Far away from the maddening crowd- longer term forex trading ideas

[Reaver 10]

I noticed that a bunch of TL is geared towards the shorter time frame, mostly day trading. I figured that I would attempt to offer some insight into some longer term ideas.

 

Not sure if James would want to make a sub forum so I can keep this separate from the other techniques, or just mix it all up-which is fine.

 

Even if you are mostly into day trading, you may find these ideas helpful in starting up longer time frame trades for your account. (And to be honest-these ideas will work in any time frame- I just happen to have used them in longer term trades.)

 

I have a few ideas that have been found to be most rewarding for me and I'd be more than happy to share the basic concepts with anyone interested. Stay tuned....

[Guest cooter]

So you're talking about swing or position trading, right? Holding positions overnight to several days, if not weeks at a time?

[walterw 10]

Great Reaver ¡¡¡ I will stay tuned ¡¡ and I know that any inputs here will be usefull for any time frame... cheers Walter.

[Reaver 10]

So you're talking about swing or position trading, right? Holding positions overnight to several days, if not weeks at a time?

 

Yes that is correct-since long term is completely relative...I am talking about mostly using daily charts for trading decisions.

[notouch 10]

Basic moving average strategies on the hourly and 4 hourly charts and basic candlestick strategies on the daily charts work great for swing trading forex. You have to be patient though. I look forward to hearing your ideas Reaver.

[Reaver 10]

Thanks Walter and notouch. I'll start tonight when I get home.

 

Yeah you're right notouch, alot of the stuff is basic MAs/candles, etc, but hey that's what good trading is all about. I mentioned to walter on another thread that my stuff is so boring I almost didn't want to post it. ha ha

[walterw 10]

Thanks Walter and notouch. I'll start tonight when I get home.

 

Yeah you're right notouch, alot of the stuff is basic MAs/candles, etc, but hey that's what good trading is all about. I mentioned to walter on another thread that my stuff is so boring I almost didn't want to post it. ha ha

 

 

Millonaires are normally bored traders but excited people ¡¡

[Reaver 10]

You said it man. I much prefer to be bored while trading- and make up for it with spending my money on vacation! I am heading down to Universal Studios next week with my wife, thanks to a couple good trades. Maybe not the smartest of financial moves, but we never went on a honeymoon and I guess I kinda owe it to her, courtesy of USD/JPY and GBP/USD!

[walterw 10]

You said it man. I much prefer to be bored while trading- and make up for it with spending my money on vacation! I am heading down to Universal Studios next week with my wife, thanks to a couple good trades. Maybe not the smartest of financial moves, but we never went on a honeymoon and I guess I kinda owe it to her, courtesy of USD/JPY and GBP/USD!

 

Well Nate, then you deserve it ¡¡¡ so enjoy it ¡¡ happy for you

[Reaver 10]

:oOh yeah, heh heh just to clarify- I am definitely not a millionaire! LOL

[walterw 10]

:oOh yeah, heh heh just to clarify- I am definitely not a millionaire! LOL

 

jejejej no problem man, now you are middle class, enjoy it... when you get millonaire you will adapt jejejej....

[Reaver 10]

Okay very simple rules, here we go: this plays on the very basic and simple retracements.

 

 

First, we want to know the trend. There are many ways to get the trend, we will use the kindergarten method.

 

To find the trend: Look from the left to the right of the screen. Whichever way the bars/candles are heading-that is the trend. For this, we will assume an uptrend.

 

 

Alrighty, now what we want to do is set up our retracement tool (generally for Fibonacci) to 35%,45% ,50%,55% and 66% levels. You can calculate these levels manually if you'd like to, but the Fibonacci retracement tool is easiest for me.

 

 

Okay, the next thing we want to do is set some horizontal trendlines to the applicable round numbers ie for EUR/JPY, 160.00 161.00 162.00 so on and so forth. These make particularly good support and resistance levels especially for currencies I have found. They don't always work, but what in trading ALWAYS works?

 

 

Basically, what we want to do is set up retracement levels from the previous major low (look for major lows, not little weak lows) to the most recent highest high.

 

Hopefully we will find that the retracements and round numbers coincide, at least somewhat, this "reinforces" support levels and increases the chances that a bounce will take place.

 

****positioning-be advised this is merely my money management positioning tactics, please use something you are comfortable with****

 

I break my total position into 6 parts. I enter 1/6 of the intended position at the 45% level, 2/6 at the 50% level and 3/6 at the 55% level.

 

Please note that not always will the price actually allow you to get into these positions...sometimes, the price will bounce off the 45% level and take off again, sometimes, it will let you go all the way into the 55% range before heading back up. I am utilizing a scale in system...I believe it is a version of Martingale if I am not mistaken....I am NOT averaging losers, I have my stop in place. This is strategic order placement.

 

Speaking of stops, I place my stop at 66% on a CLOSE only basis. I would actually recommend using something such as 68-69% to keep it from being too obvious. Always keep a fail safe stop in place in case all hell breaks loose...say at around 75% or so.

 

Profit targets are:

 

1/3 position at 75% of the original high or nearby resistance in the area...sell into the resistance-don't worry about squeezing every last pip out.

 

1/3 position at original high

 

1/3 gets to keep on riding, and you move your stop up to PT1 to lock in a minimum profit.

 

Keep in mind we do not live in a perfect world, so use your judgment when exiting. it doesn't have to go to PT1 at all, if price action or market conditions are telling you to get out- GET OUT.

 

Where does the 35% level come in? Okay, sometimes the trend is so strong, you may only get a reaction to around the 35% before the trend takes off again...believe it or not this is a good sign, as this indicates a very strong trend. I almost always enter a small "probe position" at the 35% level, just in case price takes off again, I will be positioned. Be prepared to get out of this small position if the price starts dropping, and get ready to enter the primary positions at the 45-55% levels.

 

I got a lot of this information from the late Stanley Kroll.

 

He always said to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)...Trade with the MAJOR TREND, trade against the MINOR TREND, start buying when prices are at between 35-50% and digging into support. Use good money management.

 

 

Stan Kroll knew his stuff-let's leave it at that. He was one of the major players in the 70's and 80's.

 

If there are any questions on this method, please let me know, as I am only human and may have left out some stuff. I will edit this and refine it as necessary as I review it in the future...I just had a long day, so bear with me!

 

Caveat- I am not a big time player or anything like that at all, I am only 25. I am not any kind of authority, but I do have God-given common sense. This method is very simple, but it is sometimes very hard to convince yourself to implement, as it seems too easy. Do not believe what I say, look back at some charts and try this out and see for yourself how good the risk/reward ratio is with this and what it could do for your account. I am posting a chart that is actually in process as of now- note that it did not hit all the buy-in targets, but hey that's life. I figured I'd just show you something that I am looking at right now. The important is that you can make a hell of a lot of money with this.

 

Best of luck, please ask any questions...and if I don't booed or laughed off the forums for this, I will be presenting some more longer term, simple methods you may want to consider.

 

I don't want anything in return for anything I post here, I just want to help out fellow traders, like TinGull said, it is merely ethical. If anything, the more people that apply this, the stronger it gets. Some traders here may not find this to their liking, but if even one person can find use for this, it was worth it. I have had a lot of great traders help me out before, and I hope this can do the same for someone else. Best of luck.

[walterw 10]

Very nice Nate ¡¡ and thanks for posting... had you tried the system on 4 hour charts, thought they are also long periods ? cheers Walter.

[Reaver 10]

Walter,

 

I am very confident the method would work on pretty much any timeframe, but I haven't personally tried it. From my experience, the market is pretty fractal/scalable.

 

Thanks for the kind words! You are the one hooking us up with all the good methods though man! So thanks for that!

[walterw 10]

Walter,

 

I am very confident the method would work on pretty much any timeframe, but I haven't personally tried it. From my experience, the market is pretty fractal/scalable.

 

Thanks for the kind words! You are the one hooking us up with all the good methods though man! So thanks for that!

 

Glad to hear that Nate.. keep up the good work ¡¡ when you be my age you will be millonaire...

 

a question here: So far in terms of stops I notice your RRR would be arround 1:1... had you thought on making stops tighter ? cheers Walter.

[Reaver 10]

Yeah, but if you allow the PT1 to play all the way out, it can be significantly higher....as the first PT would give you around 1:1 (not exact) and the then if the retracement went all the way back to the previous high, you are looking at about 3:1, and then if anything were to go higher, the RRR will be significantly higher...my math may be wrong though...I am from Mississippi. lol

[notouch 10]

I also like using fib retracements but I prefer going "all in" to a trade once I get a signal. One reliable signal is the key reversal day following a pullback to a fib level. We have one forming today in the GBP/USD.

[Reaver 10]

Yeah good point, fibs tend to work pretty well with this methodology as well.

 

I see what you mean about going "all in". My psychology makes me tend to lean towards the scale in, but I can definitely see the pros and cons to both.

 

Fib retracements are generally pretty close to the retracements mentioned, and honeslty, they may actually work a little better these days since so many people use them. Kroll's ideas were kind of old school, but they work well for me. I would definitely encourage anyone interested to look into fib levels as well to compare.

 

Thanks for the feedback walter and notouch.