Heads Up 26/1/14

Hey traders, the markets are definitely getting a lot more active, which is great news. There are lots of levels to watch over the coming week after some strong moves last week.

A point I'd like to mention and this is directed at the newer traders to the forex,  when we get a strong move and a level gets broken, its very tempting to look for trades setups to trade back into these key levels. This is not something I would recommend to begin with. The counter trend trades are for the more experienced traders.

My advice is to start off waiting for key levels to be retested and then price action setups at the key levels, using the current daily momentum to get back on the trend.

So where am I looking to get into trades this week, see below:

The Key Ingredients Required to Produce a Valid Price Action Setup.

The Key Ingredients Required to Produce a Valid Price Action Setup.

What key ingredients do we need to differentiate between a good price action setup and a below par price action setup? There are a few important areas I will discuss in this article and try to explain why I feel they are very important and need to be taken into consideration.

Location location location.

First, we need to ask ourselves, where would be the best place to start hunting for price action setups? From any old level on the charts or from very important key levels that have produced strong reversals. Well, to me it makes sense to use the latter and trade from the important key levels.

Next, we must decide on what time frame to trade and for beginners I recommend the higher time frames, like the daily charts. The reasons why the daily charts are a better starting point is because they produce more accurate candles and the charts contain less noise to interfere with our analysis.

If however you are more experienced, then lower time frames maybe an alternative but be warned trading the lower time frames is not that simple.

Either way we must try to look for trades to form in areas that have shown themselves to be very important and strong levels that have resulted in turning the market aggressively. I find the best charts to use to find these important key levels is by using the daily charts. It will make you trade from the best areas and avoid trading from weak levels that I like to call “no man’s land” where price can go either way.

Trading from important key levels means we have a better chance that other traders will see the same thing and produce strong moves. It’s important to note that trading back into these key levels is very risky, indeed.

We always need to trade away from important key levels.

Remember, Forex traders can use many different strategies but for trades to move in the desired direction we need other traders to agree with us. Using important key levels to trade from increases the chances that other traders will agree with our analysis.

Below is a chart with the important key levels marked in red using a daily chart. These will be the good hunting areas to look for trades. The space in between the red levels is what I call “no man’s land”.

What triggers us to get into trades.

The first thing we have established is that we need to find the correct levels to trade from. Now we need a way to analyse if these important key levels are holding and are producing a rejection to turn price around. For this I use price action setups, the two main price action setups that I use are:
1)      The Pin bar reversal
2)      The Engulfing bar reversal

So if we see one of these price action setups forming at an important key level I have my second criteria fulfilled.

The structure of the price action setup must meet my own strict rules, the main criteria being that the size of the price action setup must be large in size and not small, large candles indicate strong momentum and power.

Which markets are active?

Forex trades can be executed pretty much 24/7 as it’s a global business, so we should consider which markets are open or closed when looking to trade a particular pair.

Say we were looking to trade a forex pair like the EUR/GBP on the 4hr as an example.  Would it be wise to enter a trade going into the Asian markets when the markets that have the most influence, being the UK and European markets are closed?

No, not a good idea!

With no news releases for those currency pairs, the markets are more likely to just go sideways with little direction or momentum to move price.

Now I don’t what to discuss news related trading in depth as I don’t actively trade from the news.  Yes, the news does of course effect the forex markets, but I prefer to use simple price action charts as I expect the news will get filtered into the charts, anyway. Removing the need to watch and study news releases etc….

Too much information can cloud our judgement and focusing on lots of different sources of information to analyse the markets rather than just using one technique is where traders can make it too complicated.

Using pure technical analysis and trading with price action charts, gives me all the information I need to analyse the markets in a very accurate manner.

Summary.

The main thing I want to get you to understand and incorporate into your trading, is to try to increase your standards on what makes a valid trade setup. The location from where you trade from is so important.

Learning to hunt for trades from the best locations and using large price action setups as triggers to get you into trades does require patience. Remembering, the price action setups are used to get us into the trades but only if they form first at important key levels.

It’s not rocket science but it’s a very powerful technique and by using important key levels to go hunting for trades will increase the odds in our favour.

Improving our standards of where to trade from, improves the chances of trades moving in the desired direction.

Author.
My name is Jeremy Poor, I am a professional Forex trader and my aim is to help aspiring traders to learn all about trading the Forex using Price Action  and where to look and hunt for the best trades. With lots Forex articles, videos and a dedicated  price action forum to look at, its a great place to learn how to become consistently profitable at trading the Forex.

Overtrading the Forex Markets

How do we know when we are overtrading the forex markets and why is it such a big problem?

Most traders are unaware they are actually guilty of overtrading but it is a habit that can cause many traders problems. If you find you are making profits but end up giving them all back, you may be falling foul to this common problem.

So what is overtrading?

Overtrading can manifest itself in a few variations, the main types being:

1)      Taking too many trades and not being strict enough on what criteria a trade setup should have. 

2)      Trading without a plan, resulting in over analysis and altering trades once opened.

3)      Over exposure, by this I mean holding two or more trades at the same time containing the same currency pair. This is very dangerous and increases our exposure to levels which are unhealthy.

Overtrading in general describes the process where a trader finds themselves too active and impatient in the forex markets. They over complicate trading by over analysis and are unable to refuse entering weaker trades due to a lack of discipline. Once in trades they have no set plans and so lose all hope of getting consistent results.

Reasons for overtrading

The main culprit that causes overtrading is very simple- lack of discipline and rules.

The patience required to trade is usually an area over looked by many traders and instead they focus their attentions on being as active in the markets as possible. It’s that feeling of not wanting to miss out on a trade and so even if a trade does not quite fit in with their rules, they have to take it.

This type of mind-set results in traders finding extra reasons why they should enter a trade below par. They are hell bent on being a trader and feel the only way to justify themselves as traders is by being in the markets as much as possible.

It’s like these traders are addicted to chasing the forex markets, rather than letting the markets come to them.

This habit can not only be very destructive but a tricky thing to break. If you think back and analyse your trades, I guarantee there will be a few standout trades I bet you wish would form all the time and some questionable trades that you probably felt were riskier trades but still took. If this does rings true, by the end of this article I hope you will have a better idea of how to solve overtrading and remove it completely.

Traders who can’t seem to make consistent gains are usually not bad traders themselves but are the traders who take too many trades, because they are unable to hold their nerve and wait for the best trades.

Solutions to help remove overtrading

The problem of solving this habit is quite simple and it boils down to having a consistent trading discipline with set rules. However, this is not necessarily that easy to fix if a trader is not used to following rules.

Rules, help us form a discipline required to trade consistently. We need rules to cover every aspect of trading, from where to look for trades, to what makes a valid signal, etc……

The rules we choose help us decide what trades we can take and how they should form. They have to be very detailed and leave no margin for movement. If a trade doesn’t meet the correct criteria we must learn to let them pass by and wait for the really solid trades.

Once we have these rules in place and follow them with an iron fist we must also introduce a trade plan to manage our live trades. The trade plan will set out exactly how we plan to manage a trade and this again must be detailed enough to reduce you from interfering with live trades. Trade plans must also be written up before entering any trade.

To prevent exposing ourselves to unhealthy risk levels, we need to make sure we do not open more than one trade for a particular forex pair at the same time. This is very important because opening two trades with the same currency can result in doubling our exposure.

Another valid point to remember is to always risk the same amount per trade and not adding more risk on one particular trade just because it looks too good to fail. No trade is guaranteed and we have to recognise this. Getting ahead of ourselves is why traders get cocky and forget what got them into a position of making consistent gains.

Remove the bad apples from your trading

If you can learn to remove the bad apples from your trading, the results will speak for themselves. The knock on effect of this though is it will reduce the number of trades you take and this is something that takes time to get accustomed to. Again installing discipline into your trading is what will get you through this and eventually you will start to enjoy the hunt and waiting for the standout trades to from.

Overtrading is not such an easy process to solve but once you are able to recognise this is a fault in your trading and introduce proper rules and discipline, you will find profits become more constant over time.

Author.
My name is Jeremy Poor, I am a professional Forex trader and my aim is to help aspiring traders to learn all about trading the Forex using Price Action  and where to look and hunt for the best trades. With lots Forex articles, videos and a dedicated  price action forum to look at, its a great place to learn how to become consistently profitable at trading the Forex.

USD/CAD breaks through key resistance level.

The usd/cad has recently broken through a key level and I will now be hunting for a retest of the level and a price action setup to indicate this resistance level is now acting as a support level. Very simple stuff .

I will be using the lower time frame 1hr and 4hr to see what happens. Remember these can result in false breaks and the market could trap traders long and then decide to go lower. The key here is to use the price action to confirm the level is holding.

Author.
My name is Jeremy Poor, I am a professional Forex trader and my aim is to help aspiring traders to learn all about trading the Forex using Price Action  and where to look and hunt for the best trades. With lots Forex articles, videos and a dedicated  price action forum to look at, its a great place to learn how to become consistently profitable at trading the Forex.

Self-Motivation, the key to Your Forex Success.

Why is self-motivation so important in the Forex?

Let me start off by saying that the forex doesn’t ask for any specific qualifications or demand a set IQ score, this simply doesn’t get factored in. So it doesn’t matter how many letters you have after your name, the forex markets are open to everyone.

Learning to trade the forex is very much a personal journey that each and everyone of us who decides to venture on it, will have to endure. We will all experience many different challenges and this is where our own grit and determination plays such a huge role.

If you are the type of person who, when faced with a challenge, faces it head on rather than giving up at the first hurdle, then the forex may well be the place for you. It’s a challenge I think most traders don’t quite realise just how tough and frustrating it can become.

It’s important to recognise the fact we are all individuals, with different strengths and weaknesses and being able to harness our own uniqueness and mould this quality to help us become individual traders who trade the forex markets, is the only way to progress. Expecting to be able to learn how to trade the forex markets and exactly copy a certain trader, trade for trade, is asking too much. No two traders will trade exactly the same.

Keep on knocking at that door

Yes, we need plenty of guidance from experienced traders or mentors but ultimately the journey and how far we can progress, is down to our own self-motivation and sheer will to keep on knocking at that door.

The door will open eventually but not by throwing money at it and trying to buy the key but through bashing it down with hard work, knowledge and persistence.

This self-motivation to actively push ourselves into learning the ins and outs of trading is what differentiates the traders who have a great chance of making it from the ones that just want a free meal ticket without putting in any of the hard work.

Nothing in life is free unfortunately, there’s always going to be a trade-off and the forex is a perfect example, it doesn’t require you spending thousands of pounds on fancy robots or technical systems but rather requires something more valuable - your time.

To get the many hours of screen time and experience needed and your patience to master what works best for you, requires much time spent in front of a computer and learning your craft.

Being hand fed the right methods to trade is of course going to help you progress as a trader and get you on the right track but absorbing the method and learning it off by heart, is only half the battle. 

There will inevitably be a point when you hit a threshold level and at this point it’s down to your own motivation and passion to translate that technique and add your own spin to it.

It’s basically about making the style of trading you have chosen to use, your own. You’ll never be 100% confident about trading unless you can incorporate your own personality.

Many forex retail traders base their trading from an office at home, this can result in the feeling of isolation. Forums are a great tool which can aid in reducing the loneliness and help traders to communicate ideas and get feedback. This doesn’t change the fact that you and you alone are the only one with the power to enter or exit a trade and this is the sole reason we need to have this self- motivation and belief in our own trading.

Trading is a very personal business and being able to push on when trading gets hard requires the resolve only we ourselves can instill.

You can’t force a trader to do hours of back testing or trawl the internet for specific pieces of information that may help a certain area of their trading. With the increasing amount of knowledge and information to be found on the internet nowadays, it’s a bit of a lottery if you can find the right information you require anyway. This again comes back to self-motivation, being determined enough to sieve through many different websites and forums on the hope of finding something that clicks with your own personality, is draining.

When you feel you are getting nowhere

If at times you find the challenge is beginning to overwhelm you, rather than give up, take a break from trading and try to reboot your brain. There’s no set timescale you can use to say how long the learning process will take. There’s always going to be new things to learn but getting to a level where you feel trading is a consistent and calm process is down to the individual, but as a guide I would compare learning to trade the forex with like studying for a degree, if that helps put things into perspective.

The ability to learn

Therefore, the ability to learn new things and self-motivate ourselves is what sets traders apart. The traders who have the belief they can make it in the forex markets will most certainly be in a far better mind-set and position to find out the correct information, than the traders who simply hope they can succeed with minimal effort.

If you are prepared to put in the hard work the rewards are definitely there for the taking.

This short article was designed to get across the point that we must take our trading career very seriously and putting in less than 100% will always leave us short. It’s a journey that will hold many different challenges and requires a certain grit and self-motivation that only comes from inside yourself.

Author.
My name is Jeremy Poor, I am a professional Forex trader and my aim is to help aspiring traders to learn all about trading the Forex using Price Action  and where to look and hunt for the best trades. With lots Forex articles, videos and a dedicated  price action forum to look at, its a great place to learn how to become consistently profitable at trading the Forex.

Trading the Forex with Discipline

Trading the Forex with Discipline.

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a trader who manages to make the right choices consistently and calmly compared to one who constantly seems to be on an emotional roller coaster, umming and ahhing about how to conduct themselves in the forex markets?

Simple – Discipline!!!

No matter how you eventually decide to trade the forex markets being disciplined and having a rock solid set of rules in place, is a must! They are your guiding hand and a source of structure which the Forex markets do not impose upon us and something we have to do ourselves.

What would it be like if we had no rules in our society? -absolute chaos!!!

So we are used to being restricted and guided by set rules, even if we do not always completely agree with them, they help to impose structure in our lives.

Now because trading the forex doesn’t really have any rules, it’s basically a free for all. You can trade with robots, indicators, price action, so pretty much anything goes and the markets do not really care. This absolute freedom to do what you like is what can excite many new traders and suck them into trading. Little do they realise this is probably the biggest reason why traders get their accounts drained so quickly.

Once the market gets into your head and starts playing with your decision making. Every time you have to make a decision or enter a trade you will begin to second guess yourself, you basically lose control.

That little voice in your head goes into over drive and rather than being a calm and controlled trader you will probably be a complete nervous wreck, checking the charts frequently to see what the trades are doing.

Breaking out of this mental torture is not as simple as flicking a switch back on. You almost have to start again and reprogram your brain to be able to resist the markets temptations, like over thinking trades, fiddling with trades and taking too many trades etc……

Rules Rules Rules

Rules are the glue that keeps traders stuck together. They give traders the structure they need to be consistent in all areas of trading.

The best way to instill discipline back into your trading is to have very strict rules written down, these rules must cover every aspect of trading and be decided upon before even entering a single trade. The rules you choose upon are only going to be as strong as the ability you have to follow them through.

It’s completely pointless having rules that you just don’t follow or respect.

The misconception that trading is all about the trading strategy is very common, trading looks from the outside like a very simple format, sell when price is expensive and buy when price is cheap. The biggest area traders tend to brush over when evaluating their trading results is actually their mind set and discipline.

The routine of a trader who hits a losing streak is to automatically look at the trading strategy itself and make alterations or even change strategy completely. Instead, it’s worthwhile looking into the mind-set you have and whether you are trading with a steady hand or making trading too personal.

It’s all about becoming the complete trader, someone who knows their trading strategy inside out and who has complete control over their mind. These traders are going to have a much better chance than someone who simply tries to wing it and makes decisions on the fly.

A lot is talked about trading from the gut and yes once we reach a certain level our sub conscious does give us clues to whether or not a trade is the right choice to take. We must harness these emotions but also have in place basic ground rules to keep everything solid.

Take for example a top sportsman, now they can train and train all day long but in those high pressure situations their mind-set is what gets them through the challenge and helps them perform as they should do. Trading involves the same processes, we need to be able to make the correct decisions on a very consistent basis, the market is a very ruthless environment and any weak decisions will be punished.

Analysis of trading.

Being able to analyse our trading results is a great technique to find out any faults or weaknesses in our approach. This can only be carried out accurately if we are consistent in our approach to taking trades and how we manage certain trades, like trend trades or counter trend trades. How on earth can we analyse what’s working well and what’s not if we are all over the shop?

Examples of rules we can put in place.

1)      Before entering a trade, we should always produce a trade plan to follow, this will include information like:  Entry point, stop loss, where to move to break even, where to place take profits, etc… N.B. the trade plan should always be written before you enter into the trade.

Incorporating a trade plan will reduce a lot of decision making whilst in a trade, as it’s much harder to be clinical once entered into a trade.

2)      Removing ourselves from the market, what I mean by this is to not follow every pip movement by sitting in front of the charts. The trade plan holds all of the decisions we need to make and so watching a trade is going to only increase temptation to alter the plan. Altering a trade plan once in a trade is a big no, no.

How can we expect to be consistent at trading if we can’t even follow a simple plan?

3)      When to look for trades and on what time frame is a key issue, we can’t go trawling through the charts for setups on random time frames. If we decide to stick to just the daily charts to begin with, these are the only charts we can use.

It’s very tempting to jump into the markets because of the feeling of not wanting to miss a trade. Trying remove this sensation is a challenge and yes it’s hard when a trade you passed up on turns into a corking winner, but who cares there will always be another trade around the corner. The feeling of being rushed and forced to trade is a confusing emotion. Instead focus on the exact criteria required to validate a trade.

4)      Not allowing other traders to affect how you trade, this boils down to your own confidence in your approach. If you take a trade and see another trader mention why it’s maybe not such a good trade, these comments should have no bearing on your trading at all. Letting others influence you is another mind game you need to conquer.

5)      Having exact rules regarding the actual structure of the setups you want to trade, this is very important. If a setup forms and does not exactly meet the criteria set, we have to pass it up. You may ask “surely there should be some give and take” but I say “no”, if the criteria is not met the trade should be ignored.

Being consistent in every aspect of your trading will breed consistent results. If you lose your consistency you are basically trading blind and hoping a trade will work out is not going to cut it in the forex markets. We need to be clinical and professional, no buts!!!

So what can you do to change and improve your discipline surrounding trading?

Here’s a few simple tips to get you started:

1)      Start by getting some rules in place, regarding the setups and where to look for trades.

2)      Produce a trade plan each time you enter a trade and stick to it.

3)      Try not to get too emotionally attached to trades. Each trade is just a number in a long list of trades you take. No single trade is more important than the next.

Remember, discipline is something that comes with time and is going to be a tough challenge but I guarantee if you can trade with discipline on your side the forex markets will be a lot less daunting and stressful.

I hope this article has got across just how vital discipline is to become a consistent trader and helps you on your trading journey.

Author.
My name is Jeremy Poor, I am a professional Forex trader and my aim is to help aspiring traders to learn all about trading the Forex using Price Action  and where to look and hunt for the best trades. With lots Forex articles, videos and a dedicated  price action forum to look at, its a great place to learn how to become consistently profitable at trading the Forex.

Is it possible to learn how to trade the Forex using forums?

Is it possible to learn how to trade the Forex using forums?

The most common avenue new traders go down to find ways to trade the forex is usually in the forex forums. Now there are a huge number of different forums to choose from and all will contain dedicated traders trying to help each other out, all holding vast amounts of knowledge and priceless information that could help unlock the forex markets.

This is great, but due to the number of differing ways to trade the forex, finding the right information to help you on your forex journey can be like finding a needle in a hay stack.

Joining new forums especially for new traders can be a daunting step, it’s not easy posting up questions that may seem like common sense to experienced traders, as most new traders don’t want to come across stupid or uninformed.

This is why you tend to get two different types of forum users, the lurkers who basically avoid posting up and merely watch the forums and the traders who actively participate and get stuck in.  

My advice to you is to push yourselves into posting on forums even if it feels awkward to begin with, there’s no better way to learn than by asking questions. Plus you will make valuable new trading friends to help pass the trading hours away with.

Being part of a trading community and surrounding yourselves with like-minded traders is a very powerful tool and will aid your growth as a trader.

Different types of Forex forums.

Forex forums can take two main forms:

The large forums which tend to cover most of the forex topics, these hold a much boarder knowledge base but can lack focus and produce a lot more noise. These are usually free to join.

Alternatively, we have the smaller forums which usually focus directly on one particular type of trading e.g. price action, they are more likely to require a joining fee though. However, they can be the best investment you make in your trading career.

Therefore, the larger forums can be helpful for new traders at the beginning of their trading careers to learn about all the different types of trading styles and discover the best trading strategy to match their own personality. Then, if required traders can move to the smaller, more focused forums to master the finer details of that particular trading strategy and remove the unnecessary distractions and noise.

On the whole though most forums are well balanced, helpful places used by traders to further their knowledge, they can also help remove the loneliness that can be a downside to forex trading. They can also be a great place to find those very important “eureka” moments where a piece of the puzzle falls into place. It only takes one great post to suddenly change the way you see the markets.

Drawbacks to Forex forums.

These are just my opinions and experiences resulting from being active on different size forex forums for many years and not meant to upset or offend anyone.

The size of certain forums can be a drawback, the very densely populated forums can result in new traders getting lost in the noise produced by the sheer number of different traders and opinions flying around in one place. This is not the fault of the traders themselves but unfortunately sometimes the increased popularity of a forum can result in reducing its productivity. This issue can put off a lot of traders who prefer the more exclusive format and why the less densely populated forums can be a godsend.

It basically all depends on your own personality but if you are a member of a large forum and feel like you not able to air your opinion, then maybe a smaller forum is the better solution.

Ego’s can also be a problem in forex forums and unfortunately you may stumble across isolated instances where individual traders jarr to produce a less than friendly atmosphere and although this may not be intentional, these differences of opinions can result in scaring traders off.

Obviously getting lots a different personalities onto one place will always have its issues and the format of forums means misinterpretation of posts can be a big problem.

The amount of different threads and information stored on a large forum can also be a big distraction. The temptation to move from one style of trading to another is a big problem, especially for new traders who are trying to find their feet.

This means instead of spending their time mastering one particular type of trading, it’s spent checking out new ideas and this can basically result in a trader going round in circles. This is why trading can be so frustrating and having a lack of direction and focus can result in bad habits being learnt.

On the other hand, the chances of finding the best way to trade the forex that matches your own personality first time round is very rare indeed and so the larger forums can play an important role in helping traders to find alternative ideas.

Remember, trading doesn’t come to us straight away and spending the time to learn and master a specific technique is a long process, catching a few losing trades can place doubts in traders minds and this is when traders can start to lose focus and go hunting for alternatives.  It’s basically a balancing act but it sometimes just comes down to a bit of luck regarding finding the best way to trade.

Summary.

So yes, forums can play a very important role in learning how to trade the forex, they enable traders to find huge amounts of information and how different strategies exist but also how trading has no real set rules and that our trading style is very much down to our own personalities.

Finding the right forum though can be very much a trial and error process but once you find a suitable place to conduct yourself and communicate with like-minded traders you will feel a lot less alone and more part of a trading team if you like.

It’s a great feeling when you start seeing other traders looking for similar setups to yourself, plus it’s always nice to get a pat on the back when trading is going well but also some support when trading is a bit slow.

Being part of a forum is just one area that can help a trader progress their trading career, it takes great patience and discipline to become profitable in the forex markets and is an accumulation of many ingredients and knowledge to make a complete forex trader.

Author.
My name is Jeremy Poor, I am a professional Forex trader and my aim is to help aspiring traders to learn all about trading the Forex using Price Action  and where to look and hunt for the best trades. With lots Forex articles, videos and a dedicated  price action forum to look at, its a great place to learn how to become consistently profitable at trading the Forex.