vsa with Malcolm

Congrats on getting your own thread Malc

Amazed and extremely impressed that you still make time after all these years to post detailed charts and help newbies get to grips with VSA. You are a true friend to all who will listen here on forex factory.

My 0.02 worth - I think it is worth focussing on ES, or a forex pair alone. That way newbies reading the thread from start to finish will get a greater understanding of the pair, as we all recognise getting to know focussing on a particular pair like GU or EU and getting to know it inside out is a really good way to remain focussed.

Perhaps start a new thread per pair? Malc's EU thread, Malc's GU thread etc.

Don't shoot me, its just my opinion

lets do GU then with a few daily stocks thrown in for fun .

Sounds like a plan.

Do you mind other people (like me lol) chipping in with charts and their opinions, or would you prefer to keep it more blog like/clean with only your charts?

Good to see you and your own thread! Subscribed...

no the more the merrier ....

this is an educational thread for those that want to learn vsa , a forum where we can all throw thoughts and charts up

hey Malcolmb14... can you talk @ the relationship to the indexes... I am thinking there is correlation to es.. with gu and aj...you mentioned it earlier.....
I understand that usdchf is in correlation to Gold some how?
looks usdchf up...gold down.

thanks

It's about time . . .

I'm doing some reading on this subject and this seems like the best place to post my questions. Would someone care to comment on the attached GU chart? How would you have used the better volume indicator to read the past week on GU.

Thanks and hope to make a contribution to this thread.

Cheers
CanuckCT

look a little to the right side of chart , we can just seeing it peaking out

double bottom , 1st with stopping vol ( down bar ultra high vol) then another bottom( down bar uh volume again) .... that is what started the whole up move this week.

Then look at every major dip how the volume was huge on the down bars ( remember pros buy weakness) ... now the chart is showing weakness as the high volume bars are coming in on the up bars.

I will post an esignal chart on this later today

Thanks for the speedy response. I prefer to watch H1 and H4 charts and go to M5 to fine tune my entry. I use MT4. What timeframe should I be using for VSA analysis.
Cheers
CanuckCT

Correlation is about 65% right now.

JPY is a risk aversion currency. I do not fully understand the reasons for it but it is . Often when you see us markets move up jpy pairs move with them , when markets move down jpy pairs move down.

USD is also correlated to markets ( other than today when GU dropped due to weakness in GBP) . when markets go down usd gets stronger as money flows into bonds and other safe haven vehicles , opposite for when market is bullish...everyone gets out of bonds ( hence yields go down as market goes up) and gets into stocks.

CHF is not directly related to gold any more. The perception that it is still is there thgh and it can move with gold , although the correlation is a little weaker.

OIL and usd correlated , when oil goes up eurousd raises .... do not ask me why but noticed it does.

Hope that covers it. ....very rough i now , maybe someone who has a better depth of knowledge then this can do a better post.

if 60 is what you like than stick with that

I use 30 / 15 and then down to 10.... do not know why but I love a 10 min chart these days... long enough to show you what is going on but not to short like a 5 min to get you in on the worng side of the trade.

Congrats bro, its seems a long time coming. Its obvious you've helped a lot of newbs like myself with your insights into VSA. Keep up the good work.

Hey ole buddy, I am here, but will be in the background trying to learn so I won't post too much. I am finding some of the terms hard to understand as I dont comprehend too good, ADHD thing if you know what I mean. But I will try to learn everything I can to help get my Son well! So If yu use a term that I am not familiar with I will just ask for explantion.

Jim

So M15 might be a good compromise....that is where I will start.
Cheers
CanuckCT

Cool thread. Malc. I just found it. I'm looking forward to watching you work your VSA analysis and learning how you do it.

I have been quietly watching and learning for the past year. I look forward to learning all i can about vsa. Reading the book at work.

By the way, that pair we seem to have in common, AJ, I shorted at 78.95 and doing fine. Looks lke a nice bounce of the 89 area.

Jim

Hey malcolm. I like the fact you choose gu, because it is the pair I teach people how to trade using sfm. And so I would like to compare analysises between vsa and sfm to see how if both methods are used, what would the results be, etc. I want you to come over to Simple and Consistant Fibbing Method thread from time to time and see if our set ups correlate with your own. If we combine the methods we will truly have the holy grail of fx I believe.

I'm in too.

Three months ago I had zero forex trading experience (yep, never made a trade, never seen a chart or a technical analysis indicator), and now I'm semi regularly taking profitable trades (mostly when I get in front of the PC before the move actually happens, most I miss), in large part due to the charts and comments Malcolm has posted.

Here's a very quick summary of the steps I took to wrap my head
around VSA:
- read Master the Markets - realised volume and it's result on price were the key to understanding what was going on in markets
- scanned Forex factory for definitions on the individual bars (wanted to know what an upthrust, no demand, stopping volume, no supply or test bars were) - found quite few, learnt them
- traded a few upthrusts and stopping volumes and had mixed results
- had Malcolm tell me around 300,000 times that VSA wasn't about one bar - it was all about the background - so look to the left of the chart!
- starting looking for the background and didn't really know how to find it
- realised that background is a combination of factors, but a really good place to start looking is to find climatic action bars - bars with ultra high volume and wide spread, and then examine from there
- realised that 1HR or 4HR timeframe is usually easier to spot climatic action bars - you can see them on anytime frame but at 5m, 15 or 30m the action might spread out over many bars - so it's a bit easy to immediately see on a higher timeframe
- started looking for confirmation bars (like tests on low volume after a stopping volume, or no demand bars after an upthrust) once I'd identified strength or weakness in background to time my entries better, improved a lot
- realised that a 2 bar reversal is an upthrust or stopping volume on a higher timeframe
- assumed that the moves would always be cyclical - after weakness and a mark down, next would come strength and a mark up
- discovered that that was STUPID - (because you can get mark up, consolidate, markup, consolidate mark up, before a mark down, or several legs down, or any range of patterns) and decided to ALWAYS look for strength or weakness and to really consider each bar in it's context and what it's telling you about the markets strength or weakness NOW
- realised that a test can fail so badly it becomes another leg down
- noticed that tops after mark up tend to be more protracted in forex - often with a series of two or three upthrusts with short dips, and slowly declining prices until a large mark down (should be able to see volume on the selling)
- and bottoms tend to be fast
- couldn't catch any markups after ultra high volume wide spread down bars and stopping volumes, because frequently the low volume test confirmation just didn't happen, instread it was stopping volume - reverse!
- realised low volume tests can mean "comparatively low volume".
- got better again

now the issues that I'm grappling with are
- how big is this move going to be? If I know that, I can set realistic profit targets, and leave less on the table - this depends and few things including how much accumulation or distribution has been going on
- once I've identified strength or weakness in the background, getting a feel for how long the setup is, so I know when the mark up or down is likely to happen, and I don't have to wait for hours in front of my PC (i'm working on alerts)
- learning all that stuff that seasoned traders take for granted - like how the various trading sessions (asia, london, new york) affect the moves (if you're not looking at this, start right now), options expiry, using indices and futures to figure out out moves in spot currency

you don't need many indicators to get good with VSA, just price, and a decent volume indicator with a reasonable feed, and a lot of study and practice

f451