Institutional levels: How to determine them?

I read often that trading around institutional level is a wise thing to do

Ok, but how do I determine these level. They won't call me to say that to me

Martin

You can never be too sure. But have a look at your chart and see area's where price has really moved aggressively from. Chances are some big money made that happen. People trading 1 or 2 contracts don't typically make the Euro/USD move 20 pips in 1 x 5min candle, so find some of those and mark off the origin of that. Go back through your charts and see what happened when price hit there again

Failing that, good sources of information to augment your trading:

Check out: www.forexlive.com They give market commentary and often will advise on known stop levels for large players, they also have price levels for Option expiries on the day and they are levels that are heavily defended by large institutional players.

You could also subscribe to a 'squawk' service like www.talking-forex.com or www.ransquawk.com

They basically commentate the market as it's happening, so when the market is moving, you might hear someone saying something like "large sovereign buying Euros at level xxx" etc, kinda cool or if they get wind of large orders sitting somewhere, they'll call it out.

Another good source of information is: www.ifrmarkets.com - which is part of Thompson Reuters. Again, they will have option expiry levels and touted stop levels etc. They also have a whole heap of other research etc. You can do a trial with them, well worth a look - in the end though, I found that www.forexlive.com was good enough for me, it's free and the guys that blog there are also quite entertaining

If you combine that info with other Price Action and Technical analysis and find confluence, the odds will be even more in your favour

Hope that helps.

Seb

Well, Don't know if this will answer your question(s).

I was told and taught that the best TF to use in determining these levels and even trade FX is the 1 min TF. Since I started using this TF, my trading has changed for the better.

My confidence level has soared. See the chart below. The read line shows you where I would have entered a sell order on Gold. If you look well, you will noticed its not far from where the drop actually starts from.

From experience, when trading on the 1 min TF, if say EurUsd moves 80pip High to low for that day/session/etc, I would have made not less that 200pips overall. For every 15pip directional move on EurUsd, I am able to make 9pips.

Look for places of rapid price expansion. Abnormally large candles and the source from where it expanded. That source is where the Institution placed bulk orders and prices moved very fast. But as it moved fast not all orders were filled and some Orders were left behind. Prices will come back there as Market Maker has to fill orders to get paid. Note, that Institutions are level traders. So they are not going to chase prices. Their strategy is to buy Wholesale and Sell Retail. Get in there when Prices are back and in that direction. That is all there is. Institutions are Level Traders. For them Level is everything.

So you will know this better as you understand how Institutions and Market Makers operate. MM will always go where there are orders pending. And Institutions will wait with their order where they have determined their levels