how to use pivot points?

the problem am actually having is that i am not quite sure where to place a buy or a sell using a one hour chart with pivot point. it is quite confusing bcos some say you buy below the pivot point while others say otherwise.
secondly, you have resistance lines and support lines , if price action is above a resistance line say R1 do you buy or sell. pls help explain, thanks.

OK... first of all, you don't start a brand new thread each time you have another question about the previous one... you reply in that one.

Secondly, I would suggest you enable either your PM or email for ease of contacting you on some of these replies if you're serious.

Thirdly, there are no simple hard and fast rules on pivots ((and very few other things for that matter)), the market simply doesn't work that way. You still have to develop a feel for what is going on and a sense of where that pair is in the bigger picture depending on your trading style.

If you had actually read my posts on that subject (not to mention almost anything else), then you would already know the answer to your "buy or sell" question...

If it's in a hard up trend for instance, then selling above this or that pivot or S/R line will almost certainly not work unless you simply just "luck out." That will be apparent the next 100 times when you don't "luck out" using the same "strategy"... and then you'll be Gone.

If you're just looking for a "red arrow/green arrow" thing", neither pivots or anyone else will be able to help you until you get the Basics down.

Until then "Good Luck" with your trading (you'll need it)...

...or I'd read thru Help for Newbies. What can you learn on Forex Factory? and http://www.babypips.com/school/ before going any further, and come back with different questions when you're done.

Hi guys,

I have a query and hope you can help me with ths. I trade on 5-min chart, thus i plot my pivot lines based on intraday-high and intraday-low and previous day 5pm EST closing.

Question is: Once the intraday's high and low are broken, do I redraw ALL my pivot point and Support/Resistance again, as the intraday high and low will determine the PP and S/R?

Thank you!!!

If I understand you correctly, then I would say no. In a narrow range day, the following day could easily break both the previous HOD and the LOD w/o exceeding your pivot range if correctly calculated. That's what they're for. I use S3 thru R3 and the M1 thru M4 pivots on EU and they work very nicely. I've also used the same method on UJ and GY with similar results and the trading TF does not matter.

You first need to decide when your "day" starts. I calculate mine from 5pm EST and all pivots are valid for 24 hrs until 5pm the next day whether exceeded or not. Period.

Thanks for your reply mate. I'm in Australia, thus my "time of the day" may be different from yours. But still for discussion sake, I use EST.

My new days starts from 5pm EST too. So the prior day closing price at 5pm EST is my closing price. I'll then use the new intraday high and low (ie. after 5pm EST) to calculate the pivot lines (ie. point, S & R).

Assuming R1 (eg 1.4005) is calculated to be above the intraday high (eg. 1.3996). Later on, the intraday high suddenly breaks above the R1 I've calculated earlier (ie. new intraday high is now 1.4012).

Do I wait for a while more and take the new intraday high of 1.4012 (while using same intraday low and same closing price) to calculate a totally new set of pivot lines (ie. point, S & R)?

Cheers mate!

What are M1 thru M4 pivots?

Those are mid-points between R2 and R1, R 1 and PP, and so on.
They become important when the major pivot points are spread far apart (at least 40-50 pips in my experience)

You can read all five parts starting here or just skip to part 2. Discussion on pivots is welcome at The EU redux thread as well. I don't really follow this thread as all of these questions so far have been asked and answered elsewhere multiple times on much busier threads.

For more current discussion check out The EU Redux thread where I usually hang out or acumen and eyevoltage's Psych Levels and Pivot Points thread .

Acumens site is a good resouurce as well which I linked to somewhere in my Pivot posts above.

hi guys i appreciate your contributions on how to use pivot points. i think one's success in pivot points really depends on the particular trade pattern(i.e using it together with some powerful indicators).