james16 Chart Thread

Quoting mbqb11

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Yes it will certainly depend on your timeframe. I am a big 4hr guy, and here is what i see. Currently the 4hr is trending up as indicated by the higher highs and higher lows(blue lines). We can see the downtrend line broken, starting our uptrend, and the final look for a bounce at 61.8 was broken. So for me this means, ok let's look for reasons to get into this trade. At this time, I would be looking to buy, but not without confirmation somewhere. This can come in many forms such as:
Bounce off new trendline, consolidation and breakout of that consolidation with the new trend.

For right now I am in wait mode but will keep an eye for buying opportunities.

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Quoting Wall_Street

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Mike,
Thank you for that informative discussion. I can see your point.
I have a few questions? Do you use the 78.6% retracement in your fib calculations? From the looks of it you don't. Can you explain?
I do not. My fav fibs are the 50 and 61.8. I use fibs more to get an idea what kind of retracement the market has put in. So i do use them for confluence and to give me more reasons to take a trade, but I never play blind touches on retraces. I like to just get a feel for where the market is at.


Also your use of trendlines was very good. I use them too but I don't seem to always draw the best looking ones or trust there breaks. But I do see a very nice bullish candle showing good strength right through your downward trend line. Very good sign for your upward bias. Trendlines are something I must get better at.
Trendlines are one of those highly subjective(to some) and debatable topics. My use of trendlines is to find the most obvious ones. If you have to start moving a trendline all over the place curve fitting it, I don't believe in those much. I keep things very very basic. I don't believe in over complicating things, and this holds true for when drawing trendlines. Again I like to see confirmation on everything, with price action.

Also to me it looks like the daily formed a pin bar on Interbankfx. Do you agree that it is a pin bar? If not can you tell me why?
This is more of neutral bar suggesting indecision in the market. If you notice the pin nose is not long and the open and close are near the center of the bar.

I try to use a ratio system when finding pin bars. I really like when a pin for a short closes in the bottom 25% of the range. Or a pin for a buy closes in the top 75%. Do you kind of classify your pins like this?
I certainly do use my own classification system. Not number based, but visual. I did a video in the PF on them and I believe most people got a very good idea of how I identify a good from bad pinbar. It is subjective like anythign else in trading, but to give you the most basic idea of how I look at them is, is it big and obvious? The pinbar should jump out slap you in the face and say trade me. Why? Because if you see this, others are seeing this, and then we get the potential proper orderflow involved to help us through with this trade. The pinbars, that you have to mull over for are just not worth trading to me. My job is to make money, and I try to get my money in with the best of it as best I can. Again I have seen other use % of range and such as you, and all I can say is if it works for you then stick with it. Test the hell out of it and gain confidence in it. Then it is just a matter of being patient in waiting for the market to come to you. Not you chasing the market. Patience, confidence, execution.
Also I didn't see any MA's this time. Do you only use those for certain pairs or set-ups? Thanks for the help. Anyone else is welcome to comment too.
I use MAs also. Just try to keep them off most of the charts I post if I think of it. Helps keep things more clear, and in this case I didn't feel the need to stick any up there. Like fibs, MAs are a guide for me. Not enough to make or break a trade solely.

Hope this helps
Mike

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Quoting mbqb11

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answers in bold beneath

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Quoting Wall_Street

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Mike,
Could you please post a few of your most recent trades with a small summary of how you entered and how you are managing those trades? This would be very helpful for me to see if I am taking the best set-ups or trading too much. Thanks

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Quoting mbqb11

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Here is a pair that might get people in trouble. They pull up a daily chart and say look a pinbar(get real excited, and emotion takes over). But to me bars like this are completely in traffic. Look at where we stalled and look at the steepness of the rising trendline. Price to me has a lot of pressure on it to bust down. Does this mean we won't see price move up and maybe continue towards the descending TL? I don't know. I am not a mind reader. But this is something I began to talk about in a video I did in the PF(also explain traffic bars better on video), about playing the failure of PBs. This is a case where I would consider playing a failure of this PB on the low side. I consider it more advanced in terms of PA trading that is taught here.


So hopefully this gives you an idea of how I begin to view things. Every trader is going to have their own views. And it is important to formulate your own and not be persuaded by others. Read, practice, test, learn, test, test repeat repeat. Soon things just become clear in there own way. Looking back on learning this stuff I can remember the times when things suddenly became more clear, then a bit more clear. As traders we are always growing and learning. Never ending process in my mind. But I believe eventually you do reach a place where you are simply DOing. The thinking is not there anymore. You have trained your brain to do all that work automatically. Instead you just act upon the information presented in a logical manner. You weigh the probabilities, and you place your trade. In the end this is a game of probabilities. Get them on your side, and money comes next. So many people feel the need to trade, and have trouble waiting b/c they may trade of the daily timeframes. And then something doesn't quite fit exactly to their plan. But they say, oh hell it is close enough. Place the trade, lose, and begin to dig a hole. I understand most people here have full time jobs, so they can't be tied to the screen. But, that is no excuse to take trades that don't fit into a sound logical plan. If it takes a month for a good trade to show up, then so be it. Remember what James says, treat this like a business!

Whoops rant! Sorrry I just woke up so thoughts are cluttered, might have to edit this again for clarity lol! I really hijacked this page haha

Take care
Mike

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Quoting mbqb11

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Here is a pair that might get people in trouble. They pull up a daily chart and say look a pinbar(get real excited, and emotion takes over). But to me bars like this are completely in traffic.

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Quoting the_wizard

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how dare you criticise this!

one bolt of lightning coming your way

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Quoting the_wizard

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Yep guys, trading against the trend can be dangerous

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Quoting the_wizard

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Thanks Razl. It's true what you say above - everyone should keep to the basics. There is easy enough money to be made if you are patient and wait for those A setups without needing to complicate things. Hope your trading is going well.

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Quoting razldazl

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Im even finally gonna post a photo over in the pf

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Quoting the_wizard

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I can't take this anymore.

I've taken 50% of my final two positions off at BE.

This is quite a good example of how it pays to think about the opportunity cost of holding a trade that is going nowhere.

I have held this trade for 13 trading sessions (almost three weeks) and made 93 pips.

The three setups circled would have made over 170 pips in total in 12 hours - and no doubt caused a lot less stress.

So - I'm coming out of this. This is the first trade I have found it really difficult to exit. I have a strong feeling it will move to the upside soon and I have also seen it go repeatedly from a loss to a gain and vice versa so exiting at BE seems like failure somehow but hey - that's life. Becoming married to a position is dangerous and that is what this was starting to feel like...

So, sure it could take off but right now but then again the range could break either way and better to win nothing on 1/4 of the position and wait until I see a decisive movement in one direction.

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Quoting mbqb11

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sure here are a couple

first is just a simple 4hr pinbar trades

second is a longer term trade off a breakout and IB.

stops are always on the opposite side of the bar I take(ie low of the pin, low of the IB).

I am going to refrain from posting any of my intraday trades as I highly recommend sticking to the higher timeframes especially in the beginning

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Quoting Wall_Street

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Mike, I greatly appreicate these examples. I have most of those set-ups on my charts as well. I also told a trading buddy of mine just the other day that I didn't really like this USD/CHF set-up short. It did work out however but not the best set-up. Yes the kiwi is a good example and the GBP/CHF broke downward. Interesting and exciting this PA stuff is. Love the help thanks Mike and everyone. Oh can anyone tell me how to save charts from this forum. Thanks

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