Staegger's Price-Action Trading

I have been trading FOREX for close to 2 years now. I have a little background in trading commodity futures but I have made FOREX my home for the past 2 years. I believe that this is the greatest job/business in the world and what drew me to this business was a combination of financial factors as well as the desire to "beat the market." I was excited when told of only a 5% success rate in this business so I took it up as a challenge, I realized that even if it takes me 10 years to "figure it out", the rewards from then on would be worth it.

Needless to say after a few blown accounts and sleepless nights, I believe I have come up with a way to trade that has a pretty high success rate (I won't go into numbers). I mainly trade price action on hourly bars and the duration of the trade depends on a number of factors which I'll explain later.

I have decided to make this into a journal so that I can keep track of my progress and whoever wishes, they may follow along as well.

Mainly, I place trades either at 7pm new york time and/or 1am new york time to catch the openings of Asian and European markets. I believe that's the prime time to be trading and the best chance of latching onto the beginning of a trend. The maximum trades on a pair on a given day would be 3. Any more than 3 trades on a pair in a day means one is overtrading and overtrading is the surest way to kill your confidence as well as your account. I mainly trade EURUSD, GBPUSD, EURJPY, GBPJPY and sometimes AUDUSD.

So let the games begin and I will post my first trade "call" on thursday evening around 7pm new york time. I will go into take profit and stop loss levels later.

See you then and let the journey begin...

First trade of the journal

GBPUSD S 1.6192 s/l 1.6210 t/p variable

closed half +15 rest at b/e

There were on good trades that I saw at european open today so didn't post any.

2 new trades...

GBPUSD B 1.6129

EURJPY B 127.69

S/L are 30 pips away, that's what I am testing currently...

EURJPY S 127.65 out +35 of half rest at b/e wow that was a quick drop

Looks like we are done for the day. I will be putting up some charts tomorrow with some levels to watch. I'm looking for some folks to jump in here and contribute to the discussion. Thanks.

New Trades

B EURUSD 1.4159 S/L 20 pips
B EURJPY 128.00 S/L 30 pips

Please see the attached charts.

I observe price action leading up to the Asian open at 7pm new york time. I then make sure the hourly bar opens and goes in my biased direction and then I enter in the direction of the trend. The EURUSD trade was cut short because of a little hesitation at the 100 ema. The EURJPY trade was entered too late and that was entirely my fault. That should not happen again. Please comment and let's get this discussion going...

So far all 6 trades have been profitable although the RR has been less than 1. That will be fixed going forward. I am very excited and looking forward to tonight.

However if there is no interest in my thread going forward then I'll be forced to shut it down as I'd hate to be screaming into an aether....


About the MAs: The red is 21 ema. Gold 10 ema and blue is 100 ema. I do not trade crossovers or any such nonsense. I strictly and ONLY trade price action and use the MA's as a guide to the trend direction. BUT the price action leading up to my entry trumps anything MA's is telling me. Please remember PA is king, take it from a guy who's been to hell and back...

And the most unfortunate thing.... Both trades have hit our tp's by now even though I got out early. Oh well lesson learned but we'll be careful regarding at least the 1:1 RR going forward, but trust me some trades will fetch you 4:1 or even 5-6:1 but we just gotta be patient!

I think we'll be in a lull until at least 12am new york so I'll check back then. Tonight should be a good night. Let's hope so :$ :Y :E

hello staegger,
do u also use candle pattern like Pinbar, engulfing harami?
how about R&S from higher TFs like weekly ?

good trading,
MJurban

hi staegger,
Trade : audusd short on demoaccount using ure setup (i hope so) after reading this thread
Reason, trade away from the ema(100) after fail to make a new high but break thru the ema(21).

Welcome to the thread MJurban. And yes that AUD trade looked good. I missed the entire move because I was away and was planning on getting back in time for the european open. It's not nice when markets make these kinds of moves and you are away lol but it's arite, there is always tomorrow.

Ill post some more charts if I see a potential trade.

Again welcome!

No trades at asian open today, I'll post the charts later.

Seems like our standing on the sidelines was vindicated today. Hopefully we'll break out of these awful ranges at the euro open.. Keep your fingers crossed.

Great. Thumbs Up for PA trading

hi staegger,
do u use candlestick as this example eurgbp the rectangle is a HighClosedDoji it says buy on the close or on the next open after a new closing high is made from the previous doji candlle high, especially when the market is against a key pivot point support target number.
so in the book "candlestick and pivot point trading triggers" from J.L.Person
eurgbp there is not much room to the ema(100), only 7 or so pips so no trade for me now

Thanks for the vote of confidence Kingfisher, I hope to see you contributing in the future!

MJ, I don't normally trade EURGBP so I don't really have a good grasp on its movements but if you see that big rally off the lows and draw the fibs, you will see that the retracement of that rally stopped dead at 61%. But if you expand the chart you will see that the high of that rally was actually the end of the 61% retracement of the big drop from .8791. So at this point I would be on the sidelines as there is no clear direction.

This pair has slapped me numerous times before so I quit trading it. This and usdjpy I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole, but you are welcome to post charts and I'll post my comment as best I understand the situation.


As for right now, my decision to stay on the sidelines earlier was vindicated as today's range has been awful which is understandable after yesterday's drop but hopefully we'll get a good opportunity at euro open. As I said earlier I look for 1-2 trades A+ setups per day, that's more than enough to put food on the table. Happy trading.

Here is my analysis.

GU: Haramis after haramis!!! The bars have been getting smaller and staying inside previous hourlies for the past 3 hours. I'll go long above 1.6160 and short below 1.6124. However I'll wait for confirmation of break of the range before committing.

EJ: Still in a range and I don't believe this is a valid downside break yet, there is very low momentum. I'll wait till the 12am ny bar closes before committing.

GJ: Similar to the EJ. I am not committing before the actual euro open.

EU: Just Awful range looks like it's sleeping and isn't interested in any action. I don't usually trade EU all that much, unless I see a confirmed break.

Looks like I was wrong and the break on EJ was genuine. But all is not lost yet, it'll come back to test support now turned resistance at 126.00 and maybe we can go short then. Even though we missed the boat this time, there'll be other opportunities as euro hasn't even opened yet.

Stay tuned and let's make some damn pips!

And MJurban I don't think I responded fully to your earlier question. Yes I definitely look at S&R but I look at it in a little different way, I am not a great teacher but as we go forward I'll try to explain it more. As with pin bars and harami bars, yes I look at them as well but I am more concerned with the context in which they occur. Meaning if they were at a high/low or if they are in between the noise. The harami bars occuring today on GU are within a valid range on that pair so unless it breaks a support lower I marked higher than that I am not going long, and similar wit the short's story.

Hopefully that answers your questions, and keep 'em coming!

Alert!: ON GU, it broke 1.6124 but I DID NOT go short. I don't believe there is enough momentum. So even though I said 1.6124 to go short from, I also mentioned the context in which I would, i.e. close to or after euro open.

Wanted to go long on GU but it was a counter trend trade so avoided it. Everything else looks like its trying to make a bottom. Today has been a very confusing and unpredictable day and we've been on the sidelines all day. In hindsight yes I do see some great potential trades that could have been taken with a max 20-30 pip risk and would have paid off handsomely on the way down but hey that's the name of the game. Better to protect your account on days like this. Tomorrow I will be in front of my comp a little extra early to go over today and mark up the potential trades so you'll have plenty of time ahead of the target price to decide to take a trade. Let's go from there. See you all tomorrow.

New trade:

GBPUSD S 1.6140 s/l 30 pips t/p variable