Why do we continually watch Price Action?

Why?

It's an addiction. Whether you admit it or not, watching price up and down, especially when we have an open position and money is at stake, we derive mental pain and pleasure and the brain reacts to both of these two extremes. Our brain's pleasure-seeking part is activated as we watch as the price goes up. At the same time, our brain's pain-avoiding part is activated in case price goes down, and vice versa. So be it up or down, our brain is hooked, and can become addicted as we are subconsciously trained to derive pain and pleasure from price movement.

But, I found this very early on, it would be more detrimental to your trading if you are glued to your monitor. You begin to toy with your SL, TP, and exiting prematurely or too late. You would mess up a good trade, or save a bad trade. The former happens much more often than the latter.

Regardless of where the price ends up, and assuming you've set up your SL and TP properly, there's nothing you can do about it. So since then, I'd rather enter at market or set up pending orders, along with the TP and SL, then leave the monitor. Then check back at the end of the day. On my trading history page, I either have a red color, green color, or black color (position is still open). At that point I reassess the whole situation. But I'm never glued again to the computer. There are way way many more exciting and worthwhile things to do outside forex.

I agree Ishtana. I trade the daily timeframe and use pending orders rather than live market trades as it helps to remove the emotion. So many people love to sit there and watch the market move up and down especially on the smaller timeframes, but whether you're in front of the screen or not, the market is going to move, so why waste your time watching it when there's other things to be doing. Trading isn't just about the money, it's about the lifestyle.

Granted, scalping the 1m chart requires the screen time, but so many newer traders start off by being glued to the screen when they need not be.

Some trading styles and systems require to watch. Just it

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Why not watch price action?

I have partially automated my system in that i don't watch the charts during the day.I get email alerts when price approaches/crosses my donchian channels or MA.That is when I study the charts to see whether the setups are worthy taking.

Its exactly the same as staring at the charts continually only difference is without going mental or getting migraines.

let the automation do the heavy lifting.The only time it sucks is getting alerts that my SL has been triggered!

I tend to make stupid decisions if I watch the price action on an open trade...

It`s become addiction also some trading style/strategy require to watch continuously…I think this why we continuously watch price action.

A bit old thread, but still... Most of us are 'set by default' to buy the lows and sell the highs. It just feels natural to catch the trend from the beginning rather than waiting for the perfect point to re-enter after confirmation and such cr@p. It's like being on a train station - you just arrive and see a train waiting - you assume it's the train you've a ticket for and jump in. You could wait for another train, but you don't. You just take your chances and hope you're not traveling the wrong way. If you are - what's the problem in changing trains at the next station? Think about that for a minute or two. You'll never spend more than 10minutes a day on the PC trading forex if you get it right.

Of course... But I think the concept is Why do we look if we dont NEED to...
My strategy calls for a quick review at NY daily close, seting up a couple orders and just leave it there.
But I do feel some kind of weird pain/pleasure derived from looking after the order has been triggered....

Boredom.

Well my humble opinion. Stating that some systems requires more screen watching than others (and this is a fact, not bad not good...simply a fact) and in this case maybe watching is PART of the system, generally speaking, i think PA is a well misconcepted thing. What i mean?
Some uses it to say others "see...my price action system works..BUY it", failing to admit price action is a very complex thing if studied in its fullness ..and they just use it as an example to sugarcoat the winning trades, hiddening the ones where the same "price action" miserably failed. But hey this SELLING individuals merit a place apart i believe.
Others as cleverly said previuolsy here, watch PA (candle forming progression it's the more appropriate term, in this case i think) in a compulsory way cause it's human nature believing to have always a "weight" in things, even just WATCHING things happening and having no power to intervene at all.

In reality price action works of course,simply cause human mind works not randomly, but following patterns (though in a stochastic way, in this case),so repeatable patterns is what we search. But it's not just recognizing a hammer candle pattern that this open to you the doors to heaven..PA is much more than this crap
I prefer using some systems that rely not only on price action (most of all if used in lower than D1 / 4H timeframes, to take decisions).
Of course PA (intended as tick chart movements) is the indicator that lags the less in absolute, but hey, as ANY indicator it can lead you to huge mistakes,too...whoever tells you price action never fails, well...run away! ..he wanna sell you something,probably!

That's why i prefer a set of other indi in addiction to price action. But this is just me...maybe, as a narrowminded dude said to me recently,i am just a "poor sod (that) is probably having nightmares on trading PRICE ACTION without indicators" hahah....fault that while he was stuck for a week and over, waiting for his price action to come, me WITH price action and WITH ALSO my indicator's based systems was banking money everyday, in spite also having very few time to trade due to dayjob commitments.

Just my half cent

1. Short term traders or scalpers

2. Time killers

3. "Let's play a small gamble before the real move starts at NY Open, London Close or until price gets to that key weekly level/fib, etc" thinkers

4. "Oh! this is what pa is trying to do right now, but let's zoom in/out to see how it reacted to similar situations in the past" thinkers......... "Forget about this, watch this other pattern, I think if it is played like this, provides a clear edge. Let's check other time-frames and other charts to see if it really gives a sold edge" Thinkers .......... "This pattern/tactic seems to work most of the time, now lets calculate the risk/reward that can be safely taken on each trade" Thinkers .............. "Oh! here this tactic would have failed for five consecutive times, let's revise the bet size and see if I can play these patterns without much damage to my account if this exception happens again" Thinkers

5. "Ok. This is how pa works, there is nothing in short-term trading, it is always some profit then some loss then some profit then some loss ............. If I play bigger term only one trade would be enough for a year. What should be my sl and tp for such trades? OK. Let's check the charts for all major pairs to see what happened in the past, how I would have made money from swing trades" Thinkers

6. "Wow! If I start with $1,600 and gain only 5% a month, which is not even 1/3rd of what I can make from my this newly discovered method, I will have over $10 million before my girl friend kicks my butt, provided I keep on re-investing my profits. There is nothing like power of compounding. Let's check the charts, how much I would have made, if I had started this just after leaving the college" Thinkers

7. "I wont trade or disturb any of my position, let's just watch what brokers are trying to do during this low liquidity time. But wait! something big is going to happen, it should not have breached this key level during off peak time, it makes no sense. Let's jump in with full force, this is perfect time to recover all previous loss in just one trade. So glad I opened my platform at this time. .......... Oh Shit! it is going the other way now and very fast" Thinkers and the next 36 or so hours remain glued to screen trying to save their accounts ................ but hear Friday's closing bells and later a margin alert from their brokers. Weekend is ruined.

8. "I will just test this new strategy on a demo and won't touch my live account until sure it works, no matter how many weeks or months it takes. I cannot lose any more money from my live account" ........................After 17 minutes .............. "Oh Yes, it works, it works perfectly, let's open a trade on live account" Thinkers ................... and rest 17 years of their life remain glued to their screen.

9. Holy Grail seekers

Howdy...I use PAT a lot and do well but it is one part of a confluence system...I use it to confirm an entry trigger that are at key points of resistance/fibs/pivots/prior points where price has plummetted or taken off and then news etc. So to say Price is everything has truth in it but not only PAT as it should be part of other factors...watching price all day can drive you nuts except for special points in the market. Trading is so much more a morphing and gut instinct that I sometimes find it hard to explain to myself let alone others!

watch PA when trades last 10mins. Watch PA to squeeze every last pip out of the market.

what about winners?

I really find price action trading helpful, and that learn to trade without indicators has cleared in my view of the charts up. Also i find these 2 sites very helpful. you guy`s also can take a look

https://www.forex4noobs.com/

http://www.theforexguy.com/

Lets Rock on trade without indicators

I dont know why everyone else watches price action
but i watch price action to see what the big boys are doing.

Its all about greed and fear.
The market moves with human emotion.
so if we can tell how the big boys are feeling then we will be able to make the big boys work for us.

PA! No ... has gone out of fashion.

PA ... does not exist in my charts.
I prefer to look continually for a mountain of indicators is much more fun and colorful.

PS: Indicator Action