What is most important indicators I must need to use? Best time frame and setup?

Hello!

Glad to be a member of babypips. i find this forum very helpful.

I have some questions.

What are the most important free indicators I must need to use or you use at least?

Like I use:

  1. MACD
  2. Stochastic
  3. Bollinger Bands

I know about EMA but donot know how to add it in charts.

Most important news is which timeframe is better for the indicators? Like, stochastic, it shows different outfut for different timeframe. Which timeframe is accurate and standard. And what is the accurate setup of stochastic and others?

I will be more than happy if anyone of you share these with me. I am still a newbie and will be very happy if you reply as:

Indicator Name:
Best Timeframe:
Setup:

I think it can help me and many other newbies.

Thanks is advance.

Indicator: a horizontal line
Timeframe: depends how long you want to have your trades open for, and what setups you are looking for. the best TF is the one that matches your patience level.
Setups: look for positions that are backed by support/resistance so that you can risk a small amount in order to potentially gain a lot

Hi Kidspips, welcome!

For me the best timeframes to trade are the 4H and 1H. I draw my lines and put my indicators in those graphics, beacause they give the more relaiable signals. Sometimes I look at the daily charl to see the big picture.

I draw support and resistance lines, trend lines, and combine them with Fibonacci (you might wanna take a look at fibs, they are very helpful). I dont use MACD or Bollinger Bands. I use Stochastics if the market is trending.

Stochasitcs show different outfut for different timeframe, but you have to be patient. Let´s say you are in a downtrend, and your Stochastics at 4H chart looks Overbought, but the 1H chart doesn´t. Then you have to wait until the 1h Chart Stochastics goes to the Overbought zone and then you pull the trigger (go short in this case). get it? First take a look at the bigger time frames, and then take a look at the smaller time frames to look or better entries.

:smiley:

What are the most important free indicators I must need to use or you use at least?

None.

Instead learn about price.
Study what price does on a clean chart.
A clean chart will tell you more about price [B]to the pip[/B] that any indicator out there.

Indicator Name: None
Best Timeframe: Weekly & Daily
Setup: Daily Open cross & Weekly Open Cross from Tue to Fri
15m,1h for entries & 1m,5m for trade management

Why use indicators when you can rely on your experience ?

Best Regards,
Matt Jones .

This is top level [B]Used[/B]. I’d be suprised if even one reading your reply will know why. :smiley:

Price is so boring. There are 100s of really cool looking indicators. Flashing lights and sexy curvy lines in all colors of the rainbow. You suggest we ignore all that and study price charts? What have you been smoking in your peace pipe?

This is my indicator I made it myself I call it Cosmic Parabola it uses galactic alignments to predict the price plus it looks very awesome It can make over 12000 pips per day

LOL, all the joking aside I’ll give an honest answer. I’ve been through the indicator stage of trading, and I’ve been through the naked chart/price action only stage of learning to trade. IMO, the truth is somewhere inbetween. Of the vast array of things I’ve tested and or toyed with I always come back to the set of things below, because I do the best using them.

  1. Like everyone has said price, but there are two parts to price…
    A: Past price action represented by candles
    B: Current price action.

Now when someone says, “price action,” what they usually more specifically mean is how fast or slow it is moving and or if it’s moving at all. This is why an experienced trader might ignore an entrance signal when the markets are dead and there is no price action. So, learn to read candlesticks and basic candlestick patterns. Myself I pay the most attention to the current candle as it represents where price is at right now.

That is what candle stick patterns have over indicators, the current candle is right now, where as indicators lag price.

  1. Timeframe? IMO/IME, if you want to actually make consistent profits from forex using technical analysis dont trade anything less than daily charts. I only ever smaller time frames to see the smaller price occillations and get tighter daily entry, but really I rarely look further down. Technical analysis holds up better on longer time frames.

Don’t get caught up in the noob trap thinking, “If I trade larger time frames theres lots of pips left on the table,” or, “I dont have a large enough account to trade daily/weekly.” Both lines of thinking are noob mistakes and total hogwash.

Trust me on this, the more you go below the daily time frame the more you are going to lose.

  1. Indicators? Not so much indicators as trend filters, but I use a combo of ichimoku kinko hyu, (think thats how it’s spelled) and moving averages. On one screen I have ichi and on another the 200,20,50,10 MA’s, additionally I have ATR, ADX, RSI, but those three are just to give me more data any trades I take are based off what ichi and the averages tell me.

I use ichi and the MAs to help me decide what the trend is on daily, with weekly being the boss/filter for daily. With ichi it’s easy to decide direction, above the cloud only long, below only short. After that you look at the trend and see if there is a good entry point, or if you have to wait for a retrace.

For entry/SL I also use ichi. Using the chikou span I plot the two nearest points of support and resistance from, around current price. One is the TP one is the SL.

My entries with daily trend trading are almos always at or a little before or after 00:00 GMT, which is 6:00 PM here, because i’ts the start of the next daily candle. So, if I’ve found a good retrace, the move my way, just the very next day can often be a couple of hundred pips by morning just on one pair. Also, if it’sa good retrace I let the trade run until the end of the week and sometimes a few weeks for some really nice pip gains.

  1. Trend trade: More pips/money less work. It’s faaaaar easier to do technical analysis. And you will having winning trades more often. With larger trend trading sudden moves and spikes are far less likely to whip and stop you out and go your way anyway. As, the stops in daily and up trend trading (if done right) are regularly between 100-300 pips.

Anyways heres’s my opinion for you in a nutshell:

  1. Candles
  2. Price action
  3. Daily time frame
  4. Ichi moku
  5. 200,50,20,10 moving averages
  6. Use it all to trade with the trend.

Hello,

Two LWMA’s, slow stochastics, and resistance and support lines seems to be all that I need. I trade on the 4h and the Daily charts, although I will look at the 1hr for confirmation, or see if there is a more short term trade. Or sometimes patterns are more clear in the 1hr than the 4hr, because there’s more bars to indicate price action.

I’m working with a micro account, with $1000 initial capital. So I don’t worry too much about calculating my stop losses, as their placement based on price action usually puts my risk well under 1%. Although that means I may not be risking enough to really get the most profit out of my trade. But I try to counter that with a reasonably big reward to risk ratio, if the expected price action allows that (i.e. for example price is bouncing off support and resistance lines).

I stay out of the market during news, and don’t trade on fridays and sundays.

Good Luck!

Synergy

I’m not setting any, "boundaries, " for for anyone. He asked what the best indicators and time frames were. I told him my opinion, based on experience, and told him why.

In short I actually gave him an [B]extremely[/B] solid answer instead of ragging on him for asking and then posting a bunch of sarcasm, for daring to ask if there is more useful indicators and timeframes.

So, what exactly is your problem with me morepips? Or should I say xtraction/jaquille?

P.S. ya dont listen to guys with 1000 posts who have traded live for three years and can make a living off of it, listen to guys who spout nonsense, get banned for it and come back under another user name.

Its an interesting experience if you go to the Trader Expo’s. I remember at the end of one guy’s presentation, he goes “Please come up, and I’ll give you two indicators that we’re giving out for free”. A good percent of the room ran up and grabbed for whatever disk he was giving out, all worried about getting a copy. I just sat back and said to myself that these are the people who are probably not profitable. The other non-profitable ones are those who raise their hand and ask “Do you offer a signal service?”.

I am also not profitable, but thanks to profitable traders on forums like these who give their advice you get good reality checks, and that helps put you on the right track to learning. I remember a few months ago I said “I’m going to learn the stochastic and MACD thoroughly, because apparently my trading is not improving and I need some help”. Pretty quickly I realized that this wasn’t the real problem, lol.

Although it is not my position to speak from true experience, I feel that you can make money in any time frame. I realize that the smaller time frames are more challenging for the beginner, but I dislike trading the longer time frames quite a bit, partly because I don’t like being invested in something for several days then seeing it collapse, and partly because I still haven’t learned how to form an intelligent fundamental thesis to a trade.

Experience doesn’t bring you pips without knowledge. You can see hundreds of traders with years of experience but still they have made little or no money at all. Never will they succeed because they just can’t seem to grasp the workings of the market. Their experiences are all bad and of losing money.

The fact that there is far more bad information than good tends to keep them in a permanent state of confusion which is truely unfortunate because this game is really not that difficult to understand. It just takes years to wade through all the bull crap. The fact that most have never read directions of any kind or are good at teaching themselves anything are hopelessly doomed from the start. I swear sometimes the posts, emails and PM’s were written by writers of the movie Dumb and Dumber.

Unfortunately the indicators they find gives them a hope of success and that is why they keep searching for the Holy Grail of indicators as the ones they have keep failing to make them any money. Still others give up the indicator game and turn to buying a worthless EA never understanding that to recognize an EA as good or bad you need to know how to trade in the first place or just be plain lucky. The bad far out number the good ones and the really good ones aren’t for sale. It amazes me how many idiots are buying these pieces of junk but as they say a sucker is born every minute.

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.
[B]Benjamin Franklin[/B]

Johnny

Oh now i remember why i stayed away from this forum!! It’s good to see that all the guys from back in the day are still going toe to toe. LMFAO

Was bored and thought…Hey i haven’t been on babypips for ages lets see whats new?? And what do ya know seen old JohnnyB’s name and thought oh this is a must.

Really does this help the guy that started the thread or others at that?? Really i am yawning at all the hot air that gets posted here:eek: This is why i don’t come here anymore, too many guys trying to see who has the bigger D!CK.

And while i am here i might as well give my one cent…I think you have to find your own way and what works for you. Just because JohnnyB does well trading Bol-bands and what ever else, or john doe is successful using S&R and PA…doesn’t mean it will work for you.

It’s a long road for some a very long road and there are lessons everywhere to learn, and i must say i did learn some thing from here, good and bad! Surfing the forums is a stage i think we all go through trying to find what works for others in hope they will work for us. I think you can make any indicator on any time frame work as long as it works for you, you just have to spend the time to find it. There are no laws set in stone that trading daily TF is better then 5min! It is just difference of opinion, what works best for the individual!!!

If you have the determination, desire, passion, and mental strength you will succeed in becoming a trader!

And plz don’t start over my opinion, we all have a right to one!! What we don’t have the right to do is degrade and tell people that maybe of a lesser understanding of something that they never will, or can’t do something.

Hope you guys are doing well and wish you all the best with your trading.

Peace Guys n Gals;)

The trick here as in all things in life is to aquire a ‘level’ of knowledge. To be able to see through both experienced and inexperienced posters egos and correctly filter whats obviously based on sound trading and what is not. Unfortunately for the inexperienced trader this will mean taking most of whats posted and labourously forward testing in demo mode. If it works adding the advise to your arsanal and if not discarding. :slight_smile:

Thats fair enough:)

In honor of your spite you will be my 1000th post.

To answer your question, no I dont think only one person in the world disagrees with me. And I don’t really care who does or doesn’t. But, I will point out when someone posts total nonsense like, “trend is a myth and it only exsists in the traders mind.”

Lets backtrack shall we. The op asked for some honest answers. What he got was a lot of sarcasm and people ragging on him for asking what are the best indicators and time frames. And then for some reason you decided to pick a fight with me even though I’ve never see your user name in any other thread…jaquille/xtraction ?

While that is a very typical new trader question and might infer he is looking for the holy grail, it is a very valid question.

Which I answered because IMO/ IME, there are a set of indicators and timeframes that are the best and had someone who had already gone through what I did, told me that and pointed me toward them, and told me why he thought that, then I might have been able to skip some others.

Also, my response was for him, not aimed as rebuttal to anyone else. So, if someone who likes trading small time frames got offended because I said the small time frames is where you lose money…well, you are being far too sensitive.

And my guess would be you are sensitve because I accidently struck a nerve with that remark. You’ve probably read or been told by someone else that smaller time frames are losing you money, but you refuse to go up to a higher time frame where TA holds up better, because you are in love with the idea of scalping for peanuts.

Yes, I know some people do make a killing trading smaller time frames. But, you’ll also find if you read enough new trader posts about losing money or even full accounts that most of them, because they are new, think for some reason they should be scalping. No, one told them how much easier and more profitable longer term trading is.

Again this is also from my own experience.

Well, I checked all the messages. I never expected so much replies. Many of you guys are arguing with [B]Thephoneix[/B]. But this guy replied to the query i wanted to know. Lots of thanks to Thephoneix. I will test your system and hope it will help me to build up my own trading system.

[QUOTE=boyfx;174310]Oh now i remember why i stayed away from this forum!! It’s good to see that all the guys from back in the day are still going toe to toe. LMFAO

Was bored and thought…Hey i haven’t been on babypips for ages lets see whats new?? And what do ya know seen old JohnnyB’s name and thought oh this is a must.

Hello boyfx,

How’s everything down under? I hope you’re doing well. I noticed the attack on ThePhoenix but this time I agreed with him for the most part. He seems to have learned a little something about trading although his posts still have the same tone. Glad to see him pulling down some pips on his own. I could have critiqued his method but he probably would have ignored it anyway.

Yes, I’m still a support and resistance trader and my templates are always centered around the Bollinger Bands with some MA’s for trend. I just play with the other indicators as they are mainly just ma crosses like the Heiken Ashi indicator.

Like the song there’s a hundred ways to leave your lover with indicators there’s literally thousands of ways to use historical data and light up your chart like the Las Vegas strip at night. Like the Las Vegas one-armed bandits, none of the indicators do much to win you any money. Most are just useless lines on the chart showing the history of the pairs. When it gets down to actually making the trade I don’t even look at them as I find them somewhat distracting.

The newbie traders like a baby with a pacifier lean on the indicators for all buy and sell decisions which makes them late to the dance and late to the party afterwards. They find their pretty date (Miss Pips) has gone home with somebody else:o and they are left with the flat-chested Miss Geek(Little Pips) or even worse Miss Ugly(Stoploss).:eek:

Here’s hoping you make the after dance party with Miss Pips,:wink:

Johnny