of the losing streak. I took a pending order last night about 20 mins before LO, and lost yet again. I think the reason is because the market changes quite a bit just before the session which can greatly affect the market bias, sentiment, situation, etc. And to be not able to monitor it at such a crucial time is dangerous, as I have learned the hard way, giving up a big portion of my wins already.

I think from now on, what Iā€™ll do is do the fundamental analysis maybe an hour or two before the session, as most the American and London markets are closed. And then I will do a quick technical analysis just prior to the session, perhaps 10-15mins before the session starts. Then I will have to sit patiently during the session instead of setting a pending order.

Itā€™s just these small things that I am trying to overcome, as well as make sound technical decisions, and pulling the trigger when I have to. My money and risk management, in my opinion, is sound and I donā€™t really have much to worry about except to trade. Currently, I plan on continuing on trading my small live account until I am able to see more consistent gains again. And itā€™s good overall practise, creating habits of planning, recording all trades, notes, thoughts, and analysis. It also helps me emotionally and psychologically when trading like this, which is something I could never learn on a demo account. Iā€™m hoping maybe starting August or September 1st, I am able to trade more consistently and deposit in what I think is a good sum to start off. Of course, that is only if I am confident in my abilities by that time.

Sitting back and thinking about my trading ā€œcareerā€, I feel that I need to keep things simple and not over complicate things. Thatā€™s the only I will be able to think logically about things. Of course, this is just a personal preference for myself. I think I have got a lot more patient over the past few months, but I feel like I need to be more selective about my trades, but Iā€™m always afraid that I wonā€™t be able to find a trade at all in the week. But Iā€™m willing to give it a try though, itā€™s better than losing money! :stuck_out_tongue:

This probably means nothing to most of you, and is just me trying to collect my thoughts in a more organized way.

I will post my losing LO trade as soon as I can.

Regards,
Clark.

1984

Last night I had done all my analysis, and it had me really bullish. I had a trade set up in my mind to go long on fiber if price should come down to central pivot. Price still hasnā€™t reached that point, but in the meantime I missed a great short setup on cable during the London open kill zone. OTE would have been right at 3AM EST on my 15 min chart with price opening in the sell zone. If I wouldnā€™t have been so bullish on the pairs this trade most likely would have jumped out at me, and is just over 100 pips in the right direction for me right now.

The hardest part of trading is learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Price action gave the setup, and I didnā€™t even see it form because my mind was made up as to where the price was going.

1985

I have a question for ICT, if you have time would be great if you could answer - thanks for all the time and work on this thread - and no worries of course, if you donā€™t have time to spoon fed information to such hungry individuals like myself.

My question isā€¦ in the last couple of videos you seem to use market flow and market structure to determine a directional bias before placing a trade. Whereas a lot of the guys/girls here (including myself) in there market analysis check the COTs, USDX, etc. Would you tend to use these tools more for longer term position trades, and focus more on market structure & market flow and S/R levels for the shorter-term scalps and swing trades? I know its all about putting as much probability on your side as possible, but find my head swimming with info when I try to determine the coming dayā€™s direction. When I see a turtle soup set up or a pennant now, thatā€™s something I can grasp easily, and you seem to have nailed the direction following those set ups well without reverting to COTs, USDX, etcā€¦

Cheers for any feedback - 2 penceā€™s also welcome from all!

1986

Your analysis was great, Clark. There were lots of reasons to be bullish, but letā€™s try and examine the reasons not to be.

Looking at the daily chartā€¦ youā€™ll agree that we have had three very strong up days in a row, and then an ā€˜indecisionā€™ candle yesterday? The number three crops up a lot in forex, and I seem to remember quite a few of these strong upswings, the ones that ICT ranted about and said not to stand in the way of, usually come in threes. I certainly remember him talking about the potential for a big pull back at LC after 3 days of trading above the CPP. So that might be one reason to be cautious.

Also, where is price on the Daily chart trading at the moment? Itā€™s in the OTE zone for a short. Now like you said, 1.6600 (79% OTE) seems like the obvious entry if we were to discount all of the bullish signals and look to go short. A high on April 21st was formed there and it is a big number. But price was just a few pips off 1.6550 today, and that is the spot that ICT eyeballs for a lot of his OTEs. Also, if you look at the Daily candles for April 21st, 22nd, 23rd and May 4th and 5th, they have very long wicks which suggests that price was seeing strong resistance between 1.6500 and 1.6600. You can probably also see that the real body of the candles on April 21st, 22nd and 23rd are in line with the close on the recent 3rd bullish candle.

Well, its obviously all hindsight stuff, but I think we need to train our minds to think flexibily and see these alternatives before we trade. You may still have decided to take the long trade, but you would also be aware that there was evidence against and you wouldnā€™t be blinded to set-ups in the opposite direction.

Did you get the SMT straight in your mind yet? That is invaluable in my opinion.

1987

Just flicking back through my notes I came across a quote from ICT that might help here. His exact words were:

ā€œCOT and OI are for intermediate term trades - a very different animal to intraday tradesā€.

Hope that helps.

1988

Haha! I just saw your post after I replied to Clark. This seems to be a theme tonightā€¦you are definitely not alone here!

1989

Funny you should bring that up. This is how I had my daily chart set up, looking for tradable resistance inside the blue rectangle. Unfortunately, I was at work and wasnā€™t able to trade it.

799Ɨ538

Cheers

1990

Another little bit of food for thought when considering intermediate or even long term trades.

Here is a chart view of the COT report showing the NET positions of large traders VS the commercials. Observe where the net positions change hands, ie. large traders become net long or short when compared against the commercials. Now take a look at how price has reacted in the long run. Finally, Iā€™ve circled what took place this last week. Interesting no?

800Ɨ710

1991

Hey Guys!

After riding the long swing yesterday, which netted some nice 70 pips for me, I had some problems today with my trade and wondered if someone could give me some hints about my fails =)

imageshack.us/photo/my-images/856/310511gulongfail.png

Got stopped out with 30 pips Loss

I was thinking about another long entry, because itā€™s in the BuyZone and Marketflow is up(left corner). NewYork Close incoming. The red line represents MS2.

imageshack.us/photo/my-images/97/310511gupossibleentry.png

What are your thoughts about this one?

Greetings :slight_smile:

1993

Turn off your computer and come back tomorrow for London Open. No need to revenge trade. Wait for price AND time to line up.

1994

Fx#1,

basically on your long entry this am, you entered in no manā€™s land. ADR had not yet been reached during the LC. I would put your chance of success on that trade very low every time (yes, I have done it myself, more than once). If ADR is 140 PIPS, and it is a small range day and only travels 80 PIPS, let it go. There will be another day to trade. Iā€™ve been caught with my pants down thinking it must be a small range day, only to have price travel the remainder of the ADR late, just like today

Since the LC was a dud and did not retrace back to the 1.647 area, I wouldnā€™t personally enter a trade until we know where the market is heading. (price should retrace 38% of the London session move) Although we are in the buy zone, from what happened today, or didnā€™t happen, Iā€™m looking for the Cable to head lower, I could be wrong though. Iā€™ll be doing a top down analysis later tonight to see if I can figure it out. It is currently about 25 PIPS above a long term S/R level, but price action over the next 10-12 hours will tell us

1995

Thanks for sharing your opinions about this :slight_smile: Possibly Iā€™m giving to less attention to the ADR, because Iā€™m not quite sure of that because my broker is in GMT+1 and ICT is in EST. But I will certainly take a closer look at it.

And I didnā€™t enter because I think Iā€™ll become greey or want to take revenge and lose even more. Iā€™m ok with that 30 pips hit because it fits into my risk management - no problem :slight_smile:

Greetings :slight_smile:

1996

Hello everybody.

Today when i put an order it struck me, what if the price didnā€™t reach my TP before the NY session close? Would the trend change rapidly if my position would be in the asian session? Is this something to worry about if the price doesnā€™t reach TP and the order moves on into other sessions contrary to the one i bought it in?

I look at 15 min charts if thatā€™s for some helpā€¦

1997

This is a daily chart on the Cable, and I have highlighted a candle Iā€™ve been watching since it formed. Also the blue dotted line, that is that candleā€™s high.

Iā€™m drawing on things I learned from ICT way way back in his first thread from early last year, and it has to do with Stops, and what smart money does with those stops.

I think (and hope) itā€™s pretty apparent that the high marked on that candle would have attracted a good number of Buy stops to be placed above it. Mostly from Shorts trailing the down-move, but perhaps some Breakout hopefuls as well.

Smart money ran those stops yesterday, and used the Buy stops to establish short positions, and run the price down today.

I think this was a really good example of using market structure (ie. where the stops are) to establish a trade bias. Of course everyone shouldā€™ve seen the OTE bang on the London Open, so you wouldā€™ve got your entry there too.

Full disclosure, I didnā€™t take the trade because Iā€™m not trading this week, but I did watch it setup. I understand how bullish the market flow was, but remember the flow doesnā€™t run forever, and as ICT says, S/R trumps market flow!

1998

There one thing I can say about ICT OTE.

To me, the OTE is basically finding the sweet spot in a W shape pattern. I was already told in a class that when the commercial traders initiate a position, the market will start rising in the direction of the position. Then all of the small speculator hop in on the rise. (note that a lot of the time, they hop in too late!) At a certain moment, commercial trader are taking a profit. This will lead the price to retrace.
Once it as retrace, they will again take a new position. This is where you find the 62-79 Fib level.:smiley:

1999

No fail, it was a good swing trade entry attempt, a confluence of s&r, pivots, old pivots, 80 level and ote, I used the CPP at the LO with similiar reasoning and got 30pips but then it failed to go above the PDH and stopped me out.
If you had used only this exact technique last week on the fiber, you would have caught 2 big swing trades and be up 500+ pips so keep it up your on the right track. :slight_smile:

Wally

2000

Hi Friends,

   Please see my trade and critique what and where I went wrong. Here are the details of the trade I took this morning during NY kill zone.

ā€¢ Cable trade during NY kill zone
ā€¢ Reasons why I took this trade long
1- All three market flows were long 10 am EST (Hourly, 4 Hour, Daily)
2- Price was in buy zone below central pivot
3- Drawn fib from previous day low to high and waited for price to come to sweet zone between fib level of 62% and 79%
4- This level also happened to be on Support 1
5- NY kill zone

ā€¢ In my opinion there were 5 confluences using ICT method
ā€¢ Went long at 10:05 am EST at 1.6482
ā€¢ Stop loss hit at 10:32 am EST at 1.6464 and then gone down to 1.6320s

Result = loss of 18 pips

Can anyone please help me to find what went wrong here?

Thank you for looking at the trade and any comments are appreciated.

](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/833/may31tradenykillzone.gif/) Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

2001

Can you try this post againā€¦ I am not following your comments very wellā€¦ Iā€™ll check back later

2002

What formed in London Session?
What has price done over the last week?
What is the Open and Close relationship we look for?

Answer these and you answered your inquiry :45:

GLGT :57:

2003

Would anyone want to join the chat room nightly for London open? Trying to get this into a routine.