New to Forex. Need Help. Welcome to the Snakes & Ladders System.

!!!!DO NOT TRADE THIS SYSTEM!!! IT IS MEANT ONLY AS A GUIDE TO HELP YOU LEARN.


Hi,

I am also relatively new to Forex Trading and indeed Forex Factory.
Spent a year of my life studying all I could about Fibonacci Levels, basic Candle patters etc. Then, I fell into the system and indicator trap.

I tried so many systems, constantly switching them for their lack of consistency, cursing them when they failed me. Blah, off to find another system or indicator. My charts ended up looking like a Jackson Pollock painting, No detriment to Jackson Pollock intended.

I realized after all this, that it is not the system that fail's most of the time, it is ourselves when we use them with little understanding of what is going on in the market.
My goal in writing this is not, to look good or treat newcomers to forex like they are idiots, it is in the hope that even one single person will not fall into the trap I did as mentioned above.
If any senior members would like to join this thread and help out, Great.
The only thing I ask is that no indicators are added as, before we know it, this thread will become just like any other thread with tons of indicators that tell you nothing about where price is going to go.
indicators were created by brokers to spread the seeds of confusion so that they may continue to rip rip off your SL. Only kidding, and yes, I use indicators.

Anyway, in this Snakes and Ladders thread we have the best 5 indicators you will ever find. I have added my template which you can download by clicking on then drop it in the TEMPLATE directory of your MT4 terminal.


Indicators FREE in this system.LoL

1: price (The blue Line)(snake)
2: Red Line
3: 1 Green Line
4: 2 Blue Lines

This template is the GBP/USD 5 Min time frame but will work equally as well on any time frame or pair of currencies.

If you downloaded the Snakes & Ladders template and opened a chart with it, your chart should look something like the chart above.
Make sure you have the Show Period Separators chosen and set the time frame to M5.

1: Watch the price and drag the RED line to the top of the price snake at the break of the neck, where it bows it's head looking for a floor to slither along.

Now we have created a ceiling or resistance level, this is simply a point where there were more sellers than buyers and price could not continue up anymore. Think of it like a girder with 5 guys holding it up from underneath and 5 guys stood on top of it jumping up and down, at some stage no matter how strong the 5 guys underneath are, they are going to get tired and lower the girder. Or you can think of it as the ceiling in your apartment or house as you stand in your living room looking up at the ceiling, then you walk upstairs and look at the ceiling and realize that you are now standing on the floor which when you were downstairs was actually the ceiling. This happens in trading all the time.

Ok now we have the upper resistance level or (Ceiling) in place.
I am keeping this simple as it is meant only for new people to grasp easier.

Now, grab the Green Line and drag it to an area on price that after trying to go up, the SNAKE bounced off the RED resistance line, went down then rose up again. This is our Floor, (For now, anyway)

Still with us.
Ok, Good.

Now, your chart with the ceiling and floor is in place & should look something like this. It will differ as you are going to do this in real time, this chart has been made today in real time but obviously, I had to wait to get the whole series of snapshots.

Watch the chart and notice where it breaks either the RED line point or the GREEN line. Depending on the market status, time of day or week day, the price (Blue Snake) may react differently than this chart but it will still have high points and low points. Just move the RED to the Highest Point on the chart and the Green line to the lowest point.

Notice how on my chart, price only breaks the lines marginally.

Now, did I forget about the 2 BLUE remaining lines, No, we are going to use them as cushions or buffers. To cushion us from jumping in too soon and having price WHIPSAW back on us.

This system is only to show you how to watch price action and NO TRADES should be made with this system.

Ok, I think we all have the idea now.


Grab both BLUE Lines and put one 5 pips above the RED line and the other 5 Pips below the green line.

Your chart should look something like this.

I am using the Hair Line function to show that the blue line is 5 pips above the red line. This is our cushion or buffer.


NB: Note how the price, breaks the line in several places but does not really have the inertia behind it to BREAK OUT far from the CEILING or FLOOR and it returns from the ceiling to see if it can break out of the floor. This is the current range of price. Some people are buying but there are not enough of them to convince everyone to buy, some people are selling but once again there are not enough sellers to force price to BREAK OUT. This will change, it better had or nobody would be trading currency and I would be writing this to myself. Hmmm, perhaps I am. LoL

Anyway, price is confused and does not know which way to turn. Hopefully, we do!

This looks very similar to what I used to do a few years ago

Yeah, I think it is a point we all get to at some stage and figure it is perhaps best for new people to not have to go through all that.

Were you also, a system and indicator fiend, like I was?




Anyway, where was I, Oh yes.

Price is confused, actually we should also be confused, because we have no pointers or hints as to where this game of snakes and ladders is going, Yet!

No I have always tried to think outside of the box, do what others are not etc. thus I have never based trades off of indicators etc, like when 30ema crosses 200sma etc or whatever. I no longer trade with this setup but I can tell you when I did it worked pretty well, as with any method you have to learn the difference between the trades that work and don't work and cut your losses short etc.

Ok, now after you watch your 5 min chart for a while, price will break out, one way or the other. Watch it and where it tries to return. Price gets kind of lonely out there sometimes and wants to return to its warm ceiling and floor.

Here price Broke out of the ceiling as it has several times but this time, it went past our 5 pip buffer and made it up as far as 22 pips from the upper green line. Then it retraced a little but not all the way.

Now we have to move the ceiling as, the ceiling should always be above our heads and not below it.

Move the RED line above the highest point price rose to then fell back, this is our new resistance level on which we will base our decision as to whether price is really going on vacation or just Jiving us. We can see that price returned to once again test the floor but then decided it would try and go back up again. Poor confused price.

Ok, now we have to move our cushion also as if we fall from the ceiling to the floor, it HURTS like hell.

Move the Blue buffer to 5 pips above the current ceiling. We also do this with the lower GREEN line or (Floor)if price does not respect it anymore.

We have moved the ceiling and it is still holding as a resistance level, preventing price from breaking out.
The floor as we can see, is still occasionally being tested by our snake but towards the end of the chart we can see that price is retracing less and less to the floor. This is a sign that price may be about to take off and blast through the ceiling. But, we don't know this for sure, all we know is that the guys holding up the Iron Girder from beneath are getting stronger and the guys jumping up and down on top of it are behaving more like ballerina than SUMO wrestlers. I could have moved the floor up at this point but decided not to so that you may see more clearly the gap between the floor and these ballerina.

Ok, we continue to watch price and how it reacts in relation to its confines.

Once again, price breaks the ceiling and the buffer and makes a 22 pip run for freedom.

This testing of the ceiling and floor continues throughout most of the afternoon. At least the afternoon in Asia, where I am residing.

Price tries to breakout but can't really muster the steam. However price is retracing lower in sharp straight continuous fast movements towards the floor as if threatening it.

Price then pummels towards the floor at a much faster rate than before, does a U-Turn, Eeekkk. The smell of burning SL are everywhere.

it bounces of an invisible floor, well it may seem invisible, it is not actually invisible, I simply did not move the floor up to a previous ceiling on purpose.
Price then breaks the ceiling, bounces off our 5 pip buffer, bounces once more THIS TIME off the top of the ceiling which has become a NEW FLOOR and continues on its way.

This entire move excluding the retracements is over 85 pips and if we had moved our ceiling and floors respectively, anyone could have caught the moves.

These are the points where past resistance became support for a breakout later in the day.

Watch them ceilings folks, they can be crafty little things.

I hope this may help even one new person to realize if you keep your eyes open and just juggle a few simple lines around, you don't need to watch those indicators painting Jackson Pollocks all over your charts.

As, I mentioned in the first post, this is simply to try to help new people who have only just started learning about Forex to start from ground zero and learn to see that price action is what it is all about.

The best way to start is to DEMO something like this for a while till you can see, the ceilings and floors and when they change places without the lines. Then if you need an indicator to quickly show you a possible setup, pick a good one for your style, but try to not use more than 2 as you end up watching the indicators telling you what just happened rather than watching the price that is telling you what is happening NOW!


I hope that I did not sound condescending to anyone as that was not my intention. If any senior members would like to pick up the ball here, I will also be glad to join in and learn some more.

Thanks folks and happy ceiling hunting and many thanks to the kind people (Not all are) at FF for helping me out and hopefully they will continue to do so and I will be able to also help someone else out later when I have more experience.

See Ya!

Very entertaining. You got Murray Math's descriptions beat by a mile.

Now, that we have all got the idea, let's really go wild and add a couple of escalators.

We add just two more indicators that also come FREE with this system (What a bargain), the diagonal lines at points where clear support or resistance is forming. We get the escalators that lead price up to the second floor. We can see that price gave us a few hints as to where it was going and when the time was right, the areas that were once resistance (Ceilings) became support (Floors). It may seem hard to recognize these areas where resistance changes to support but, if you practice like this, you will see them in time and not even need to add the lines. Your mind will add the lines invisibly. If you rely on indicators right from the start, your mind will not learn to intuitively see these constantly forming patters of resistance and support and their changing roles as it happens.

Indicators are not BAD guys, they just need to be used in conjunction with a basic knowledge of support and resistance so that when an indicator tells you to buy or sell, you have already confirmed for yourself that this is indeed the direction that price is going.

Ok, I am going to get Really Wild now and for an added bonus throw in another FREE indicator! This offer is only while stocks last after which, our telephone shopping lines will be opened and our fantastically FREE indicators will cost $9,99 each! Only joking admin!

Ok, here we go. But this is the last free indicator I am giving away today.


1: Look at the blue box, what could this be?

2: Which pair are we trading here?

I know, this guy just watched the whole days chart then cherry picked the best spots to show how cool he is.

WRONG ANSWER!