If you’re not risking money, you’re not vulnerable to those nasty trading emotions. To me, the technical part of trading is pretty simple, but keeping your head straight while your money is on the line , can be some obstacle.
I’m just obsessed because i have OCD hahaha. But I admit it, I’m having a pretty relaxed saturday night, I just get bored during commercials on TV 
No hard feelings, I just mean to help really
Non taken :). Oh I know all about those nasty trading emotions…been there lol. At that time I had a method that was working very well before on demo but I wasn’t using a stop loss, and going for 5-10 pips many times & pairs in an evening. When it failed without a stop loss, well, you can imagine…death by one swift blow.:eek: No that didn’t happen, but it almost did.
So then I went back to demo to find something that I could work in a stop loss without it being death by a thousand strokes. I haven’t found that solution to be so simple.
And so here I am 
If your job is in the way of daytrading properly (I’m in the same boat actually), then have you thought about trading higher timeframes? I don’t think any timeframe is definitively better than any other, but the best timeframe will be the one that fits best with your psychology and time constraints.
My biggest obstacle to adapting to higher timeframes was the anxiety of having a position open for a few days. I hated knowing that the market could reverse on me while I was sleeping and I’d wake up to a losing trade. But that entire thought process is poisonous. The trick is to just simply not fear any losing trades. As long as you are confident in your entry point, the stops you set, and the prices you are targeting, you should have no reason to feel betrayed by a loss. Now that isn’t easy, it’s quite the leap of faith.
With my 2ish% risk on my account, the max I want to risk is $30, so presently that equals 30 pips. My take on trading systems based on higher timeframes was that I needed more pip room than that for a stoploss.
This method combines the best of both worlds IMO. I mean the daily highs & lows are the same on every timeframe, the stop loss is like that of the lower timeframes, and the profit potential is like that of the higher timeframes. Even the analysis is done from the monthly down to the 15min.
ICT did say we didn’t need to allow our day jobs to hold us back 
which i would agree with, but you need to have the ability to trade during either the london opening hours or the new york opening hours.
If you can manage atleast [B]one[/B] of those thats enough. Your pretty much wasting time the rest of the time, except perhaps tokyo opening were you can grab some pips with this method, however if tokyo was your main and only time for trading i think you could end up frustrated. Also if you can only trade half of the session, then you wont find continued success either IMO. That said your best trades will rarely last more than hour. However you need to be in position and ready for that.
The thing with this trading is it is professional, and that is what it takes, and to reach that level requires major effort. To ‘get there’ we are fighting so many more battle than a professional has to, and that’s not just in our trading!. We have nagging commitments and things that have to be done during and simultaneously through [B]our[/B] important trading hours that have effects on us.
I know we are all different, so really i am just speaking for myself, and i dont mean to put anyone off, or even myself off, cause i actually love trading and enjoy the challenge (I think i do anyway). These factors can also have a bearing on our psychology when trading as well. These are all individual battles we have to work our way through to 'get there’
Once we start producing some $20.000 dollar profit trades though then our nagging commitments can be better managed and will know not to disturb us whilst trading:) and i think you would actually have more free time too!
[B]Load a hourly chart and determine the highest high and lowest low[/B] from Midnight today and Midnight 24 hours prior. [B][U]Use the open of the first hourly candle of today as your Close.[/U][/B]
Monday Pivots are determined by using Friday Midnight to Sunday Midnight. The same is used for extended weekends and holiday schedules. * It is best to avoid Mondays on holiday weeks. *
That has been my way to calculate Pivots. Thank you for confirming.
One could expect to see the Cable trade down to Previous Day’s High and [B]bounce a bit to suck foolish bulls into buying this level expecting the market to rocket higher.[/B] During this time price would have slide from the trade entry at or around MR1 and the Figure… for this example let’s say we Sold Short at 1.5297.
That’s the area/point you would be selling…in this case would have sold…into a bullish candle, is it not?
The point where it looks most fearful & is exploited by Market Makers as you mentioned, yesterday.
If you see prices trading between any two Pivot levels, you either missed the low risk entry point on the present price swing or you are in what is commonly referred to as “No man’s land”. [B]You want to execute your trades as close to the Pivots as possible.[/B] Selling the Pivot as Resistance when confluence supports a short sale and buying the Pivot as Support when confluence supports a long purchase.
Am I right in assuming that the AAA+ entries are in areas where Pivots & PDH or PDL are as close together as possible?
Ideally with other key technical price markers near by & temporary current day Hi or Lo being formed in the first 4 hours of current market operation.
Yes, precisely, it would provide a secondary or alternative entry should your Pivot short entry be missed. Yes sell right into the bullish candle no wick… no fear.
Yes the more technicals at Daily Highs and Lows are the optimal stages to trade on. This is the most consistent setup you are going to find in trading and high reward and relative risk.
pivots don’t work.
The next building block to professional FX trading is something that flies directly against the common approach in trading by retail traders.
I would wager, I’m a trader not a gambler so it’s a gentlemen’s wager I might add; all your trading books and DVD’s, Cdroms and seminars probably discussed buying strength and selling weakness.
Newsflash folks, this is not how you control risk and cover the dealers spread quickly and get your trades closer to profits.
I charge each of you to do a little homework assignment to prove my next installment. What appears 90% of the time right before a significant swing in price action? This is not limited to Forex, but any and all traded instruments.
It is found on any time frame and any market… to illustrate it is not something contrived or limited to my personal pair of choice… I will ask the readers to pick their own charts and timeframe to prove the concept.
If you look at every intermediate term swing high or low made on your chart of choice there will be a high odds of something I anticipate occurring near my trade entries and many times exits.
Everyone who has risk control in their trading plan provide the effectiveness of this concept as well. Fasten your seatbelts…
I want you to try and tell me what you see on this 15 minute chart of the Cable… focus your attention on every swing that moved more than say 30 pips or more… what do you see at every turning point before the swings begins up or down.
This will blow your socks off newbies… I know, it was what I wanted to know when I first started trading in 1994!
Any idea what I am referring to in this chart… and it has nothing what so ever to do with a indicator of any kind. :rolleyes:
I will post a followup tonight to this riddle and present this topic as the first of this week’s Pro Trader Concept. Any ideas of what I’m referring to at the major swings in price?
sorry for your loss… my accounts say otherwise.
:rolleyes: See first post folks.
Taking advice from somebody who has [U]not[/U] seen the effectiveness in a tool that aided over 300 pips in trades this week alone is questionable. If you fail to understand how to use them properly, it’s foolish to assume they don’t work because you haven’t found the means of effectively using them yourself.
Imagine strolling up to a Surgeon who just performed life saving procedures multiple times over the last week and saying operations don’t save lives. You think the patients and the Surgeon finds any value in that statement when the contrary is so obvious?
We’re not talking about microaccount trading for life in here, it’s trading for a living. If you have a con against a submitted tool or concept tell why you feel that way, perhaps it’s not the tool or method but rather the one behind their misuse.
To simply post Pivots don’t work and that’s it leaves a lot to said. I doubt anyone found that post useful or stimulating. Care to elaborate more on why you feel that way?
Yes sell right into the bullish candle no wick… no fear.
What kind of order would you use selling into a bullish candle?
I am using an ECN broker.
When you place your Limit Order Entries around the Pivots do you have a rule of thumb how far away in Pips you place those orders from the actual Pivots?
I am using 3 pips above & below Pivots for my Limit Order Entries trading GBPUSD & GBPJPY.
For CADJPY I am setting my Limit Entry Orders 5 pips away from Pivots because I have been left behind a couple of times as price didn’t come back far enough within 3 pips of Pivots.
Yes the more technicals at Daily Highs and Lows are the optimal stages to trade on. This is the most consistent setup you are going to find in trading and high reward and relative risk.
Thank you for confirming.
big time market players need a gameplan. they aren’t just managing billions and billions of currency all willy nilly, they need structure. and we can USE that structure, because we are always following anyway. Our measly mini-contracts don’t mean anything to the banks. If the folks with all the money use pivots, what good reason could we have to ignore them?
pivots require much more additional analysis, but the structure in itself provides a consistent strategy to take money out of the market.
ICT,
The information you’re presenting is excellent, [B]thank you [/B]for all your time and effort. :):)
I’d like to take a shot at your little “chart riddle”. Is it similar to what Bill O’Neil describes in his books a “Climax Top”?
And once again, [B]thank you [/B]for all your hard work!
Welcome and your question will find their answers in this weeks installments relating to Optimal Trade Entry.
Again, it’s my pleasure…
Hi Punisher… one of my favorite comic characters by the way…
The context of my response was to illustrate I used Pivots profitably this past week and showed openly how in this thread and to say they don’t work to someone profiting from their use in conjunction is foolish. Much like telling a Surgeon after he had successful operations that operations don’t sve lives. The proof is in the results I guess to put it in otherwords… :rolleyes:
My chart merely give you a snapshot… the homework was to find it on your charts… not mine.
Go back on a 15 minute chart to say the 3rd of March and study yours and see.
Well stated…
Havnt had enough time to fully read this thread so looks like ill have to make time tonight 
Welcome… but to answer your submission to answer the riddle, I’m afraid it is not a Climax top… both directions now guys… not just selling.
I will post my answer at 7pm EST