The Trader's Academy - by Traders for Traders

French elections a sell signal long term for the EU no matter who wins.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...s-of-who-wins/

Someone was asking how I plot my fibs, so I thought I'd re-post this brief old post where I explain this with a chart.

" To answer your question, my fibs are always plotted from the most recent major low or high on any time frame, so the 76.4% fib level for the long entry posted above was taken from the low at around 7.50 am you can see clearly there on the 1m chart.

I've attached today's 15m chart for the dax to show you how the 76.4% level came heavily into play today as well, though certainly the 200ema also presented a big support level. That's what it's best to do when looking at the day's support and resistance levels, try and combine the fibs with other areas of potential support and resistance such as moving averages.

Today's low 76.4% was plotted from yesterday's low to yesterday's high, and the high was plotted from yesterday's high to the low at 1am this morning' Also notice how on the chart the 100sma ( dark blue/orange dotted ) came over the top of the price. I posted this earlier today on the Carpe Diam thread, warning people who were going long to be careful as the price usually reverses back up towards a big Ma like this before dropping again, and this is exactly what happened again today. "

Quick S&R for Dax traders. Pressure is building on the down side for sure, but we have Draghi today.

I've got R at R1 today, which I have at 12,771, and that's quite a bit one as I have a key MA there, and the 61.8% fib as well plotted from the lowest high on Monday, and above that my tops today would be the 76.4% at 12,802.

Downside forst off it's the 30 200ema, which sits just above S1 which I have at 12,679.

I'm hoping for a pop up at the London open for a possible short entry. Final Support today would be the H2 S3 pivot level @ 12,587, which sits on the 100sma. Markets should fall, but whether or not they do today remains to be seen.

H1 100sma @ 12,696 could hold it as support as well.

This has been said a million times and more, but it is always worth repeating and remembering.....

NEVER TRADE WITH MONEY YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE!!!

When trading live, we should consider the money in our trading accounts as already lost, because this should not be money we actually need for any other purpose except trading. and the worse case scenario which is blowing an account should not be a disaster since the money was already lost anyway.

Only in this way can we trade freely and effectively, unencumbered by the emotional fear that kills traders when they are trading with money they cannot afford to lose.

If I had to choose one piece of advice to give to an inexperienced trader, it would be this.

As usual, I have been watching the threads with interest and I wanted to put this piece of advice here. I would not advocate using short term strategies if you are a long term trader. If you do not trade full time, then you are a long term trader. If you trade part time, then D1 timeframe and up should be your focus. Trading from work, or from your phone on timeframes shorter than this is generally a bad idea I think. Trying to transitions from a job to trading is why 95% of traders lose money. You cannot afford to be distracted. Many traders on this site are trying to trade while doing other things. This will cost you money. This is what I would tell a newbie trader also. Great thread cat!

Thanks jmn...very useful advice!

" Trading is all about control..you only have to have a slight edge to make money. Provided you trade tight, are 100% disciplined, and take every trade that your signals provide, anyone can make a killing in this game. Even 10 pips a day, with 1.5% risk, will give a 100% return every 4 months. Problem is, people don't look far enough ahead, they want a great return every single day, when all you have to do is wait for the set ups and keep chipping away with modest, consistent profits. 95% of people can't trade like that, which is why they lose. "

I sent this to a good friend of mine who has been struggling but who is now really beginning to put it all together, and thought I'd also post it here. I say this not because I consider myself to be some kind of trading sage, but because I know it to be true.

sure it is

the amount not efford to lose wont make u living with trading

Going into the weekend, a few words for all those people out there who are beginning to doubt whether they'll ever make a success of this business.

There has never been a trader I am sure who has not many times questioned their own ability- it is part and parcel of the learning process.

Learning to trade is a roller coaster, just like price action, only there are many more downs than ups for the first few years, but gradually, the more we learn, the more the ride flattens out until finally the ups outweigh the downs. It doesn't matter how long this process takes, and certainly some of us catch on faster than others, but success is achievable, of that there is no doubt, and pay no attention to the 95% failure rate, because the majority of those are the get rich quick fraternity, those who give up because they are not millionaires after a couple of years or so. Learning to trade takes considerably longer than that.

For me, my way forward always lay in the charts. I knew if I could fully understand price action and work out with at least some degree of accuracy what makes price move where it does, I had an excellent chance of becoming a full time, profitable trader. It is my firm belief that anyone who manages this will make it as a trader, for this demonstrates the ability to learn a new skill and the determination one needs to succeed. Yes, there will be fear of losing, and a host of other psychological challenges that we all have to overcome, but the hard earned knowledge and experience that years of studying and trading give us should be enough to overcome all of these.

If you're not there yet, don't worry , you will be provided you stick with it long enough and know what you're doing wrong and what you need to do to fix it. If you don't know what you're doing wrong, then it's easy, you just haven't been doing it long enough.

Your a great guy cat.. I hope maxed out fun for you this weekend...

Thank you ensale, very nice of you to say so. Same to you.

I'm probably repeating myself here, but this is really important.

You have to know your weaknesses as a trader, and formulate a strategy for overcoming them.

If you find yourself getting stopped out a lot, or being on the wrong side of the market, then it's obvious you need more screen time. Why is this happening and what can you do about it?

If you have no trouble reading price action, but your entries and exits are poorly timed, then this is the area you need to work on.

Whatever it is, all traders should make a list of their strengths and weaknesses and aim to eliminate the latter, whether they be technical or psychological.

The best traders are usually the most organized, methodical types of people, and they work through each challenge systematically and objectively, identifying what needs to be learnt, improved upon, and eradicated. They tend not to allow the emotional challenges of being a trader, of which there are many, get them down, for each one is just another inevitable hurdle to be overcome on the road to success.

Erratic, disorganized, short term thinkers make terrible traders. The best traders always take the long view...they are patient, organized, methodical, and very very self-disciplined.

So like me but i'm not the best.

"I have the $ index coming down perhaps as much as 1000 pips over the next few weeks. Very bearish set up on weekly." Feb 23rd on this thread.

It's currently just above the 61.8%, so there many be a reaction off of this, but I am expecting it to reach the Weekly 200ema @ 9,320, though whether it does or not remains to be seen. It's certainly very bearish anyway as it stands at the moment, as bearish as the euro is bullish.

A word about using multiple time frames.

I know many people trade off of just one time frame, and some very successfully so. The advantage of this is that there is nothing else to complicate the set up you are looking at, and this can be a blessing.

I though use several time frames, and although there is the added complexity this sometimes creates to ones trading, I believe it is well worth it for being able to determine the full picture throughout the day as far as the most likely areas of support and resistance are. Using the multiple time frame ( mtf ) approach, far more accurate reading of the charts can be obtained once you have learned which time frames override the others.

I put that last statement in bold because it is very important. Because the different time frames you are using will very often give conflicting information ( which is why many people don't like mtfs ) it is essential that you know which ones to pay attention to. In fact, I would actually say that until one learns how to use mtfs so that they compliment each other as opposed to confuse, it makes trading much more difficult than it would otherwise be trading off of just one or two time frames, but once learnt, it is well worth the trouble as it will improve timing and accuracy not just with the entries, but with the exits as well.

Having said that, there is one important point that I would make, one that for quite a long time cost me a great many pips, and it is related to the uncertainty that the mtf system often creates. As you will know if you have followed or read through this thread, I trade down to a 10 or 20 second time frame, the next one being 45 seconds or a minute, then 3 mins, 10 mins, 30mins, then H1 and H4 to get the bigger picture for the day. Very often when using such a system, there will be a perfect trading set up on the smallest time frames, so say on the 15 and 45 second, but the 3m and 10m will be opposed to this. In such a situation, one must look to a higher tf to see where the price is, and very often there will be a level of S&R, usually a moving average, which may be on the 30m tf. So the 3m and 10min are showing down momentum, the 30m is showing support, and the 15/45 secs are showing the green light for a long trade.

In the past, I would often be put off going long by looking at the medium time frames, mistakenly thinking that because they were bigger, they overrode my smallest ones, and I could often not bring myself to pull the trigger, against momentum, going on 30m support and what my smallest time frames were showing me. This was usually a mistake as the price went shooting off, through my 3 and 10m down trending moving averages to an area of resistance on the 30 m or H1 time frames.

This move against momentum though, is actually a pullback, which , so it goes without saying that when trading against momentum like this, you must also be ready to exit the trade so that you can then trade back with it as soon as the signal is presented to you

So what I am saying here is that if you do use a mtf system, or would like to, a signal to trade on the smallest time frames will usually be worth taking as long as there is some reason for taking the trade on one of the bigger tfs, even if the next couple of higher time frames indicate that this will be a trade against momentum.

Like anything in trading, it's all about getting used to it all until gradually, piece by piece, whatever system it is you use all begins to slot together.

ps---candles are also very important, and I forgot to mention this. A trading opportunity will normally be advertised by candle formation, so although I said above that the 3 min and 10m time frames, what I call my medium intra-day time frames, may be opposed to taking a trade, the 3 min especially may have already put in a couple of hammer candles on or not far above the area of 30 min tf support, and if so, this would greatly add to the probability of the trade opportunity. As I've stressed many times in this thread, it's not the single signal we are looking for when we trade, it is almost always a combination of signals we are looking for, and the more experienced we become, the more adept we become at spotting them.

pps..I've attached a chart which demonstrates the kind of example I refer to above. The bigger time frames, so this one here which is the 30m, and also the 1 and 2 hourly tfs, all have the 200ema/sma above the price, which to me indicates that the main moves are going to be going away from them, that is , south. But, there will be pullbacks, such as you see here off of the 30m 100sma, which take the price back up to the 30m resistance area, which will also be a great place to short from for the big trade of the day, all the way down to the 61.8% fib level, to then give, provivded you're not trying to hang on to your short, another opportunity to go long, and a perfect hammer candle was provided here on the 30m chart which would have been a sin not to take.

the bolded part is everything... I think for those that eventually succeed at this job, both the technical and mental side develop along the same pace, as one technicality improves, the mental side also improve (the faulty side of a technical knowledge forces the mental state to evolve and vice versa).I have noticed this in my journey so far...i consider myself a very stupid one cos i have been doing this thing for like 8 years now, and all i can tell is that i see improvement in myself mentally and my understanding and reading of the market have been improving...I started off with indicators thinking that i have the holygrail (this can be seen from some of my threads), but over the years my charts have become cleaner, my mental state is becoming more relaxed, and am steadily becoming a trader that i truly want to be.

"Price is the same on all time frames".
I learned that from an ADVANCED ALIEN CIVILIZATION
Multiple time frames" are an ILLUSION.
All time frames are different slices of the 1 tick chart.
No more, no less.
Believe what you want.
Green pips to all.
Cheers.