How to Trade Trends in a Profitable Way

[StreetCoup 10]

During my trading journey I regularly encounter very interesting people from various fields. Their unprofitability in trading is what often unites them, however, which is why they are seeking advice. Aspiring traders are unable to reap consistent profits off the financial market despite having been involved for many years and having tried various approaches. I assert that this is due to the lack of a fundamental understanding of trends, which is why my attempt is to demonstrate how price action is interpreted correctly.

 

I personally had the luck to be taught by a mentor myself, and forged a trend trading strategy on top of this precious teaching. The nature of trends is the first thing an aspiring trader needs to fully comprehend. Trends do not stop from one moment to the other but last for a significant amount of time. A trend evolves in a sequence of support and resistance levels along its way, and reversals always take place after breaking an aforementioned level. Hence, there will be enough time to recognize a reversal and to adjust your position accordingly.

 

If you look at the 1 hour chart of the ES for example. You will notice a repeated pattern of uptrends (higher highs and higher lows), downtrends (lower highs and lower lows), as well as support and resistance levels along the way. A break of such a level is taken as an entry opportunity to catch a reversal and follow a newly established trend. You never do anything prematurely and always wait for the market to tell you what to do. By doing so, you will avoid entering and exiting positions based on gut feel.

 

That is all you need to boost your chances of becoming profitable. Let us think back to our childhood when we got our first bike. Our parents might not be particularly good cyclers but they knew one thing: to ride the bike we must be able to balance. Consequently, they do not bother teaching us which gear to use, or how to do dirt jumping. They leave it at the basics. But this is precisely what aspiring traders venture into. They start off with the most challenging stunts like scalping and picking tops without knowing anything about chart reading. Seeking answers in indicators is one of the major mistakes they succumb to.

 

Whenever an aspiring trader comes to me, I will ask him to turn off all indicators, then give him the basic understanding he needs to start trading profitably. This includes price action, understanding the battle between bulls and bears, and trends. After that we go into more details such as risk management by using stop loss orders properly.

 

To my surprise, many are able to find entries and manage positions with a bit of assistance within a few weeks, or have developed a totally new strategy with the help of the basics I provided. Most importantly, they do this without looking at any indicators that they used to love so much.

[Water 10]

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