Forex Strategy - A

Point : 1
When you are just starting out, strive to carve out 20 pips per session, and that’s it. Then, turn it off, and study some more. When you get really good at it, you can then “graduate” to higher returns. So, set your goal at 20 pips and stick to it, until you are a grand master at this wonderful “business” called forex trading. I stress the word business. This is not a game, especially where your “hard-earned money” is involved.

Point : 2
When you first start out in any particular session, look at the 1 hr chart to get an overall perspective on trend from one session to the next, and what it’s likely shaping up to be at the beginning of the upcoming new session.

Point : 3
Only look at the 5 min chart if you absolutely have to see what’s behind the current 15 min bar – especially where the bar is elongated, and may have just penetrated a pivot point; in other words, is price reversing course on the 5 min chart, which would obviously not yet be reflected on the 15 min chart?

Point : 4
Don’t dwell on the 5 min chart, as it contains a lot of “noise” that will whipsaw you to death

Point : 5
MACD rules on the 15 min chart. Even if MACD is, say, trending up on the 1 hr chart, if it is trending down on the 15 min chart, that’s what you take your cue from. That’s not to say a shift in price direction is not in the works. It just means it’s coming, but not yet. In the meantime, you don’t want to miss what’s happening “in the now,” which is what is reflected in the 15 min chart

Point : 6
If MACD is trending down on the 15 min chart, and price is wanting to go north, price will sooner than later head south as it perhaps bounces off a pivot point, or gets turned around at a juncture caught by one of the other three “tools” you should be using (“reading bars,” MACD divergence, or trendline analysis). Same thing if MACD is trending up, and price is trying to head south.

Point : 7
Only use MACD for divergence, not for buy or sell signals. It is a lagging indicator, and as such is useless as a trigger. It is too slow for that in the forex world.

Point : 8
Again, MACD divergence on the 15 min chart is more significant than what you see on the 1 hr chart in the near-term. For those of you who don’t understand what divergence means, keep looking at my own personal forex trading examples on this page on a daily basis for examples of divergence. Basically, what it means is where you see MACD waves “waving” in the opposite direction to price action. That’s why I connect the top of the waves (in a downtrend) and the bottom of the waves (in an uptrend) to illustrate that the waves are “waving” higher in an uptrend and lower in a downtrend – in the opposite direction to where price is going.

Point : 9
Always “protect” your money by using 20-30 pip stops. Mental stops are okay, but not if you are dead serious about using a “disciplined” approach to managing your money. You will lose three out of ten trades. The three losses should be kept to 20-30 pips. Your wins will by far surpass your small losses, and that’s what stop-losses are all about.

Don’t be afraid to lose. Even professional batters strike out six out of 10 times. Lions are only successful 20% of the time in their chase for the kill. Professional golfers lose 95% of the time. Professional poker players lose 50% of the time. So, your chances are better at trading the forex, using my system of course, than in any other venue. Even businesses have “bad inventory.” And, life in general is not always “100%” for sure.

Point : 10
That all said and done, if you entered a trade close to a pivot point, or a particular significant bar pattern (like a double top, for instance, or a trendline breakout), place your stop on the other side (but not too close to) the event that caused you to take action. This is because price has a tendency to snap back to that situation that caused it to bolt away from it in the first place. If you follow the 20-30 pip stop rule, but a 33 pip stop on the other side of that event would safeguard you against such a reaction, then so much the better. So, yes the stop rule is 20-30 pips, but within reason of course.

Point : 11
Stops (read “stop-loss”) are for insurance purposes only – not necessarily for taking profits. However, you can most certainly employ “trailing stops,” whereby you keep moving your stop up (or down, whichever the case may be) to protect your profits, as price advances, or declines.

Point : 12
Only use “reading bars,” MACD divergence, pivot points, and trendline analysis in your forex trading toolkit. That’s all you need for this market. Be a technical bigot. Focus on pure technical analysis, and avoid funnymentals. Even news is factored into price action, so you don’t need to be up on it each and every nano
second.

Point : 13
And now for the tough part. I know my documentation says that the forecast low and high for the next trading session can be M1/M3 or M2/M4. However, trading is shades of gray. It is not a black and white business. If it were, the world would be paved in gold, and everybody would be rich.

Now, we wouldn’t want that would we? The forex would be nothing more than a Church at the end of a road connected to a river bank at the other end with nothing in between. The point I am trying to make is that the “actual” low and high for the next session could very well be any combination of M1, M2, M3, and M4. It could be M1/M4, M2/M3, or combinations of the other five pivot points.

The M1/M3 and M2/M4 calculations are just guideposts, but are not poured in concrete. Price is the number one indicator. It will determine what the low and high are going to be. And one other thing, you should use these forecasts in conjunction with the other three “tools” in your forex trading toolkit – “reading bars,” MACD divergence, and trendline analysis.

In other words, if price has been trending down from the past session into the current one, price is trading at, say, M3, and price is still going down, then M3 may very well be the high for the new session, regardless of the fact that my system may have called for M4 to be the high. So, use the pivot points in conjunction with other three possible signals – “reading bars,” MACD divergence, and trendline analysis.

I have seen it happen, as in the example just given, where price was trending down from one session to the next right through M3 at the open of the next session – simultaneous with the formation of a “double top” bar pattern. Well, there you have three indications that price was headed south for sure. And, I believe MACD was also trending down in that particular case. So, that was another clue that the high for the session had probably already been put in.