7am-9am Big Dog USD Breakout Strategy

Rather large ranges on my favorite pairs. Obviously we missed major movements due to news etc. The only pair that looked safe-if you can call it that was Jpy. Not my favorite pair, but I made a small profit on a sell stop today.

I hope you guys had some green pips. I'm on the side and done for today.

Maybe we will get some good movement, or maybe we will just chop along. lol

Thanks Bob!

Hi all I have been trading the big dog for a while well opening ranges in general. I trade the big dog on the london and ny session with some slight variations. I am not trying to take over the thread or disrupt it at all, this is a great thread and I thank all who contribute. I am a scalper by nature, I have made a living scalping stocks in the day and then moved to FX. I figured the move to FX would help me with my patience and things like this would as well. It didnt, my trading personality and we all have one is that of a scalper. So I tend to tailor things to fit my needs.

So basically if there is anyone out there like me or somone who just wants to know how some others trade this I will explain a little of what I mean. Like I said I take nothing away from the BIG DOG , it is great and I wish I can trade it exactly like some of the rules but its not in my nature.

First off I am in the usa, so I trade on est time. I do trade the London open range which is 1-3 am est time. I also trade the NY range of 7-9 am. So once the ranger is set I zoom on down to a 5 min chart and play the break out, the initial breakout is the first trade I do just to hit the momentum. I only look for 10 or a little more pips or so. I do trade mulitpple lots so I could and do stay in if its an immediate runner. I also employ a tight stop loss almost one to one of what I am looking to make. so about 10 plus spread. So when I go in with a few lots , I expect it to momentum break quick and get me some pips and then quickly bring stoploss down to BE . If I get stopped fine I would have made a few pips. It could be a false break so I wait and if it breaks again quick I do it all again. I dont like to sit thru the heat, so I make sure I am in as little as heat as possible. So my tradwe frequency goes up but thats ok my losses are minimal. I then proceed to use the range that we established thru big dog as s/r line only those 2 and play the bounces and further breaks or retracements of those range lines. Now I am not doing this blindly. I do look for price action signals. So I just do not trade everytime, I look for the best signals that confirm with breaks or bounces of those upper and lower range lines. I do this all the way until 9am est time when the NY range has finished and then proceed to do the same thing with this range. So there is what I do. Its the same as BIG DOG just keep stops tight and keep trading. It affords me many oppurtunities and also good oppurtunities as well. I only look for the most proble chances to take. This way I do not fight my trading personality I adapt it to this wonderful strategy that we have in the Big Dog, as traders we need to adatp to everything even oursleves. There are times I wish I can trade off the 4hour chart but I dont have that type of paitence, I started trading on small timeframes and thats how it was engrained in me. So I go with the flow now.

I look forward to see where this thread goes and wish all happy and many pips in what ever way they trade! The big dog is definately a great way to trade , simple as well. I used to have every indicator you can imagine and paid for many holy grails in my time to find out there are none!! They only holy grail I see is your mind and disicpline, master that and you will do alright!!

Ranger

Nice post Ranger. I am new myself on this thread. I find scalping on forex to be the most difficult of all markets --due to sudden spikes and reversals. But if you employ the big dog, I can see how it may work --taking advantage of the breakouts. Do u trade anything else beside the forex market or anyother forex stratedgy. Or is the london and ny breakouts all u do? If so, you would need to be up all night and sleep in the day --something I cannot do myself. Hence I stick to ny.

With all the news reports coming out and Treasury Sec Geithner Speaking at 10am, I would say forget trading big dog for today --fri july 10th.

Any other opinions?

This is all I do so I get up at 3 and get ready for London breakouts and then on to the NY breakouts. Then a nap for the day I used to trade equities and futures but enjoy fx much better. Now yes sclping is difficult but I dont sit here for 1 pip at a time. Even though I am trading off the 5 min a trade can lst 30 mins for me as long as the price action is going my way and the trade is running. Even if I have small stops but I call a trade correctly it can run for a while. I do trade other types of signals, mainly doji /hammers/star formations along with the trend and some counter trend. Same R:R though. I trade them off the 5, 10 and 15 min time frame throughout. I just wanted to get something that gives me plenty of strong signals throughout the day, and that does. But I can say the best are the breakouts , I can usually trade them for a while off the bounces and retracements. Yes getting up for the London session is tough for me since I am on Eastern Standard time-NY Time. But I dont mind since it makes me money. Its like having a real job working the graveyard shift So I would much rather trade! Just traded the gbpusd for about 12 pips on the break, with a risk of 12 so 1-1 rr. Here is a snapshot. Now I didnt trade the the bars after the break which were a basic star or doji when it went back up to test the bottom of the range, normally I would short the bar following the doji/star and could have gotten another 8-10 pips but I was writing this. But thats how I do it. If I did trade the doji risk would have been the top of the doji which is 8 pips risk, and short price would have been as it breaks the blue body of the doji. The doji is highlighted in teel blue.

And the above is me trading the NY session break, once 9am rolls around I take off the London range and just trade the ny range. I trade the London from 3 am till 9 am. The NY from 9am later. I am still looking at having more charts with both ranges and see how they play out all day. We shall see. As I type this so far the gbpusd is the only one to break. Now it looks at if it had broke back into the range but I didnt trade it either. I dont trade every single break just good signals.

I scalp with 25pips TP(including spread) and the success rate is very good. My problem is where to put the SL. I really don't want a bad risk to reward trade.

I guess whatever you use to signal yourself to the trade, since I use the 5 min I expect my signal to go or I get stopped and my stop loss is very tight, but thats me. Its the hardest part on where to put the sl, I guess what ever feels comfortable to you.

Hi Ranger.

where is your entry for top of range/ bottom of range

bid /ask?

Forgive my newbie question but is your box the standard one hr before to one hour after? I'm in the central time zone and the NY session and after is my primary option.

Yes I use the 7-9am box on est time as I am in EST time. My lines from my box entend the entire day. So it will be there as I trade the rest of the day if I want to trade rebreaks of the box.

A user wanted to have an option for using the money management, here the small change.
.

I generally like to wait for the bid to hit the top of range if I am buying then will snag the ask, and on the downside I like to wait for the ask ti break or hit the lower range to short. I have tried it all but too many times the lets say ask has broken the upper range and I buy and then boom it tanks. But also if I feel the signal was very strong I might just buy the range price as soon as the ask hits it, but generally wait for the either bid or ask to hit the ranges, depending on direction like I said above.

Can you specify the London, Asian, US times according to GMT?
It will help everybody asking here.

I understand that US 2-hr frame is 7am-9am and GMT=4 (I'm in US, my broker is GMT).

What about London and Asia?

Maybee I can help you. This images shows market working horus in GMT+0

I believe your chart is incorrect. If 14 on the chart refers to GMT 1400, then you have the US market open at 10:00 AM EDT.

ny time is gmt+5 so 1400gmt is 9:00 in ny

I believe that NY is GMT-5
This map can help: http://www.worldtimezone.com/

This link http://www.forexmarkethours.com/ is also useful (make sure you set your time zone in drop down menu).

So I figured it out myself:
- NY market opens at 8am EST (1pm GMT) so the 2-hr frame we select is 7am-9am EST (12pm-14pm GMT).
- Lon market opens at 3am EST (8am GMT) so the 2-hr frame we select is 2am-4am EST (7am-9am GMT).
- Asia market opens at 7pm EST (midnight GMT) so the 2-hr frame we select is 6pm-8pm EST (11pm-1am GMT).

Hope it helps anybody confused.

I hope you start a new thread, this could develop into a rather long thread.