The PriceBob Strategy

The central theme of this thread is the discovery of a simple, fixed bar trading method that the would-be successful trader can put into practice in order to train to overcome one's fear.

With the help of ai:

Mark Douglas, author of Trading in the Zone, argues that the fundamental purpose of a trader's exercises is to learn how to trade without fear. He posits that psychological skills, not market analysis, are the true determinant of a trader's success. Trading without fear means embracing the inherent uncertainty of the market and accepting that any single trade can result in a loss.

Why traders must overcome fear
Douglas identifies several common, fear-based trading behaviors that lead to inconsistent results:

1. A need to be right: The fear of being wrong causes traders to make poor decisions, such as cutting winning trades too early or letting losing trades run too long.
2. Mismanaging expectations: Expecting a specific outcome on every trade is unrealistic and causes emotional distress when the market doesn't behave as anticipated.
3. Perceiving losses as personal failure: Many traders take losses personally and feel the need to seek revenge against the market, which leads to impulsive and irrational trades.
4. Emotional sabotage: When fear takes over, traders may freeze, panic, or make rash decisions that override their logical trading system.

How to trade without fear
According to Douglas, overcoming fear is achieved by internalizing a set of core beliefs and developing a winning mindset. This process includes:

1. Accepting risk: Truly accepting that losses are an unavoidable part of trading and predefining the risk for every trade eliminates the temptation to hesitate or second-guess your strategy.
2. Thinking in probabilities: Understanding that the market's randomness means you don't need to know what will happen next to be profitable. A profitable strategy has a higher probability of winning over many trades, like a casino with a mathematical edge.
3. Focusing on consistency: A successful trader's primary goal is to execute their edge consistently, not to maximize the profit on any single trade. This approach removes emotional interference.
4. Building a mental framework: Developing a robust mental structure and adhering to non-negotiable trading rules creates a sense of control and self-trust. This freedom from emotional turmoil allows a trader to execute their plan with confidence.

In this video of Mark Douglas's seminar where he discusses the 20 trade exercise. Note how reluctant he is to permit any kind of trailing stop management for the exercise. Years later there was an interview with him that has since been taken down where he said he regretted having granted that request. He felt that only with a fixed stop and fixed take profit plan could one truly experience the benefits of the exercise. Including an active trailing stop or break even stop in the system, the trader has effectively programmed his or fear into the system, and overcoming that fear is the purpose of the exercise.

Today trade
DAX M15 (buy): BE
Total: +0,1%

Today trade
DAX M15 (sell): -1%
Total: -0,9%

Here be the SP500 and Nasdaq 5 minute charts - UK times for New York morning open.
5 minute ORB and 3:05pm (UK time) "Mebob" - worked out well one thinks.
Ignore the other lines around them since they are my research in progress.

Today trade
DAX M15 (buy): BE
Total: -0,9%

I dug deeper and tested the premarket bar I have chosen in gold against the NY open, and over the course of the year, the NY open actually gives better and more consistent results. A long only 30m orb strategy using the orb as a measured move with 1:1 RR has a hit rate of 58% in the gold market going back to jan 2 2025. Out of curiosity I tested the Japan 30m open long only as well. Actually came out with a 60% hit rate and slightly better overall gains than using the NY bar. I feel sorry for anyone who trades during Asian hours but ignores gold.

What surprised me the most is that both of these orb tests had a very consistent pnl curve, which I did not get when testing the 8:30-9:00 EST bar on data for the year to date. I think I was too quick to adopt that reference bar time, without having enough data to go live with it. I saw a big win streak this month, but that was the best performance of the year, the rest was not so good.

I suspect that eurusd/6e actually does a little bit better in that 8:30-9:00 window, but I am out of energy for scrolling charts after going through a year of data four times over today. I tested the globex orb on gold as well - better off using Japan. I don't imagine that anyone is following what I am doing but I wanted to update with some better info before anyone has to battle a setup that doesn't do much better than a coin toss. 58-60% WR with a 1:1 is enough to make a living with the right account size.

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Hi,
I appreciate your self-irony, and I'm following your research.
I could be wrong, but it's likely that trading ORB yields better results than choosing any other time. More interestingly, you're using the M30 timeframe for gold. I looked at the gold testing results on the FXReplay website. The M30 timeframe showed very good results at the opening of the European session.
Perhaps you should pay attention to indices? But that's probably not the ES.

Good stuff PiipPool

6ER (EURUSD) 8:00 to 8:30 AM NYC M30

2R Take Profit, and stop loss for a first entry is stop and reverse for 2R take profit, unless there are intervening pivots. If there are pivots, then I take profit at the pivots or the nearest extension, e.g. .618, 1.0 etc. The exception is news.


GC (Gold, XAUUSD) 8:00 to 8:30 AM NYC M30, same trading plan as 6E above


By "pivots," I am referring to previous daily or weekly highs and lows, the current day's Globex open, and the previous day's close.

Everyone has to do his or her own work for the instrument one chooses to trade.

The most important thing is to pick 1 market, write your rules, and then do execute them to perfection, or until you can execute them to perfection. The skill improvement is tremendous. I am currently working on an NQ scalping method that would have blown me up had I tried it this time last year. I am not nearly a year into my roulette epiphany and during that time I primarily traded various fixed bar trading plans. The value of doing this exercise and repeating until you are free of all fear of loss, FOMO, the revenge trade instinct and any other trading errors that might be causing you problems is invaluable.

Don't get lost in the weeds.

The plan you are trading today will probably not be the plan you end up with a year from now.

The entire point of this thread is to create simple rule based trading plans based on fixed bar intervals so that we can learn the skill of consistent, emotionless execution.

There is still, I suspect, too much concern wit the money among some participants.

The goal here is not to amass profits (not that I have anything against profits ). The goal is learning the skill of trading without fear and the ability to flawlessly execute a simple, rule-based trading plan.




2 losses in a row and that instrument is on a "time-out" until the next day.

Mopped up another eval today that is eligible ot move to funded. This one is all NQ (save for one errant 6E enrty where I forgot to switch the account in the trading DOM).

This trading plan is rule based, uses an M1 line on close chart on the NQ, and I use the volume tools Blue teaches in his Blue's Clues thread.

I never would have been able to trade this plan profitably without blowing up this time last year. The roulette epiphany I experience in November of last year (2024) put me on the path of completing a dozen or more 20 trade exercises using simple, rule based and MECHANICAL entry, take profit, and stop loss. Not every 20 trade exercise was profitable. I would say tha that never mattered to me, however, the truth is that last December and January when volatility picked up, I had a relapse into old habits. I doubted myself and my method and the plan I had made for teaching myself and learning the skills of consistent execution.

Sometime last spring, I recommitted to the roulette epiphany and trading mechanical, discretion free trading plans.

What I am experiencing now is the pay off. I feel I could now trade ANY system (assuming I understood it and it had proper money management attached) without difficulty.

I cannot stress enough that the purpose of this thread and the method it introduces is not to teach a profitable method (though it is indeed profitable if you select the right fixed bar and the right interval for your chosen trading instrument).

The purpose is to teach yourself the flawless execution of a trading plan without fear and emotion, detached completely from the outcome of any particular trade.

Once you stop trying to win or lose, and instead teach yourself simply to follow a process, the profits will rain down on you.

Here are my trading stats of this particular evall that again, was NOT a fixed bar plan. It is a "level to level" price action plan traded on a 1-minute line on close chart.



Stop trying to figure out how to make money and focus 100% of your attention on the execution of your trading plan without hesitation or fear. Learn to take losses without flinching. Learn to quash your impulse to overleverage and revenge trade or FOMO chase entries you that you missed. That is what this thread is all about. If you keep focusing on the money, the money will NOT come. If you focus on the process and developing the person skills required to execute the process, you'll suddenly find yourself awash in profits. But first things first. And I am not here to boast or do a FF "flex." I have said many times during the few years I've been active here that becoming consistently profitable has eluded me. Until now. I finally am reaping the benefits of having finally committed to the real activities that lead one to become part of the small percent of traders who succeed rather than remaining huddled with the mass of traders who fail.

Today trade
DAX M15 (sell): BE
Total: -0,9%

Here is another Nasdaq 5 minute ORB and Mebob. (Rectangle and Ovals) Just simple stuff. Ignore the vwap lines etc. UK times.

I am getting back to trading. I have been busy for the last two weeks or so. I have decided to use the 0.618 fib extension as my TP and the bottom of the range as my SL. The trailing SL just didn't do the job. Nothing else changes. I am still using the 15M bar from 9:30 to 9:45 on the S&P 500 as the opening range.

Today trade
DAX M15 (sell): -1%
Total: -1,9%

Today trade
DAX M15 (buy): winner +0,9%
Total: -1%

Us UK traders can trade Nasdaq etc outside of New York open. See the 5 minute ORB with Nasdaq ( UK time)
But do European based traders find morning Dax calmer to trade during UK mornings rather than an out of hours instrument like Nasdaq?
Interested in your views chaps
Example: Data fees are cheaper for Nasdaq than Euro exchange data fees for Dax ?

UK afternoon - 2:30pm = New York Open. 5 minute ORB for a short. Ignore other lines, just look at ORB.
Of course not everyday is like this hence sticking to your guns and not system hopping.

And the one hour support line and BRN 25000 might be worth watching ?

Even the SP500 played along with the 5 minute ORB. Does it play this nicely everyday? NO - I only post the happy charts with clear blue skies
Try the US indicies yourself for "X" number of trades without system hopping or biting your fingernails to the quick
DOW ( Look it up yourself) was more savage and not a trade for those of a nervous disposition