A simple price action approach

Quote from bighog:

Retraces are simply rest periods, time to hit the John, time to play grabass at the water cooler, time for the risk manager to jump your case, time to check out the legs of newest chicks. Armys on the march slowed down now and then for the rear echelons to catch up with fresh ammo, food and medics to take out the fallen. After refreshed, the traders and the Army continues on. Why retreat unless the conditions change or no more ammo?
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This is probably the best scenario I've ever read to describe retrace vs. reversal. Nice post. :)
 
Quote from mcichocki:

This is probably the best scenario I've ever read to describe retrace vs. reversal. Nice post. :)

And ambiguous enough to not help anyone distinguish between the two :D
 
Quote from crazyAtrader:

EUR/USD

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Crazy A

Where is price going to go?
 
Quote from 1a2b3cppp:

Where is price going to go?

Up, down or sideways is the correct answer, never use a bias as it's imperative that you are capable of reversing directions when the unexpected occurs.

You don't predict, you react on confluential key areas that are supposed to hold, then you read the PA and determine if they held, broke or faked and then take your trade.

Some prefer to anticipate and this involves a bit of prediction, it's a matter of choice and style, I prefer to react.

Crazy A
 
Quote from 1a2b3cppp:

Where is price going to go?

First to retest the recently established new low with alot of profit taking by the shorts, then back up through that new area of consolidation. So no trade (yet). Once the low has been retested then go long and likely this will be a good trade with a fat profit.. Low risk (stop can be tight) and good reward ration --- probably 1:5 with regard to stop versus first profit target. Although what's missing from this chart is a longer timeframe and fundamental info---why the drop in the first place, yada, yada, yada....
 
Quote from metal:

I couldn't disagree more. What I posted and what CrazyAtrader and NoDoji have reinforced is truly a simple method that works. Sure there is a little more to it that I plan to introduce but make no mistake: this approach makes money day after day.

Yes, it does and it seems like pure magic at times.

In the words of Al Brooks, "If you want to compete, you must minimize all distractions and all inputs other than what is on the chart in front of you, and trust that if you do, you will make a lot of money. It will seem unreal but it is very real. Never question it. Just keep things simple and follow your rules. It is extremely difficult to consistently do something simple, but in my opinion, it is the best way to trade."

You have no idea how many times a day I find myself thinking "This is unreal."

How can something that's supposed to be so random and "noisy" keep working?

Who cares, as long as it works, don't try to fix it!

Quote from crazyAtrader:

Up, down or sideways is the correct answer, never use a bias as it's imperative that you are capable of reversing directions when the unexpected occurs.

You don't predict, you react on confluential key areas that are supposed to hold, then you read the PA and determine if they held, broke or faked and then take your trade.

Some prefer to anticipate and this involves a bit of prediction, it's a matter of choice and style, I prefer to react.

Crazy A

It's easy to recognize other experienced profitable traders on ET. They post information that comes from experience, produces consistent profitability, and often causes frustrated traders to want to argue about it :p

What will happen next based on that chart can be anticipated (price will dip to that that nearby lower TL) or you can wait to see what price does and react accordingly.

What actually does happen next NOBODY knows. But probability is in your favor that if X, then Y is more likely to follow. So you play off X when it occurs.

Now combine "more likely" with positive risk:reward. "More likely" doesn't mean "guaranteed". If you hold a loser or average down against price when it's waving a big red "Reversal" flag, just because a setup is high odds and you believe price will do what you want it to at some point, you not only risk large losses, you miss out on immediate profitable opportunity. A loss that grows beyond normal retracement action means you're missing profits. You're paying money to lose out a new profitable opportunity.

I sometimes anticipate (very tight stops) and sometimes react (higher odds the trade moves in your favor, but you pay a little extra on the entry for that confirmation).

Regardless, this simple (drawing a trend line on my charts takes about 3 seconds, copying it and moving it for a channel takes about 10 more seconds) method of trading produces positive results because the profit reward when trading in the direction of a trend is quite a bit greater than the loss that results if price movement invalidates the positive expectation of the setup. That's because you're looking to enter very close to S/R and if it fails the loss is small; if it holds, the next target in the trending move is not only the previous high or low, but a good push beyond it as well.
 
Quote from trader198:

the trendline is too subjective. first everyone has its own version, someone use 1'chart, others use 3' or 5', to be honest, when the market closes, I draw the best trendline.

different time frame chart has different trendline.

Quote from trader198:

second, for day trading, we need fast fingers, drawing those lines need your attention /efforts,consume chunky time, distract you.

i use auto trendline and regression channel which need no human effort to draw.

Quote from trader198:

third often intra-day trend is short-lived, after one to three pushes, or just you can draw your perfect lines, the market reverses.

trend is always changing. big players initiate trend and harvest from trend followers. most trend followers lost money except smart players who join the movement from early stage and exit before it reverses.

Quote from trader198:

the fourth, what the probability of this method is? other question is can you execute it perfectly, for example, just when it touches the channel line, it may touch, it may not, it may go through and reverse,how can you do it if not computer programmed.

there is no statistical ground on this method alone. i only take this approach as one small factor in my system.

Quote from trader198:

to me, any setup without any statistically favorable probaility is not worth trying. why, cost money.

agree. if it can't offer over 95% probability of win, i will add other factors to make it dependable. i never trust price action pattern only. i take much more factors into consideration in my system.

Quote from trader198:

the simplest method may be just like that: when drop, go short, when go up, go long. you can use a fixed amount to say it is a drop or it is a goup, then use that fixed dollar amount as a stop loss. but as I said, market is complicated, you can not use the simplest method to make money.

i believe there is no such simple method which involves only one or two factors. high precision/win rate system has to involve many factors with proof statistical model to produce reliable sustainable profitable result.

Quote from trader198:

a consistent profitable trader knows when to use the simple method, when to use other fancy ones. the conditional probability. market has different phases, rally, drop, trending, consolidation(rest area), pullback, indecisive zone, topping, bottoming, gapdown, gapup,runaway, exhaustion, momentum,panic,hype.... in different phases, you need different methods to trade.

if you trade reversals, either micro or macro, i.e. enter at a very early stage of new micro/macro trend, with a well designed modelling which involves all necessary factors, plus an automatic sound alert to indicate you should prepare to enter a trade, things become simple. i set sound alert for all tradeable zones in my system, which could remind me it's time to wake up when i have a nap.
 
Quote from NoDoji:

By 24 hr charts, do you mean the daily chart? I always look at the daily chart to get a clue as to whether a range day or a trend day is more likely. Just as price breaks out of consolidation on smaller time frames, it does the same on the larger time frame. If a key level is in play on the daily chart and that level breaks out, a strong trending move intraday is very likely. In that case I'll be compelled to hold trades in the direction of the breakout for larger profits than I would if the day is more likely to be an ongoing battle between bulls and bears. Following a strong trending move on the daily chart, I expect one or more days of consolidation, meaning back-and-forth range days are likely. I'll then trade for smaller moves in either direction. This is just a basic guide. If price is pushing hard on a trade, I'll let it run, regardless of whether or not I "expected" a range day.

I draw lines in the 5-min and 1-min time frames I trade off of and I draw them as soon as I see potential. Yesterday, I got my platform going just before 7am PST and I immediately drew the lower TL you see on the chart I posted. The final bar of a strong price move can be used as a containment bar and an early channel line can be drawn off it and adjusted if needed when the next pivot high/low is put in. The last down bar of the down trending price swing on my chart occurred at 6:30 PST. So I could place a parallel channel line at the high of that containment bar (it had "contained" the price action at the point I got started). And that channel line then "contained" the upward price movement. If you waited until price broke the original containment bar and closed back below the 20 EMA and then placed the parallel line, it turns out to be positioned the same either way.

On my chart, look at the 7:35 and 7:40 bars: lower highs and lower lows. So leading into those bars we have internal double top resistance in a previously strong downtrend, and those two bars define a failed breakout of the double top resistance. Good enough for me, I'm drawing a TL across those key price reversal bars, so if the down trend resumes I'll use it a guide to where pullbacks in the downtrend are likely to find resistance and begin a new push down.

An initial parallel channel line could be drawn right away, using the lows of the 7:20 and 7:25 bars because those bars had consecutive lower lows. This parallel line would only have to be adjusted slightly when price dipped slightly below it during the 7:55 bar. The parallel line I drew on my posted chart is across the low of that 7:55 bar after the initial early TL served as perfect pullback resistance during the 8:15 bar.

So as metal made clear early in the thread, these lines are dynamic. They can get sloppy later on as volume dies off and smaller traders/algos position ahead of each other and push a lot of head fakes. Once a trending move gets "tired" the pattern has become obvious, and it will deviate during both lower and higher volume periods.

That's when adjustment is necessary. But it's good to just play the pattern until it fails, because there've been days when a trend line or a 20-period MA just keeps holding and holding and you think, "I can't believe these trades just keep working." Trend followers are a tenacious bunch; the bots are programmed to take advantage of these levels, so us little retail traders can just keep tagging along profitably until the big boys all go to lunch and the volume dries up.

I usually wait for some price confirmation, rather than using pure limit orders off trend/channel lines. Confirmation is usually via a double/triple touch to S/R or lightly HL/LHs on a very small time frame. Many traders use tick charts for these precision entries around S/R levels.
There's probably a whole profitable trading method in just that one post, I'll have to spend some time with all of the good info.

What I meant to ask is what time your charts start/stop, or do you use a 24 hr chart ?

Also, in breaking a TL, I see one example of your entry off the 1min with a failure to breach/close above the 20 MA. I see the NQ do this exact type of "Failure" setup pretty much every day.


Can't wait to read more. Great thread!
 
Quote from NoDoji:


I draw lines in the 5-min and 1-min time frames
there've been days when a trend line or a 20-period MA just keeps holding and holding and you think, "I can't believe these trades just keep working." Trend followers are a tenacious bunch; the bots are programmed to take advantage of these levels, so us little retail traders can just keep tagging along profitably until the big boys all go to lunch and the volume dries up.
You never mention about using a 90 EMA for the one minute chart. Brooks recommends this as a way to match the same points as the 20 EMA on the 5 minute.
 
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