Why This Trader Thinks Indicators are NOT the Solution to Making Money in Forex

Hi, some of what you say i agree with, however supply and demand does not move the Forex market. The big banks move the market and decided were price will go. Commodities are moved by supply and demand.

QuadPip thank you ever so much for your very interesting post that confirms what, in just 5 months of trading, I was independently beginning to suspect. Something very fishy in price action indeed. My journal is replete with the single observation that my technical analysis for trade setups was correct only to be confounded by a price action reversal that stops me out before resuming movement to predicted targets which I usually set based on prior price action. Your post has convinced me to learn more about price action if only to broaden my perspective of the markets. Do you have any advice on reference material to learn more about PA?

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Price action isnā€™t for everyone despite it being a great skill.
Finding something that works for you is key. I use 4 indicators that work well together and give consistently good returns. It is possible to get into a trend early and ride it with the right indicators. You just have to do what suits your preferences for learning and risk management.

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@QuadPip What a great thread!
I think we can learn from arguments too! It is confronting points of view how people can broaden theirs, even when it might not be entirely pleasant :wink:
I know about Venus project since more than 5 years, and I think their thoughts are too advanced for most humans, unfortunately. Funny thing how even smart people resist to live in more freedom of action. The ĀØgoodĀØ thing, for most who donĀ“t want it, is theyĀ“ll be probably gone when it happens, if it does. (still too much development to achieve before we can All just be doing what want)
I would like to ask the same question other person had, about what sources would you recommend to specifically develop PA skills. I donĀ“t think many people can just sit in front of charts and start understanding PA without a little more guidance.
Thanks, and hope you can share.

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So is QuadPip going to leave us hanging or is he sleeping on the other side of the globe. You are right, we could carry on staring at the charts but it would be better getting pointers or perspective from those who have further down that road.

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Would love to defend indicators but interesting insights nonetheless :slight_smile: A little disagreement never hurt anyone.

@QuadPip thanks for your insights. Also, thanks for agreeing to be featured. If you have something worthwhile to say, there would always be objections to your points. Disagreements can be good too as it helps us newbies to see both sides of an argument that could be individually right for the people espousing them. Also, as traders, we should be working (or talking) with as little ego interference meaning you arenā€™t so attached to being right. I believe that would help have more meaningful conversations even with people with opposing views while also spotting good exit points (pun intended) for such conversations. That being said, what I took out of this is not to work at learning PA but to begin to discover what works for me.

@QuadPip Great to hear your trading journey! Iā€™ve been swaying between pricing action and indicators for some time and always believed that there was a simple way to trade. Iā€™m very new to trading and would like to know more about the price action you describe. Beyond studying the charts are there any other resources you would recommend regarding mastering price action? Iā€™m a little worried Iā€™m unable to spot the patterns after spending time analysing the charts. What time-frame would you recommend I start with? Thanks

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First, thank you all for your posts.

Iā€™m helping with a move this weekend so I have not been able to spend too much time at BP to respond to all the wonderful posts in this thread.

Take a look at Chris Loriā€™s videos on YouTube as well as Sam Sidenā€™s (hope I spelled that correctly). Sam teaches supply/demand, which is closely related to price action.

If, while exploring beyond that, you find videos with diagonal trend lines or candlestick patterns, you want to skip those videos if you desire to concentrate your learning on price action. They take you on a different path (not necessarily wrong) that does not correspond to pure price action.

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Thank you!

Yes, I swayed between pure price action and using indicators too. That is natural as you transition to pure price action and as you get better at reading a naked chart. Youā€™re on the right track as long as you recognize this. In time you will view even an MA as interfering with your analysis. :smile:

See the resources in my previous post in this thread, It does take considerable time to spot the patterns and markers. Iā€™m going to be unoriginal and say ā€œbe persistent and donā€™t lose hopeā€. One day you will open a chart and suddenly things will become much more clear.

An important observation Iā€™ve made (discovered many times by accident) is that if you hit a wall and you are not progressing as you had hoped, take a week off. Donā€™t think about trading and donā€™t go near a chart for that week. Come back to it after the week is up and you will be surprised at the newfound clarity that you get.

There is a well known ad agency in San Francisco that sits on every new client intake for a week after their initial analysis. They claim that it takes a week for the neurons to fire and make connections that enable them to arrive at the award winning campaigns that they create. Given my similar experiences, I believe that there is some truth to that.

I was planning on creating a thread to walk people, who are interested in price action, through some important basic concepts that would accelerate their development considerably. Subsequently, I was hoping that, as a community, we could develop our understanding of price action together. Many heads are sometimes better than one.

However, two things prevent me from embarking on that journey. Firstly, I just donā€™t have the time to markup the charts and to write up dumps of my knowledge (admittedly very little) to bootstrap that effort. And secondly, I fear that, were I to find and put in that time, our efforts would be thwarted by trolls, naysayers and the disrespectful behavior that I observe on some threads in BP. It is time consuming and entirely unproductive keeping them at bay and responding to their self-aggrandizing posts.

If enough people express an interest in receiving such a knowledge dump I might consider an hour long video/screen sharing conference to get you guys/gals rolling. So, reach out to me on this thread, or via PM, if you are interested.

The particular time frame does not matter. You may choose to use any time frame or chart granularity. I primarily use range charts since it helps to eliminate long wicks and the temporal aspect. I also use time based charts and tick charts occasionally.

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Thank you once more. I appreciate your time and effort to share your knowledge and help those of us who ask. much respect

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@AleF We fear radical change and uncertainty. Ironically, this change, wherein machines and automation will dominate our existence, is being thrust upon us and this development becomes more and more prominent by the day, at a speed so great and accelerating that I believe that most of us will see this change in our lifetimes. I donā€™t mean to spread gloom and doom but the reality is that our salaries and compensation keeps dropping almost on a yearly basis and soon our jobs will be lost to automation. This change has been deemed to be irreversible. There are no measures available that we can employ to prevent this reality from manifesting itself!

We can either be ushered into a dystopian world kicking and screaming or we can take the opportunity to shape it and build it into something resembling a utopia. The final outcome depends upon who brings about this, now irreversible, change. If it is the military-industrial complex that remains in charge post this transition then we will be in trouble, to put it mildly. Do we want a non-benevolent entity that views humans as ā€œresourcesā€ and that is guided by a collectivist philosophy with not a care for our environment, to ā€œruleā€ us? Or, do we take the bull by the horns and create a society based on individualism and freedom for mankind and live in harmony with our natural world? That is the question we need to ask ourselves. My vote is for the latter.

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Great interview! Thanks for sharing such detailed answers. Will have to reflect on some of the answers and may post back to ask more questions! :relaxed:

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I vote for the later too, but almost all significant development in AI, automation and machine learning (which are maybe the main ways to achieve that ĀØhigher stateĀØ) is controlled by big money, which would eventually respond to governments, not to people. Also, people in general are very unaware of the possibilities and the changes to come. So, they are unable to make decisions about it now. But, even in that case, it might still be for the better being of most people.
Open AI is probably one of the projects aiming to go on the right direction on this regard. Donā€™t know if you have heard of it.

Iā€™m sure a lot of people would love to hear what you have to say on this matter. I agree with you regarding the trolling and disrespect, but since youā€™ve found a solution to that (making a video), then please, go for it when you have a chance, and let us know! We will all appreciate that hour of your time.

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I was planning to host an interactive video conference, not make a video. :smile: That way questions can be asked and answered. However, Iā€™ve provided additional resources for learning price action via PM to all who asked. Those resources are better than anything I can produce.

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IĀ“ve checked the PM thread where you invited some guys. Thanks for inviting me too, and thanks for sharing those resources.
Conference sounds amazing, but new guys (like me) donĀ“t even know what are the good questions to ask. For example, one of my main questions would be what indicators would you recommend to have working together? Most of us have probably seen that most popular indicators lead you to liquidation, so, having someone experienced to give you some insight about this, could be really awesome. But then, probably everybody, according to their trading style and strategy, would need different indicators, so , my question is too wide.
The weird thing is, I would still like someone experienced to recommend me some indicators, because, if I take out the popular ones, where do I start? There are hundreds!

Take them all out! Go through the material and learn to trade the naked chart, without using indicators. Thatā€™s the whole point of learning price action analysis. Indicators lag and by the time they signal an entry the move is already underway and you get in too late.

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Thanks! ThatĀ“s an interesting answer. Guess IĀ“ll go to check material :slight_smile:

Interesting thread. I recently discovered Price Action trading and what youā€™ve said above makes clear sense to me. Would appreciate if you could PM me links to any resources to enhance my skills. Thank you!