5 years and still no strategy

Here is an interesting idea I stumbled upon recently:
https://www.mql5.com/en/articles/1364

How it works: price "traps volume" before significant moves. In order to push into a trend, it needs to coil up, compress energy so to say, to be able to rapidly expand.
This pattern corresponds to this activity. There is an indicator (for mt5, but I guess somebody interested can quickly translate this to mt4) and even an ea (showing profit in backtest, which is already promising). How I would perhaps modify it, for exits I would either make some statistics (i.e. the move will make n*a number of pips in x% of the cases if a is the height of the triangle, i.e. distance between the far away fractals) or would put some moving average to let the move run and exit once it started going in the opposite direction.

Cheers,
k

@Freakout,
Don’t give up mate! Eventually you will master your craft and find your own path to success.

Did you tried to trade based on support and recistance zones?

So you mean he fools us since older posts can't be edited?
Thanks for your attentive eye ... However, maybe that time stamp relates to the date of the post (if not different)?!

I don't think the issue with a lack of systems. I think the issue is with TOO many systems. PA is the underpinning for every system out there. Most newbies just don't know why an indicator works. If they don't know why it works and it's relationship to PA, then when they take some losses, they will add another indicator to filter out bad signals from the first indicator, and on and on this goes. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

kprsa is right about the volume though. It must lead price as volume fuels the first reversal bar which will often have a small body, and will continue to fuel the reversal as one side gives up. I would not use volume from anywhere but a Euro futures contract traded on the CME, but volume does have to lead price. Personally I have benefited greatly from this forum. A lot of the conversations are interesting and lead to some interesting information.

I think it's a bug in a system, saw that from other members here too.

Looks the same as any edited post.

"5 years and still no strategy"

No surprises here. My first 5 trading years were spent roaming from the woods to the wonderland, and I believe 'twas the same for many other traders. It's like drilling for oil or mining for minerals. Takes some years to keep exploring before one strikes the gold. This then turns the seemingly wasted years into invested years. Got to keep going if you've got the passion for this.

We need lots and lots of strategies to become successful in the Forex Trading. We never should rely on a single strategy and have more strategies to become successful.

If there was one time frame to trade eg Daily charts and nothing else or 15 min and nothing else a lot of retail traders would be very successful.The challenge is that there are many time frames and even non-time based charts like renkos and range bars.The tragedy of the retail trader is the constant changing of time frames.If only one can define himself/herself and settle on a single time frame, then chances of becoming successful increase dramatically.Do not let anyone define you.Dont listen to strict Daily chart traders who tell you you cant make money on 15 min or 30 min or 30 min traders who say D1 is a waste.Choose what suits you and focus your mind on perfecting yourself according to that time frame and never again listen to those on different time frames who discourage trading on your time frame.

Trying to trade on all time frames is like having Usain Bolt aspiring to be best at 100m,200m,400m,800m,1600m,3200m etc.Its extremely hard.Yes you can master one or so time frames but its difficult to master all of them especially when u start out.The problem is that new traders want to master all time frames at once.Work on one and become consistently profitable on it.Then you can switch to learning trading another time frame.Same applies to indicators.Stick to one or to and become a master at them and then you can learn another and another and another indicator.Today you have stochastics and MACD, tomorrow you switch to Awesome Oscillator and RSI.Surely this is a recipe for disaster.I will use Mayweather as an example.He fought in different weights.But how? He mastered his fight in one category,conquered and moved to the next, and the next etc not simultaneously.

I repeat, please try to stick to one template ,try to stick to a few indicators ,try to stick to one time frame.Master those until you are successful and then you may try new things.The internet is a blessing but if you are not careful especially on forums you will keep tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.Many times we say pleaze share your template and indicators and we are switching strategies all the time without giving strategies time to work out.

This is why people find it hard to have a strategy after 5 years.First they start say on 1M charts, maybe have a bit of success or none for some months and change to 5 min,repeat process, try all time frames and then move to renko and then back and forth and the cycle repeats.

What i have realized is that many retail traders cannot afford to trade on D1,4H and 1H charts because trading on those requires a substantial capital and huge stop losses of for example 150 pips,200 pips etc.How many people can afford to see price move against them 130 pips for example and reverse and move in the direction they want?Most people would liquidate positions immediately after a mere 40 pip move against them.The unfortunate part is that most of the traders cannot realize this and they try against all odds.In this scenario, recognize this early and switch to smaller time frames and build your account from there.

If you know you cant trade with a stop loss of say more than 30 pips, start looking for strategies that suit you.If you love D1 charts you can always trade those in future when you hopefully have a bigger account.

In summary:

1)Choose one time frame and master it and be profitable on it (then you MAY move on to learn another)
2) Stick to one template and master it and trade successfully on it before trying something new
3) Choose one indicator or two(for the bottom window eg RSI) and master those and trade successfully before u can switch.I think most indicators(especially oscillators) do the same job and when you put 3 or 5 of them and they "line up" they are not really lining up but just serve the same purpose and as a trader you give yourself a false sense of confidence.
4)Decide if you will be a scalper,daytrader or swing trader.(You can scalp 10 pips a day and if that is 10 dollars a pip that is wonderful income for many)
5)Dont listen to people who discouarge a certain time frame.There are people who make a killing on 1m charts.If they dont suit you, it doesnt mean they dont suit other people.
6)If you have the wrong motivation you will find it hard if not impossible to succeed in trading.If you are not going to learn about markets and keep learning this journey will be hard.Its hard to motivate one to learn about forex if to begin with they are in it for the wrong reason or are setting about it in the wrong way and looking for magical formulas to trade for them.I will give an example of the NFP last week.Jobs fell way below expectations and many with EAs would have sold the dollar immediately but the dollar began to strengthen.That could have been because of a decrease in unemployment among other things.No trading robot would know that.That takes the informed reasoning of the human mind.

Happy trading people!

You have read my mind and then you posted !!!! 100% agree with your full post.

Thats bring a thing to my mind:

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. Bruce Lee

thanks for all replies as I wrote earlier - I tried many different trading methods, from scalping to day trading, trend trading, countertrend trading, swing trading and much more... I've been testing another strategy this year - first HL or LH after trend change (HH -> HL & entry or LL -> LH & entry) on M15, but after few weeks profit was very small... I'm trying to find something for a lower timeframes (M15 - H1), because I'm not interested in depositing too much money and if I can't trade on a smaller deposit, then a bigger one won't change anything

Amazing this thread is still going....How about this strategy. When price is going up, buy it. When price looks like its going down, sell it! pretty simple! lower timeframe will give you more action, but in the end, you'll be more confused with all the turns, try what i said, but on larger timeframe...

it's not that easy when you must trade with a tight stop loss, because your account is very small

then don't trade. Even with CP's mystical cosmic waste of time, no one can trade with a 2 pip stop loss...

How one can knows that price is up or down....

How much......
I think 100 $.. Is enough... Even 50...
You can trade with 30 pip SL...

use a 30 pip stop, just adjust amount per trade so if stop gets hit, small loss...

30$ so 15-20 pip stop loss is max and entries must be really accurate... I've made 100% this year on account with 30$ deposit, but that was probably a luck...

Okey now you have 50+ doller problem solved...