4 Hour Strategy (MACD)

Nice trades to you too....

Should not have opened my mouth. Cable +50pip 15min candle. Moved my stop to B/E on the rest of Euro to lock in the profits from first half. Benny is due to speak in 90Mins so I may end up taking a loss on cable....wait and see.

Regarding Palmer's H1 entry , I have some questions regarding the timing:
1.we can see in the pic , the 5 averages are for a while , in order.
2. in order to enter , the distance between the 8-21 should be minimal ?
3. In point A , the price retrace to the 21 , can this be a possible entry , or it is cancelled because of the green macd ?
4. At the point of entry the macd is still green ...
5. At the point of entry, we can see a very long period of consolidation ...
the price is flat (can go to any direction)...ADX <20 .Is that the setup we are looking for ?
6. It is safer to enter when the price is between the 8-21 like in the entry point ? The price has lost the momentum
7. do we need to move all the time the SL between the 8-21
8. where is the TP in this case according to the system ? S/R ?
Tks for the help of everybody
David

Hi bs
Can u pls explain your entry .
Why exactly at the point you did enter.
I see it's away from the 21...did u wait the price to break a support line ?
What do u mean when you said "some of u have TC" ...that's because of differente brokers time , or because different interpretation of TC ?
Tks
David

[quote=david4u;2548191]Regarding Palmer's H1 entry , I have some questions regarding the timing:
1.we can see in the pic , the 5 averages are for a while , in order.
2. in order to enter , the distance between the 8-21 should be minimal ?
Remember: the original method for the thread is the 4hr for the 4hr charts and Phillip did about 2 years of study for this timeframe and zero study time on the 1hr charts. The 1hr is more of an aggressive entry so the actual rules might vary per trader. My main reasoning is that the 4hr is bearish and I'm just looking for an entry point. There are various indicators that would give 'some kind' of signal to make a trade. My main 'indicator' is the 4hr trend itself. Weakness in the 1hr either by an bar turning back to red or weak price bar might be enough for me.

3. In point A , the price retrace to the 21 , can this be a possible entry , or it is cancelled because of the green macd ?
It depends on what the 4hr is doing during that bar but there has been no backtesting with pullbacks to the 21 on the 1hr.

4. At the point of entry the macd is still green ...
5. At the point of entry, we can see a very long period of consolidation ...
the price is flat (can go to any direction)...ADX <20 .Is that the setup we are looking for ?

Not necessarily. The entry is where the -DM crossed back above the +DM, still in bed the signal before that...
6. It is safer to enter when the price is between the 8-21 like in the entry point ? The price has lost the momentum
This hasn't been backtested..
7. do we need to move all the time the SL between the 8-21
If you are using the 4hr as the trend, then stops should be place accordingly for that chart, not the 1hr
8. where is the TP in this case according to the system ? S/R ?I
I take profit along the way. This was a big drop so if I go in with say 1.5 lots then take one out at .5 at 20 pips, another .5 out at 40 pips..etc. and let the last .5 run per the 4hr. It's your money so those rules are up to you. You can do the same with 1.0 lots or .3 lots....

hello eveybody,

Sorry I was away and I couldn't post this morning.

I also went short yesterday @ 1.2580 and my first target of 25pips was hit and my second target of 1.2505 came just 5 pips shy. I do think we have a good chance of getting to 1.2300.

Palmer,

I watched the USD/JPY as well and I am kicking my self this morning as well. I was already in the EUR/USD trade so I couldn't get in there as I did not have positive pips on it at that time.

As far as patience, this is the perfect example of patience until there is a clear direction............

In response to trading full time...........

Is this why many of us get into trading, in hopes of one day being a full time trader........Lets define what is a full time trader? Does it mean that you are trading 9 to 5 or that you are glued to the monitors all day?

Well I believe many of us get into trading because we have a passion for it and also we can taste the freedom it can provide for us one day. This can be very delusional especially in the Forex market. Making money everyday with a few pips seems such an easy task while still 95% percent of traders fail at it. It is not that they are not good traders or don't have a passion. The main reason is that they do not respect the market and it's laws. By that I mean, the market is its own entity, no one can predict it but we can however over time study its movements as they tend to repeat themselves (pull back to the 21 or bounce off of a major support or resistance line).

Trading full time or as I like to say a trader, one has to also take into account his expenses or the family's. This will give you a base to how much is needed for one to produce those results to be met. What I mean here is that if lets say you need and right now are making $2000 a month and that is sufficient for you to maintain your lifestyle, bills, insurance then that could be a starting point to see whether you can make that as a trader.

In my opinion, if you live a lifestyle of having to earn $10/15 thousand a month, this might be hard to achieve without a big startup capital and lots of stress because you are then entering into trades blindly as you will look for trades and not let the market show you the trades.

If you need to make just a few thousand a month to meet your expenses, then I believe this can be a great career to get into. My opinion though is that when you just do this then you tend to be at home a lot and can't help yourself looking at the monitor all day and this can cause you to enter unnecessary trades. Being away from the computer is very helpful as it allows you to refresh and to be alert when you come back.

I think the best way is to have a part time job outside of home and you will have plenty of time to enter trades when you are off, so working 30 or so hours part time not only will make your life easier financially as you are not solely counting on making pips and also it gets you away from the computer and your office where you can do other chores other than trading.

This is my ultimate goal as a Trader.

Hi Palmer,

OK thank you so basically look for the Rhythm as in a strong trend and then look for pullbacks to the 21... only the 21? With this in mind I would imagine that the entry trigger from the macd would be a Trend Continuation Pattern then or a High Low/Lower High... these are Patterns that go with the trend?

Looking at the charts actually it seems to me that the macd would only really show the trend continuations on pull backs to the 21... is that right?

sorry...but pls dont hit the panic button because the price didnt touch the 21 and someone went short.when the trend is strong, the rhythm allows you to take tc on the 8 MA,look at the december, the price was riding on the 8MA...you can save a couple of pips in the entry when you make it in a smaller time frame...
like palmer, his entry accords to the 4H trend/rhythm so he switches to the 1H to get the confirmation that the 8MA hold in this case as a resistance and enter....

Hey Daytrader,
Palmer was using the ADX as entry information. As i can see it.
"Red -DM" crosses the "green +DM".

Have a look at this one:
http://www.fxtradeblog.com/onehour1.html#introduction

Closed first two lots +25, +50 respectively. Letting last lot run.

first look at the daily chart ,price breaked the TL to downside and once it did it ,i was waiting for an entry
now at the H1 chart ,there is no pullback to the daily broken TL so i should consider it as a fast moving market the wait an entry ,maybe some breakout type enty ,and i did it after price camed out of range area with a TC in H1 and crossing -DI to upside of +DI.
and yes ,the TC signals are aliitle difrent in H4 chart in diferent brokers.

OK:

It might be time to take a time out here with a little background. I won't get into making my first trade in corn futures some 12 or 13 years ago but let's look back within this thread a little....

This might take a few posts but stick with me here....

Before even looking at the 1hr entries I was only paying attention to the 4hr charts. After about a year with the 4hr charts I started looking at the 1hr charts to try to narrow things down a little. 4 Hours can be a huge amount of time in the FX market. Waiting for the close of that 4hr bar can seem to take forever. When it finally does you finally get in only see to price to start immediately moving against you, you get stopped out and then price returns in the direction you wanted it to go. That's trading, it's all part of it.

Looking for entries within that 4hr bar takes time to get a handle on. I think the most important part is to recognize the fact if the 4hr chart is trending at all. Given the method here I think the best way to determine that is yes to look at a chart but also to take into account what the moving averages are doing. Take a bearish trend for instance. We want to see the 8 and 21 below the 89 but to also to have a constant separation between the two. A downtrending slope to the 89 is nice also but this can take some time to catch up to these faster moving averages. Look at chart 1. The vertical lines are from 1/29 20:00 through 2/3 20:00. Both faster mv avgs are below the 89 with a nice separation between them, this is a strong downtrend. If you're waiting for the MACD to give a signal to get in, the vertical red line, you'll be waiting for a long time.

Now chart 2. This is the 1 hr chart. Take a look at the ADX and how strong it is with the -DM greater than the +DM for almost the entire run and how the MACD is below the zero line. Now look at the red vertical lines where the MACD turned back to red after being green for 1hr entries during this time...good stuff here. This is the BladeRunner method that is on the website. Towards the end you see where the price here closed above the 21 for the first time in a long time = warning sign here. The -DM ticked above the +DM for a probable entry but here the MACD is now just above zero. The MACD on the 1hr stays above zero on the 1hr here and now price is haading toward the 21 on the 4hr and eventually closes above the 21 on the 4hr = probable move to the 89 = pullback in longer term trend = no short trades especially on the 1hr. But, you must actually either be in front of the charts ( or awake ) during runs like these for these entries. You don't know when they are going to start or end, that's trading. Let it begin and get established first..how long or how many bars ???? I don't know, you have to let the charts to tell you, that's it.

Stops: Somewhere according to the 4hr rhythm maybe avove the 21 or between the 8 and 21. It's up to you, take profits...the same, it's up you.

This is the waiting game now. Price hits the 89 here on the 4hr and the MACD form a RT to the down side with the 89 serving as resistance here but that candle is about 150 pips in range. This is where limit oders on the 4hr work well. Not on the 1hr becaue I think it's better to let the trend find its direction again and getting in on the 1hr when a RT is forming could be difficult, just my opinion. I'd rather pass on this altogether and let the moving averages clean themselves up.

I don't want to turn this thread into a 1hr entry thread per the 4hr method. This will confuse the hell out of any new faces that might (are) showing up. Before considering taking entreis on the 1hr understand the principles of the 4hr rhythm, trend, mov avgs, trendlines, channels....Don't skip right to the 1hr entries. You're going to throw your money away. You MUST STUDY the 4hr charts. I spent about a year with them first.

Another downtrend but look at the volatility in the 4hr with the price coming back and forth between the 8 and 21...not cool...

And the 1hr shows the volatility as well...

Here the moving averages are bearish but to movement between them, stay away.

Gotta run...no really. About 4 miles...

Again, take in the 4hr charts for a lonnnnnnng time before trading the 1hr. I'll post the 5min pdf only in the 5min thread after I get the 'ok' and won't talk about that here.

time:

I am planning to be a fulltime trader myself...but yeah...I won't spend 12hrs/day in 5 days trading/week eitherway. That's why Phillip himself like the h4 timeframe too...right?

My annual gross salary (if converted from MYR to USD) is only about USD3500...more or less. That is worthless for a smart person like myself and all of you guys here in this thread. So...being a fulltime trader is my ultimate goal.

And yeah...I will fill my free time going to gym (I love physical exercises) and selling fresh water fish (as my part time business) and etc etc. These are my dreams. FREEDOM. I do not want to be bossing around by someone else anymore...I want to enjoy my life...no work pressure...only "a little pressure" to get as many pips as I can every month. But hey...no worries...I have this method to back me up.

So guys...nothing wrong being a fulltime trader...as long you have a very good Money Management....

Great information Palmer,

I hope many new comers can take the information Palmer so kindly summarized and I want to emphasize the word summarize as it would take many days for Palmer to try to explain every little detail on here. But as many new comers and I was one myself, if you go through the first page and go through all the posts and the charts, believe it or not, you will have a very strong understanding of what this method is about and just by following the daily posts we all contribute, you will soon have this method to heart and every thing will make sense and that is when you can progress to the more aggressive entries such as the 1H.

I know as humans we are usually very impatient and by looking at some PDFs and by listening to some MP3's we may believe we are good to go but we are still as blind as we were as we do not know how to interpret all those information.

From experience, it took me almost 2 months to go through all the pages and posts and I still believe that if I go through them, I am sure I missed a few along the way. After that I demo tested for 50 trades which took me about 2.5 months and I still wasn't an expert. Then I went back and took my losses in my 2.5 months to see what I did wrong and how to implement a business plan where I would not have to leave anything to change or guesses. So I started to create a plan to when to enter and exit according to the method I have learned and this method can be interpreted in many ways as everyone's daily free time is different than others, so maybe one can make more pips as he is home more than others.

This being said, knowledge and education does not end and I am still so grateful of all the great contributors on this forum who have kept this method as original as it's inception and very few forums are arranged this way as many perish over time as many different methods are viewed on one forum. I am very glad we have not deviated from the first day and I myself am learning everyday as I post as well as when I read all your posts. Many times when I believe I have the right S/R lines and trend lines, then I see a post from someone on here and I see a new S/R line where I would have normally missed.

My advice is to truely take the time, and go through all the posts, back test the method so you can truly see the price action around the 8, 21, and 89 moving averages and how to interpret that. Back test and set your plan to a few signals of high probability signals to take and this method will produce positive pips.

I have since reduced the amount of signals I take from the MACD and I am at a point where I probably can still enter the same trades without looking at the MACD and solely on the price action around the 8, 21, and 89 and the S/R and trend lines. Macd is solely secondary and as many have addressed on here. Even Phillip in his MP3's has numerous times emphasized that you do not take a trade solely on the MACD signal but it is a source of signal where it just takes the guess out of when to pull the trigger. As Welshguy2000 stated it perfectly on his pervious post as the MACD is only used for pulling the trigger after all other preparations have been taken.

This method might not be for everyone but there is many things you can take from this method and add other elements to it as I see others do on this forum, many incorporate the 1H and even the 5 min and there might be others that implement other strategies to it. Just remember this is not a system where you enter here and exit there, it solely teaches you how to interpret the market and then you can create rules and strategies of when to enter and exit but the foundation around the method can be used and is used by many types of traders.

Hope this helps slightly

Orange,

I am completely there with you my friend. You hit it exactly on the nail. I myself would like to be a full time trader but I am ways away from it. I am however getting closer everyday. The dream you have set for yourself is a very realistic dream to obtain and the dream of having that FREEDOM is why I have dedicated myself to fully adapt a plan to be a FOREX trader. And to have your part time business not only benefit you emotionally and psychologically but also monetarily and it might not be direct but that time away from trading and your income from your part time business will allow you to make trades with calm and precision and with fewer distractions and stress thus leading to more of a profitable outcome.

Also to many newcomers, as Orange stated and many before him have as well, the importance of money management and its importance. It is more important to manage your losses than to look for winning trades. I learned this very early the importance of managing your losses far exceed managing your wins.

As the saying goes, DEFENSE wins the game. and that cannot be further from the truth when it comes to FOREX.

P.S. I could sure use a nice fresh water fish right now my friend.

well said mate,my fellow malaysian.

pop

Price retracing back to the 8ema on the EUR/USD and same as the USD/JPY after that up move, price retracing back to the 8ema so I will be watching.

I banked 75 pips on the EUR/USD with one lot still open, might look to add to the position here and also watching the USD/JPY