4 Hour Strategy (MACD)

Hi, Phillip,

Sorry for my ignorance, what do you mean when you say "positonal trade"?

Thanks

It just means to take a position sometimes not on MACD but purely on rhyhtm to be part of a move should it happens. When in a triangle for instant and towards the end of the triangle and the odds are good that it might break to the upside you would like to enter within the triangle but at the same time limit any losses should it occur. Should a TC and MACD confirmation occur but the R:R ratio to the triangle top TL is not good and there is more than 30-35pips to the top you can position yourself and enter the trade with a possible breakout in mind.
Very crutial are to take 50% profit after 20-25 pips and set raminder at either BE or -25pips to break even at worst.
The reason for such a trade was not to make 20pips but to make a positional trade to be part of a larger move to the breakout side should it happens.

I don't know, I just can't open it

Daily Wrapup June 24

The past three weeks have been difficult for the MACD system in a sense that it only gave a few TC patterns, and some of them the candle was way too big to get involved. So very few trades this month, which makes it difficult in terms of pips if you missed it. I was lucky. I posted my trades (see chart). One I took more on experience, although I thought that it was on. That tail that I took was one of them.
I’ve just read through the thread, and seen that some people are not getting pips. It’s true what Nadia said: when the MACD is zigzagging up and down in a range, that is where you get burned. If you just take last week, the price has been between the 21 and the 200, up and down, up and down. So it’s difficult to get involved in the market when it’s ranging. You’ve got to know what to do. That’s what I like about the MACD system; it keeps you out of bad trades if you only take TC patterns. If you trade round tops (RT) and round bottoms (RB), they would have worked beautifully in this ranging market that we are in. But I’ve decided not to take it to help you people. I can trade round tops and round bottoms; for me it’s not a problem. In fact, I’m doing it, but not on the 4 Hour strategy forum where I’m posting my trades. I’m only doing TCs and tails. I like tails.
So yes, there is only a few trades, and it’s bothering people. When I get feedback, that is one of the things mentioned, that there is too few trades. But for me, the number of trades is not the point. For me, 300 pips a month is what I’m looking for. Even if I can do just one trade a month, if it will give me 300 pips, I’ll do just that one trade a month. The less time I trade, the less time I have to spend here. I can do something else.
I know when you first start in Forex it’s like an addiction…you sit there and you want to trade. Remember I said to play around with your Demo account and test different strategies. But it’s very important to get your own style of trading. Don’t try to copycat my own trades because my risk reward ratio is not good because I take profit after 20-25 pips all of the time on half my position and I let the other half run. But I have a success rate of way over 80 percent, over 90 percent. I think I’ve taken around 90 trades, and I’ve gotten about 8 wrong, so I can do it that way. But as you know, I’ve already spent a lot of time in this strategy, learning and studying it, and I have 10-12 years in stock trading so there is a lot of experience in it.
You’re not going to learn the Forex market in 2-3 months or 6 months because it’s very disciplined. If you cannot have discipline and patience, you’re going to pull the trigger when you’re not supposed to. I’m not talking about calculations. I’m talking about doing the same thing consistently throughout. If you can discipline yourself to do the same thing consistently throughout, you will make money. But people bend the rules, and that’s when you start losing money. When you start getting into a bad trade, and you know you shouldn’t have taken it.
So the 4 Hour MACD strategy for the last three weeks was not easy, I agree. But that is the challenge. To wait and keep the same setup, and trade the same.
Another thing is that people don’t take a good setup because of the pain of a previous loss. That’s part of your training to get over it…you have to get over it. If the system gives you a good signal, you have to take it whether you had three or four bad ones in a row, it doesn’t matter. You have to take it because that is the one that is going to give you back the pips that you have lost. I just had $120 lost yesterday and today I got $114 back. So that is the reality that you have to face. You’re going to lose some pips, but when the MACD gives a signal, you have to take it unless your risk reward ratio is bad or something like that. But what I mean is if everything is in place, you take it even if you’ve had five losses in a row.
W people get hurt is that they risk more than 2 percent of their capital. If you put 10 percent of your capital at risk, after three losing trades you’ve lost more than 30 percent of your account. But on a 2 percent, you can lose 20 trades and still have over half of your account left. That is the key. Build it up from that point onwards. As your account grows, so will the 2 percent risk that you can put in. Your 2 percent in terms of your position size will grow. Two percent of your account may give you a full lot, as your account grows over time. That is very important. Don’t get discouraged, but please stick to the rules.

Trading the news with 1min. It was a pullback to 8ema when I entered.

The 4H motion and Rhythm on Eur and Gbp was indicating a breakout move to the top that is why I wanted to get on board earlier today and was hoping to make some nice pips before the FOMC news. When it did not happened I waited for the FOMC news and got in on 1min when the move to the upside was there. Currently I am using the 21ema on 1min as my trailing stop.

Edit.
Even this 1min news trade was in line with the 4H rhythm as the TC just above the 200sma today indicated a possible move upwards.

Edit 1
Position closed for 44pips

Hi Everyone!

I was just reading Phillip's June 24th Daily wrap-up and thought it might be a good place to rejoin our community -- especially the part about taking less trades (not to enter the market just for the sake of trading). This is one of the most important discipline steps to learn! Trading less usually makes you more pips and leads to a happier much more balanced individual who can rationally see the market and make rational rule based decisions. Summer is here -- liquidity is low and market conditions are difficult. Trade smart and trade well!

Wishing you all well planned and executed trades!!

Pips

Welcome back. Hope all is well and may the pips fill your account.

Hi just read your post and you should have seen my reaction. i actually yelled out PIPS! she is back !!!. ...So good to see you again. Missed you a lot.
Hope all is well with you. Take care.
Nadia

Hi Donna,

Welcome back!!

I am at work.Really happy to hear from you!!


Mike

Hey Donna! I was thinking about you earlier today! Glad to 'see' you again and look forward to your insight here. Hope that the new digs are suiting you well and that you're all settled in. So glad you're back. We all missed you around here along with your eekonmyk analysis. Now it's my turn to go, but just until about Monday of next week. Gotta go down south and take care of some biznez....Looking forward to your posts as always...Again welcome back!!!!

Things are looking up round here yo..sweeeeeeet.....

OK:

Took an aggressive entry on the JY per the 1hr. The 4hr is in the vicinity of an uptrend line with the 8/21 'trying' to get moving to the upside. The 1hr bull candle got my attention so we'll see how this pans out. Only looking at a 1:1 here with one position because in my opinion this is not a high probability set-up an the 4hr rhythm could be a little better. There's some support on the 1hr as well so....

donna:
welcome back
phillip :
i think the seccond entry (pull back to 21 )was better entry following by a TC which i post in M5 thread.

palmer:
i see usdjpy closed near daily low in wednesday night .i think this is not a good sign for ur trade ,beacause usdjpy tends to go high near swap changing time in wednesday nights.but still hope ur trade becomes profit.

Hi Phillip,
I am going through this thread from beginning (currently on page 130) looking for support and resistance.I like support and resistance confirmed by MACD to enter trade.I am curious if you use just trendlines, ema's, sma's or also use another system (like yours 5 min MACD or 1 min news) to support entry on 4hr MACD ? Or another pair ? I think it's good to have external support, like another system or pair to enter, for example when i am entering eur/usd trade i look to find some support in usd/chf (which is moving in opposite direction like eur/usd).
Sorry if my question looks stupid for some longterm participants of this great thread, i am newbie at forex.Also thanks Phillip for sharing your knowledges and experience with us.

Hey Copino. I'll answer some of this and I'm sure Phillip will add something as well. There are times when the 4hr/1hr is setting up for an entry either off of a trendline, s/r area, etc. and I'll refer to the 5min but only if the 4hr/1hr is a high probability entry where the 4hr rhythm is strong and price is approaching the 21 or another movavg that it has bounced off several times in the past. When referring to the 5min it's important to keep in mind that you are not trading the 5min but using it to enter on a longer term chart. What this means is you have to know the 5min just as well as you know the 4hr method. When is the 5min trend changing or flattening out? A losing trade on the 5min does not necessarily mean that the trend is changing direction on the 4hr. The 5min can be very quick for profits, within the same bar sometimes and there are 48 price bars on the 5min per every 4hr price bar, that's a lot of info to digest to get in early. This is why it's best to use the 5min (or any other lower timeframe chart) only for high probability set-ups on the longer term charts. I like using the 5min to get in on s/r breaks on the 1hr only if the break is in the direction of the 4hr rhythm...only in the direction of the 4hr rhythm.

Hope some of this helps.

OK:

I'm 1 pip away from hitting the 20 pip target. At a critical area here. Here's the 1 hr chart and using the current bid price line, look at the resistance this area has held. Just hit the TP of 20 so no positions open. Either way, curious to see how price reacts if this area is broken, my guess is that it will be a quick pop higher to at least the 108.20 area. See you guys early next week...

Donna welcome back!!! We missed you soooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry to be a pest, I pretty sure the answer is somewhere in this thread, and I have read close to about 150 pages worth, but I just found this thread about a week ago and I find this system very detailed and respected.

I would like to demo along with it, but I was looking at your setups and I notice Phil that you give specific setups on your Moving averages, and I use IBFX, and I was wondering are all averages based on the close/weighted close/open/linear/ or what not? Just curious, thank you and I appreciate all the help.

Raz

PS I guess anyone on this thread can answer for me, thanks!

Thanks Hookem

wow, famous donna coming back, welcome

I am glad you are reading the thread through. I had to read 900 pages, but its well worth it as it gets your mind around what is being traded here and how. It is the only way really, so good luck with that!!.


This is Phils template which has been posted several times now. It shows all the 4hr moving averages. If you load this it will show you what you want to know. Be aware also that alot of people here use a MIG mt4 platform because Phil uses it and we are all therefore on the same playing field. There are some platfroms using servers which do not count a weekend/Sunday bar and this will greatly affect the position of the moving averages on the longer time frames. I cant recall if IB uses a weekend bar but its worth checking so that you are reading charts that most people here use. It saves alot of confusion.

Meanwhile the Euro took a trip back to the 8ema and the upper trendline it broke last evening after interest rate news. I made +37 there on smaller time frames.