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Risk Management

The Truth About Trade AccuracyA critical component relating to trading success is the relationship between your win percentage and your bottom line. Many new traders hold some extremely inaccurate views when it comes to what kind of win percentage is required to generate net profit, including the notion they need a 70% or higher win percentage to achieve success. This notion is wrong and misleading. The relationship between your win percentage, your risk management, and the profit you generate from each trade are intricately related. The beauty of this post is that the backtest logic in our Olympus Cloud indicator showcases the concepts covered with real trades, which is shown under this post in the data section. The Positive Win Percentage A win percentage over 50% is regarded as a probable edge or edge. Yet, even with a 60% win rate, you can generate a net loss. How? If your average loss is $100, but you are in the habit of falling prey to your emotions and prematurely selling your winners so you only generate an average of $50 when you win, you will lose money regardless of your 60% win rate. No trader goes into a trade thinking, “Hey, I’ll lose $100 if I’m wrong and I’ll make $50 if I’m correct.” Nevertheless, random wins of $75, $25, $60, $40, $90, and $10 will average out to $50 per win. No one purposely tries to win half of what they lose, but random trading combined with random emotions produces random results. We all desire winning and making good profits when we take a trade, but as emotions come into play, things quickly change. You may take a trade that reaches $75 in profit and then decide the move looks gassed out, so you sell. On another trade, you might get scared by some volatility, or notice a resistance you neglected to spot initially and sell for $25 of profit. It is all too common to fall prey to your emotions and behave in a way you didn’t plan to. The irony is, that you will regard the $25 trade as a winner, and it will raise your trade accuracy. Let’s look at a simple example: Example: 100 total trades with 60% trade accuracy 60 winning trades at an average of $50 per win = $3,000 40 losing trades at an average of $100 per loss = $4,000 Net loss of $1,000 In the example above, your break-even point is a 67% win percentage for a whopping $50 in profit. With this type of random risk and profit management, any meaningful net profit requires a win percentage upwards of 75-80%. The psychological damage of having a higher average loss than an average win is hard to quantify, but it’s easy to feel frustration when one loss wipes out two wins. While this sounds like common sense, many, many new traders fall into the habit of random profit management and find themselves in this undesirable situation. The same theory holds true even if you let your winners play out, but you also let your losses escalate and take a few big hits to your account. In either scenario, your 60% win rate means nothing. The Negative Win Percentage In the case of a negative win percentage, you can produce a net profit even if you are correct less than 50% of the time. In this scenario, your advantage over the market is getting into trades that consistently provide large gains when you win, and by letting those winners play out fully. Furthermore, you can’t hesitate to cut your losses and keep your drawdown controlled. With this kind of win rate, you must not sell early or your entire business model falls apart. You must understand that the big winners will make up for any profit you leave on the table. Let’s look at what happens if you are correct 40% of the time, but your average win is $100 and your average loss is $50: Example: 100 total trades with 40% trade accuracy 40 winning trades at an average of $100 per win = $4,000 60 losing trades at an average of $50 per loss = $3,000 Net gain of $1,000 It is now clear that win percentage is not everything. You can make money even if you are correct on 40% of your trades as long as your average win is double your average loss. The smaller your average win compared to your average loss, the higher your accuracy must be to make a net profit. Of course, if you can maintain a win percentage over 50% while also having proper risk and profit management you will end up far ahead. Putting It Together Clearly, the best approach is to combine a reasonable win percentage of over 50% with proper risk and profit management. You must consistently let your winners play out regardless of the emotions you feel in the moment and ensure you don’t take losses beyond a certain threshold. Furthermore, scaling out of trades – selling portions of your position as the market moves in your favor – will increase your accuracy and ease your mind. By dividing your position into two or three tranches you can lock in a certain amount of profit at predefined targets and then let the final portion ride out the trend with a trailing stop-loss. Revisiting our example, let’s put these concepts together with a reasonable win percentage: Example: 100 total trades with 55% trade accuracy 55 winning trades at an average of $100 per win = $5,500 45 losing trades at an average of $50 per loss = $2,250 Net gain of $3,250 Now, that’s what you want to see! It’s more important you behave in a consistent manner and follow a predefined game plan than it is to have 80% trade accuracy. It is wise to strive for reasonable trade accuracy – 50% to 65% – and remain consistent in order to fulfill your trading potential. After you have mastered your emotions with a consistent strategy, perhaps you can raise your win percentage to mythical values like 80%. As we have covered, though, such accuracy is not required for great trading results.
AMEX:TANEducation
by Level8Trading
1
STEP 1 to MASTER TRADING: Hindsight trading. Train your eyes.A common mistake that traders make after learning any kind of trading setup is jumping into backtesting using a replay tool, or even live trading. However, if you think about it, trading is very much about pattern recognition. And when you force yourself into live trading without a proper understanding of what your patterns look like, most likely you’ll need much more time to succeed. A different approach and much more effective would be using hindsight, that’s when you see what actually happened. During this process, try to find at least 50 high-quality setups, that represent your trading system. So you actually see everything that happened and find situations, where your edge played out, document it in your journal. That’s great training for your eyes and brain. You don’t need to guess, you will not feel anything, because you already see what happened, you’ll notice that sometimes your edge, your system doesn’t give you entries and price goes without you, sometimes, you’ll see a loser or a breakeven after your entry, start to get used to this, as it’s all part of your system. After that, you'll have a much better understanding and vision for your setup - and that could be the time to try some backtesting and forwardtesting. I’ll talk more about a different kind of backtesting in future posts. Meanwhile, take care, send your questions, and comments, will be glad to chat with you. Dima
Education
by Yelli_trades
1
Trading Insights #1: Probability & Random DistributionDebriefing In this mini-series, we take a look at what it takes to become a successful trader. The Trading Insights series focuses on concepts rather than analysis and will attempt to get you on the proper path to your trading goals. We believe the ideas contained in this series are the proper base to help you become a professional trader. We define a professional trader as an individual who makes consistent profits month after month, only takes controlled losses, does not succumb to momentary emotions, and does not experience outsized account drawdowns. In the shown example, controlled risk and consistent profit management ensures success. Intro Probability combined with random distribution is an important and often overlooked concept when it comes to trading. Mark Douglas brought the idea of random distribution to many retail traders with his book “Trading In The Zone'', but he is certainly not the originator of a concept rooted in data science and statistics. Our goal is to compress and synthesize these ideas so you’ll have a good understanding after reading this post. Traders who say things such as, “you need to make a large number of trades to make money”, or “don’t let the losses deter you from making more trades”, are ungracefully or unknowingly referring to probability and random distribution. Probability To understand how random distribution relates to trading we must first cover some basics of probability. If we flip a fair coin there is always a 50% chance the coin lands on tails. Each time we flip a coin the likelihood of landing on tails is identical, despite the fact we could flip heads five times in a row. This means the possibility of heads or tails turning up is unrelated to the previous flip. The result of each flip is random relative to the last flip due to circumstances we cannot control, such as the pressure applied to the flip, the airflow in the room, the landing spot, and numerous other factors. Let’s now pretend we rig the coin and change the likelihood of flipping tails to 55%. The same rules govern our new rigged coin – the result of each flip is unrelated and random in relation to the last flip. By rigging the coin in favor of tails we have not changed this fact, but we have tilted the outcome in our favor over many flips. In other words, if the rigged coin is flipped enough times, we will get more tails than heads. The increased probability of flipping tails is reflected over many flips of the coin, not on each individual flip. Random Distribution Once we understand the basics of probability, random distribution is simple to comprehend. If the result of flipping a rigged coin is unrelated to the last flip then the flips that produce tails are randomly distributed throughout a set of flips. For example, a sequence of flips could go: H,H,T,H,T,T,T,H,T,T – there is no discernable pattern in relation to tails turning up. Over a set of flips, however, our rigged coin lands on tails more often than heads. The increased likelihood of the coin landing on tails is reflected over many flips, not on each flip. What does all of this mean in real terms? Individual random events have a consistent outcome over a set of events when the odds are tilted in one direction. Relating The Concepts To Trading 1. Over a series of events where many unknown forces influence each event, the outcome of each event is unrelated to the previous event. In trading, this means the outcome of each market pattern is not related to the last instance of that same pattern. If a pattern results in a winning trade it does not mean the next instance of the pattern will also produce a winner, or vice-versa. 2. Over a set of events, the events that produce a favorable outcome are randomly distributed throughout the set. In trading, this means any attempt to predict which instance of a pattern will produce a favorable outcome is a waste of time. When you attempt to predict which instance of a pattern will produce a winner, you are saying you know what will happen next, which begs the question, if you can’t read the minds of the people who have the financial ability to move prices, how exactly do you know? Hint: you can never know exactly, despite the fact you can guess correctly from time to time. 3. Over a set of events, tipping the odds in one direction means the increased likelihood of a certain outcome is only reflected over many instances of the event. In trading, this means you need a pattern or strategy that tips the odds in our favor, but you must view many instances of your pattern or strategy to see the desired results. In other words, you must not view your trading exploits from trade to trade, but rather, over a sequence of many trades.
Education
by Level8Trading
2
A simple trend-following strategySo I like to trade without speculation, but if I do decide trade *with* speculation, then this is a way that I like to do it. This is my version of the Turtle trading strategy. I really don't know or care what their specifics are, because I just don't have the patience for anyone who unironically trades daily timeframes. My version of this strategy is all about finding momentum candles that breach support and resistance and then giving them room to grow. So... first thing's first. Once you've decided on your level of risk, then under *no* circumstance can you break that during this process. I cannot make this any more clear! If your risk is $15, then it's $15 from start to finish. If it's $1000, then it's $1000 from start to finish. This way, as you follow the trend, you create a scenario for yourself where your wins (which will in all likelihood be less frequent than your losses) will be very big wins. We're talking like 15:1 ratios on a 1 minute chart wins. Now, because you have to stick to your level of risk, that means you have to get your math right when you're dragging around your stop losses on multiple tickets. If you have 4 buys in different positions, you have to get your exact stop loss level correct for all of them so that your total risk doesn't exceed what you risked when you started this trade setup. So the rules: 1) You enter on the close of a momentum candle (and a momentum candle *only*) that breaches a recent support or resistance. This is a break of structure and is indicative of a potential reversal. It does not mean the price is reversing, and it is likely you will lose this trade. You stop loss goes underneath the momentum candle, and that's how you'll measure your risk for the first ticket. 2) You only add to your position on momentum candles that come after a pullback. You're not looking for Fibonacci numbers or anything, but just look at the exact candlesticks. You want to see a conscious effort from your opposition trying to drive the price down, preferably with some consolidation candles that follow afterward. Then, when you see a momentum candle following the trend you're trying to ride (preferably with little to no wick in the trend direction), you add to that position. 3) You repeat step 2 until you have a ratio that you're happy with, or if you see a break of structure, as in a pullback pivot point being exceeded. That's it. That's the entire strategy. It's simple and effective, but it will only make you money if you're disciplined and stick to the rules. With that said, let's have more examples... I think I messed up in this picture actually - there's a break of structure right at the top of that first wave, so I probably would've seen the writing on the wall and would get out. The only reason one might stay in on this logically, is because the downward pressure isn't momentous. Identifying momentum is extremely important to this strategy. I would highly recommend mixing my non-speculative strategy in with this one so that you're not losing money by waiting (missing out), getting frustrated and entering on bad setups, or having to feel like you've taken a loss simply because you were wrong. My non-speculative limit order trade plan fuels my account to make these kinds of trades.
Education
by WinkleTrades
2
HOW TO SET STOP LOSS | 3 STRATEGIES EXPLAINED 📚 Hey traders, In this post, we will discuss 3 classic trading strategies and stop placement rules. 1️⃣The first trading strategy is a trend line strategy. The technique implies buying/selling the touch of strong trend lines, expecting a strong bullish/bearish reaction from that. If you are buying a trend line, you should identify the previous low. Your stop loss should lie strictly below that. If you are selling a trend line, you should identify the previous high. Your stop loss should lie strictly above that. 2️⃣The second trading strategy is a breakout trading strategy. The technique implies buying/selling the breakout of a structure, expecting a further bullish/bearish continuation. If you are buying a breakout of a resistance, you should identify the previous low. Your stop loss should lie strictly below that. If you are selling a breakout of a support, you should identify the previous high. Your stop loss should lie strictly above that. 3️⃣The third trading strategy is a range trading strategy. The technique implies buying/selling the boundaries of horizontal ranges, expecting bullish/bearish reaction from them. If you are buying the support of the range, your stop loss should strictly lie below the lowest point of support. If you are selling the resistance of the range, your stop loss should strictly lie above the highest point of resistance. As you can see, these stop placement techniques are very simple. Following them, you will avoid a lot of stop hunts and manipulations. How do you set stop loss? ❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section. Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by VasilyTrader
86
1% risk per trade is too much, try this insteadHello traders, Remember when you just started trading, almost everywhere you could hear about the 1% per trade risk rule? While this is not too bad, I think in most cases 1% risk is too much. Here's why: 1. If you're trading a 100k prop firm account, 1% is $1000. Imagine you have a very usual losing streak of 3-4 trades. Now you've lost 3-4%, and $3-4k in dollar amount. If you're a day trader, it could happen in one day easily. Ask yourself honestly, how would you feel about it all and if you will be capable of executing your edge? 2. Most prop firms will have a 5-10% drawdown breach rule So again, a very usual losing streak will take you halfway to account termination. 3. 1% risk leaves almost no room for days where you executed poorly or traded emotionally. We are all humans and we make mistakes. Something goes wrong and you trade the setup you were not supposed to be trading. And instead of stopping after 3 losers, you continue to trade more. So what can we do about it? My suggestion is very simple: risk no more than 0.1-0.25% per trade. If your average winner is 3-7RR, then with a good account size a 1% winner is just huge and more than enough. And if you're going through the evaluation process, such a small risk will keep your equity curve in control and still will allow you to grow it to profit targets. Hope it helps!
Education
by Yelli_trades
Weekly Quote | 7 Rules of a Consistent WinnerHello trader, here's a quote from the great book "Trading in the Zone". Hope you'll find some inspiration or maybe even practical advice here. I'm a consistent winner because: 1. I objectively identify my edges. 2. I predefine the risk of every trade. 3. I completely accept risk ($ risk, risk of not being right, not being perfect, being wrong, losing money, missing out, and leaving money on the table). If not - I am willing to let go of the trade. 4. I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation. 5. I pay myself as the market makes money available to me (take partials). 6. I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors (emotional pain or euphoria). 7. I understand the absolute necessity of these principles of consistent success and, therefore, I never violate them. Best Regards, Dima
OANDA:XAGUSDEducation
by Yelli_trades
2
Trade setups I would take and how to manage riskJust like this. Buy and sell limits above and below structure, as in the most recent highs/lows, with your TP in general being a return to structure. Brutally easy way to scalp and make money. Few more examples... This one shows where the stop loss might be. In general, I go with a 2/3 or 3/4 type rule, where I'll have a wide cluster of limits, then a gap, then a hard stop that closes all of them. Just in case. Your order clusters should be wide enough with this strategy that it almost never gets hit. Regular market movement should not be hitting your stop loss. That kind of behavior should generally be reserved for news events that catch you off guard. Now as far as actual risk goes, this is entirely determined by you and no one else. There's no single correct way to do this. A lot of people are dead set on the idea that you should never risk 10% of your account, but how big is the account? Is it $10,000? Is it $100? If it's $100, why not risk $50+ when the odds of a loss are very low? On EUR/USD, you might have a hard stop loss of 50 pips with 15 tickets separated by 2 pips each. Each ticket would be 1k (0.01 lots). If 1 pip on a 1k is $0.10, then a 50 pip stop loss is $5. Your second ticket is 2 pips away, so that loss would be $4.80. Third $4.60, and so on. It's doable, right? Maybe the price dips 20 pips into your counter-trend limit cluster, eating 10 limits. Then the price returns to the support or resistance near your starting point, and you decide to close all of your tickets. The profits from that would be $2.00, then $1.80, then $1.60, and so on. That might not seem like much in comparison to the stop loss, but consider this: your stop loss will have a 0-5% chance of ever getting hit. It's straight profit. And it's constant, and consistent. I cannot stress that enough! You can be doing this all day long. So, what if you want to follow a trend in this manner? It's the same deal, really... just throw limit orders below (or above) trending wicks. Like this: It's all just structure. You bet with structure, and you bet against structure. At all times. You only require a 50% retracement from your starting ticket in order to break even. If you even feel uncomfortable with what's going on in front of you, it doesn't take much for you to get out safely and start over with a new cluster of limits. There is absolutely nothing wrong with closing out safely. You'll be trading so frequently you aren't even a little bit obligated to let things "play out". Maybe you don't like how quickly the momentum built into your cluster, and it retraces down to the 50% area so you wanna break even, but then you start laying more limits above and below because you believe that momentum is likely to slow down. I'm gonna tear down a phrase that I'm sick of hearing: the trend is your friend . The trend could be the worst friend you've ever had. Sometimes he's really cool, and he's the life of the party. But he really likes hanging out with you, especially when nothing is going on. He really likes to wait! He doesn't exactly value your time, and he's perfectly content sitting in a chair next to you watching paint dry. He smacks the remote out of your hand when you try to turn on the TV. This trend guy can be a real jerk sometimes. You also suspect he might be bi-polar, because sometimes when you get excited to do things with him, his mood shifts the moment you open your mouth and suddenly the fun has been sucked out of the room. That is the trend. On some pairs like USD/JPY, a trend can go on for a very long time, and there's a lot of money to be made. The problem is it is speculative . You don't know where that trend is going to end. Nobody is clairvoyant, and most people will make incorrect guesses. If you simply remove this requirement of speculation, where you have to be "correct" in your guesses in order to make money, you will do better in almost any market. If your goal in trading is to make consistent money, then the trend is not your friend. He's an acquaintance at best. You have to associate with him in business and that's about it. You spend just as much time associating with the counter-trend, because you should be doing business with both of them constantly. Now, on the other hand, if your goal is to invest (AKA gambling), that's a separate concept entirely. You're trying to grow a tree from a seed when you invest, and there's nothing wrong with that. But most people cannot live off of it. You can't even order pizza with your investments until they come to fruition. A trader can make consistent money every single day, without knowing or caring where the market is going or what it's going to do. Price continues trend, price retests, trader makes money. Price reverses, price retests, trader makes money. That's it . No waiting for retarded "key support levels", no waiting for "confirmation", no speculation, no technical analysis. Just raw risk management, getting in and out of the market quickly and constantly. Now, the one downside to being this kind of trader is you generally can't do this easily with the basic tools provided by your platform, meaning you would need scripts, EAs or whatever in order to quickly deploy limit clusters. The tool I'm working on allows me to drag a horizontal line on the screen, and I have a panel of buttons that do interesting things. I can click "Sell limits" and a whole bunch of sell limit orders appear just above the line. I can move that line again and click "Adjust TP", and the take profits for all of those orders will appear right below the structural retest point I'm targeting. I have buttons to close profits, to close pendings, close all tickets... it's just the bees knees. This is an MT5 EA, which most people won't be using, but I trade on CryptoAltum so that's what I use. I will leave it here for free. Lastly, have some limit order porn. Every single rectangle is a place where you could've had limits that got filled and made money. On really strong trends, you might notice that the retracement only returns to around the 50% point of your limit cluster, but you'll notice how uncommon that is and how easily you could've gotten out with little to no loss. A lot of the time, I won't even restrict myself to structure (swing highs and swing lows) even though that's the most reliable way to do it. I'll literally just put limits above and below any wick because I feel like it and I can make a profit in all likelihood. ...Anyway. I hope you enjoyed this write-up. Leave a comment if you did, or have any questions!
Education
by WinkleTrades
The easiest way to make money tradingI'm going to show you one of the simplest, and most effective ways to trade. Period. Just about every other type of trading is speculation; this is not. This is making money regardless of where the market goes, and you don't even have to have a clue as to what the market is going to do next. I repeat: you do not need to know where the market is going to make money . In these pictures, every rectangle represents a cluster of small limit orders getting filled, with the anchor point (starting place) being a wick rejection. That's it! You'll notice that in almost all of those cases, the retracement from the limit block exceeds 100%, meaning 100% of the limit orders in that block are profitable. You only actually need to see the price retrace by 50% of that block to break even. This is why I laugh when people say "the trend is your friend". The counter-trend is your friend too. The market is your friend. You don't have to know where the price is going, and you can make money in either direction as long as you're placing your limit orders in a way that goes with the flow. You're trying to capitalize on liquidity 100% of the time, and liquidity is really, really common. You can literally place trades based on every single candle if you want to! If there is a wick, you can trade it. Even if you're wrong, having tiny limit orders spread out through a cluster based on that wick means your hard stop loss would be hit rarely. You should still definitely have a hard stop loss, just in case a doomsday scenario comes. So imagine you have a $2000 account. On a 1k (0.01 lot size), 10 pips is $1. Let's say you have 100 limit orders, separated by 1 pip each. 50 of your limit orders get hit, and then the price retraces by 50 pips. Given that your average entry point would be 25 pips (the halfway point), you would have made 25 pips profit on a 50k, meaning $125 profit on a very high probability trade. In those pictures, even the big moves don't hit all 100 of your limit orders, not at once. Not even 50 all at once. I'm not saying that doesn't happen obviously, but the probability of it happening is very low in relation to how frequently you'd be making profitable trades. So what you do is you either commission a script or write your own to deploy all these limits very quickly. I'm currently having one commissioned for me in MT5 which works very well. I can drag a horizontal line that serves as an anchor point, deploying x amount of limit orders with y distance between each other, z order sizes (0.01). I can even have them all share the same stop loss and take profit, or have SL/TPs a specific distance from each individual ticket. I'd show this stuff here, but TradingView doesn't like pictures coming from the outside. If you use metatrader 5 and would like my tools, feel free to message me. I'm not sure if I can edit this later, but I hope I can... I tend to rethink things a lot and hate having to finalize something. Anyway. I hope this helps.
FX:XAUUSDEducation
by WinkleTrades
10
Guide To Trading USDCADIf you are an investor interested in any currency pair during NYSE trading hours, the USDCAD should be among your priorities. Ranked among the top 5 most traded currency pairs on the platforms, the USDCAD represents a significant volume in Forex trading. Such a pair offers excellent profitability possibilities because the daily trading volume is considerably high. Learning about the technical and fundamental aspects that make this currency pair move price is a must for successful trading. Essential information related to the USDCAD. Once you acquire the knowledge, you will put it into practice and profit from it as soon as possible. Fundamental aspects Like other pairs in the FOREX market, the USDCAD is firmly anchored to international commodity prices, especially oil. Canada and the United States are among the countries with the highest oil production levels in the world. In addition, Canada’s leading oil export destination is the United States. Therefore, a rise in oil prices will hurt the US dollar and positively affect Canadian dollar. Conversely, if oil prices fall, the pair will tend to rise. Canada is also a significant exporter of materials and commodities, such as wood, grain, and minerals. Being so close to the US has strengthened the import/export industry in Canada. In addition, it helps the currency maintain a stronghold in the foreign exchange market. Changes in interest rates and policies to help increase the employment rate are other aspects to take into account. The announcements are made by the Central Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve of the United States. Changes in interest rates and policies targeting the increase in the employment rate are other aspects to consider. These announcements are made by the Central Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve of the United States. The essential thing in this aspect is to be attentive to the dates when they will meet because, during those days, the volatility of the USDCAD pair increases considerably. Because they are firmly related economies, data on economic growth (GDP), industrial production (PMI index), and consumer demand for goods are highly relevant. As a result, it can cause significant volatility spikes in the pair. Profiting from the wrong policy decisions of some countries is possible. One of the examples is the fall of the US stock market and real estate market in 2008. In addition, the banks’ recklessness in lending non-stop throughout the 2000s resulted in a crash. However, Canadian banks were spared because they did not follow the same policies as American banks. Different strategies can be applied based on technical analysis since it is a very liquid pair, especially during the hours of higher volume. Typically, during the opening hours of the NYSE, a more significant number of transactions takes place, thus increasing the volume in the pair. Canada and the United States have different economic structures. While Canada leans toward more liberal economic policies and strict immigration regulations, the US depends on the economic boost of educated and talented immigrants to enhance the workforce. The USD benefits from a much larger volume of trading activity, as well as the presence in virtually every primary global industry. It may seem that the US and Canada are very different. Still, their geographic proximity helps traders, making trading USDCAD easy. Performing back testing and analyzing all the aspects we have mentioned will give you a better view of the market and increase the probability of success in your trading.
Education
by Anbat
8
Pairs You Trade? What Sessions Are Open When You Are Trading?What Pairs Should You Trade? What Sessions Are Trading When You Are Up? * Use Your Commonsense!!! The best forex pairs for you to trade will depend on many factors: What time of day you will trade Whether you are interested in making a long-term investment to achieve larger profits or are happy to scalp smaller profits many times each day Your knowledge of currency, the forex markets and global economies Should you trade (example) USD/JPY pair when Tokyo is in session? Yes, because half of the pair is in session and both volume and liquidity is moving markets during this time. AUD/USD pair when Tokyo and/or London sessions are open only? No, because Sydney session has closed and New York has not opened yet. EUR/JPY pair when London and/or New York Session are open only? Yes, for overlapping London/New York session, but no once London session closes. USD/CAD pair when Sydney, Tokyo or London is open only? No, because both sides of these pair are open during New York only- so trade only during NY. In my opinion and one of my rules is: at least half of the pair needs to have current session open and trading, if both parts of the pair are in session (say: Tokyo and London overlap (EUR/JPY pair) or London and New York overlap (EUR/USD)- that will give you the most volume and liquidity in these pairs, thus movement in the pairs is much easier. In Forex: Commonsense is a must, Patience is a must, Risk Management is a must and knowing what sessions are open and giving liquidity & volume is a must.
Education
by Anbat
6
Understanding Forex Risk Management (Trading Depends On It)Forex Key Takeaways The forex market is among the most active and liquid in the world, with trillions of dollars changing hands between different currencies. Still, there are many risks that a trader must be aware of and how to minimize or mitigate those risks. Because forex trading operates with a relatively high degree of leverage, the potential risks are magnified compared to other markets. This Is Now Speculating as a trader is not gambling. The difference between gambling and speculating is risk management. In other words, with speculating, you have some kind of control over your risk, whereas with gambling you don't. Even a card game such as Poker can be played with either the mindset of a gambler or with the mindset of a speculator, usually with totally different outcomes. Know The Odds So, the first rule in risk management is to calculate the odds of your trade being successful. To do that, you need to grasp both fundamental and technical analysis. You will need to understand the dynamics of the market in which you are trading, and also know where the likely psychological price trigger points are, which a price chart can help you decide. Once a decision is made to take the trade then the next most important factor is in how you control or manage the risk. Remember, if you can measure the risk, you can, for the most part, manage it. Example On 4 hour attached chart: $10,000 account, risking 2% per trade or $200 & your trades are 1:1 (risk/reward) & 70% win rate. So, the first rule in risk management is to calculate the odds of your trade being successful. To do that, you need to grasp both fundamental and technical analysis. You will need to understand the dynamics of the market in which you are trading, and also know where the likely psychological price trigger points are, which a price chart can help you decide. Once a decision is made to take the trade then the next most important factor is in how you control or manage the risk. Remember, if you can measure the risk, you can, for the most part, manage it. HOW much money would your account have at 100 trades? . If you can not figure this out- then you are NOT ready to trade Forex for real- doing simple math goes hand in hand with success in Forex for the long run.
Education
by Anbat
4
'Trading Psychology: 'The 3 Levels of your Game'Hello Traders, As we know trading is one of the most challenging professions in the world and not only do you have to do your research and own due diligence on a technical aspect, you must ensure your mind/emotions are on point as it is the most common reason traders lose money in this industry. I wanted to share a bit of information from a mental and emotional standpoint about breaking down the 3 levels of your Psychology Game. . No matter how skilled one trader is, everyone has an area that could improve and everyone will make mistakes. The 3 main mistakes we as traders make are: To summarize this chart, the differences between 'B' and 'C' game is that in the 'B' game you have the impulse or thought to make a 'C' game mistake, like closing a trade too early or forcing a trade. Instead you retain the presence of mind and emotional control to avoid it. In your 'C' Game, your emotions are too strong and you cannot stop yourself from forcing trades or cutting profits short. While in the 'A' game, the impulse or thought doesn't happen, or its too small you barely notice. Your goal to as a trader is to eliminate and correct your performance errors that cause your 'C' game. You cannot by escape how much of the gravitational force 'C' game has by focusing on improving just your trading skills and knowledge. You will continue to make the same errors (possibly different ones, but errors are errors) which will create a level of excess negative emotion in your mind. Creating and plan of emotions to examine & review on a daily basis will help you correct your failures and fill you with a different type of emotions, happy ones. By writing down your thoughts of what is going on before, after and during, you start breaking down the backend of your trading and your decision-making becomes much easier and more confident. Creating a plan of your emotions could come with a variety of things, some of the most common ones to watch out for are: -Trigger (eg. Swing trading forex) -Thoughts (eg. I can't believe I got stopped out, it has to go up!) -Emotions (eg. I want revenge on any trade that I lost which I know I should have won!) -Behaviors (eg. Overly focused on one position) -Actions (eg. Constantly looking at P/L) -Changes to your decision-making (eg. I need to get my money back, I need to trade more) -Changes to your perception of the market opportunities or running positions (eg. Your going off prediction rather then reaction) -Trading Mistakes (eg. I'm taking the same trade over and over, until its clear I'm getting no where) Journaling down these emotions and also reviewing them on a day to day, trade to trade, basis, will help your trading game improve and make you become much more successful. I hope this has given a brief insight on how trading psychology plays a huge role in our careers, please leave a comment and share what level of game you are! If you felt this has shared some good information, please hit the like button and follow me for more of these! Thanks Trade Safe!
COINBASE:BTCUSDEducation
by ktlfx
1
Position Sizing StrategiesPosition Sizing Traders spend much of their time looking at charts and analyzing using technical or fundamental analysis, or a combination of both. While this indeed is a very good thing to spend time on, not all traders take their time to focus on risk management, and more specific position sizing. I see a lot of new traders or old traders which trade only to have their accounts blown up by taking random positions with no plan whatsoever. Proper position sizing is a key element in risk management and can determine whether you live to trade another day or not. Basically your position size is the number of shares you take on a trade. It can help you from risking too much on trade and blowing up your account. Without knowing how to size your positions properly. You may end up taking trades that are far too large for your account. In such cases, you become highly vulnerable when the market moves even just a few points against you. Your position size or trade size is more important than your entry and exit when trading or investing. You can have the best strategy in the world. But if your trade size is too big or too small, you will either take too much or too little risk. So how do you prevent yourself from risking too much? How do you know the right quantity to buy or to sell when you initiate a position? Let's say you have $10,000 in your account, and there's a stock valued at $100 you like and want to buy. Do you buy 100 shares, 10 shares, or some other number? This is the question you must answer to how to determine your position size. If you decide to spend your entire account balance and buy 100 shares, then you will have a 100% commitment to the stock and this is not indicated also in taking a position that represents a large portion of your total portfolio. There is also the opportunity cost involved, you will have to pass up other trades that you may have liked to enter. Position Sizing is a critical issue that a trader needs to know beforehand and to do on the fly. It's as important as picking the right stock or currency to invest. Position Sizing Strategies ☀️ There are several approaches to position sizing and I will run down some of the more popular ones. 1️⃣ The first one and the most common one is "Fixed percentage per trade". Position Sizing can be based on the size of an overall portfolio. This means a percentage of that overall capital will be predetermined per trade and will not be exceeded. That would be 1% or even 5%. This fixed percentage is an easy way for you to know how much you are buying when you buy to use a simple example of fixed percentage position sizing. Let's take again the $10,000 account size and a $100 stock. If you take a simple one-person position based on your account size that comes down to a single share, you may be thinking you are no better than the person with a $100 account buying one share. The difference is that the $100 account holder has a 100% position size while the $10,000 account holder is putting just one percent at risk. Which position size allows a trader to sleep better at night? Of course, the second position sizing helps control the risk. A 1% hard limit on each trade allows you to tolerate many losses in your search for profits. Protecting your capital is your primary job. Your secondary job is allowing room in your portfolio to find other trading opportunities. The fixed percentage amount is an easier approach to accomplishing this 2️⃣ The second risk management approach involves a "fixed dollar amount per trade". This approach also uses a fixed amount for this time. It's a fixed dollar amount per trade, rather than a percentage of the actual portfolio. This involves choosing a number again and using the same $10,000 portfolio as an example. So you decide you won't spend any more than $200 on any trade. For traders with small account sizes, this can be an attractive approach because it limits how much you can lose. However, it also limits what stocks you can buy. You will have to roll out some securities based solely on their price. Of course, this is not necessarily a bad thing. 3️⃣ The third approach is "volatility-based position sizing" A more complex approach, but one that allows for more flexibility is position sizing based on the volatility of the security you plan to buy. It's more dynamic because it doesn't treat each stock the same. This approach allows you to drill down and exercise finer control over your portfolio. For example, growth stocks will invariably be more volatile, and that volatility will be reflected in your portfolio. To reduce that overall risk on your portfolio. You wouldn't buy less high volatility stocks than you would lower volatility stocks. You can measure volatility with something as simple as a standard deviation over a given period, say 15 or 10 trading days. Then depending on the deviation, you adjust the number of shares you buy when you initiate a position. This allows lower volatility stocks to have more weight in your portfolio than higher volatility ones. Position Sizing based on this ideology lowers the overall volatility within a portfolio. This strategy is frequently used in large portfolios. Even longer-term traders and investors face position sizing questions for them when the price of a security with their holding goes down. It represents more value. Adding to their position, in this case, is referred to as averaging down. Long-term traders can decide to average down using similar position sizing approaches by risking either a fixed dollar amount or a percentage amount when the stock trades down you can use standard deviation here as well to help figure out the dollar amount. Some additional common sense risk parameters seem worth mentioning and may be incorporated into your trade plan. For example, Once you've figured out how much you're comfortable losing a stop loss level for each trade should be determined and placed in the market. A seasoned trader will generally know where to put their stop loss orders after having optimized their trading plan and chart analysis is often performed when setting stop-loss orders rules of thumb should be followed when you use stops to manage risk on your positions. By now I hope you realized that correct position sizing is crucial. You should always consider how much you buy when you buy and also know how you came up with that number. Regardless of your account size. Take the time to come up with a consistent approach that matches your trading style and then stick to it. You can incorporate flexibility as well. For example, if you're willing to take more risks with your portfolio, you can die a lot of the person that you use. sound money management techniques can help make an average trader better and a good trader becomes great. For example, a trader that is only right half of the time, but gets out of losing trades before the loss becomes significant and knows the right winners to a substantial profit would be way ahead of most others with trade with no clear plan of action whatsoever. And you have to find the right balance because if you risk too little and your account won't grow and if you risk too much, your account can be destroyed in a few bad trades. 🌱 If you found value and learn something new, leave me a like to show your support. 👍🏼❤️
INDEX:BTCUSDEducation
by parissap
23
A quick and dirty trading method I useSo lately I've been using an Envelope indicator, and nothing else. I have it set to a 3-period smoothed MA on MT5, which is basically the same thing as 6 exponential on TradingView. From there, for every pair, I fine-tune the envelope's deviation range to create a very specific situation. 1) You want consolidation candles to generally close inside of the envelope. Most candles should close inside the envelope, or at least have presence on the inside. Sometimes trends are stupidly strong, though. 2) You want momentum candles to close outside of the envelope. So how do you trade it? Simple. 1) When a momentum candle closes outside the envelope, you look to enter a position on the inside of it. 2) You place a hard stop loss, which could be a 1:1 if you think in ratios, or a specific amount of money that you're willing to lose. The stop should be reasonably wide, like pretty distant from the opposite side of the envelope, because wicks happen all the time. 3) You close with a loss *only* if the price either hits your hard stop (unlikely), or if a candle closes on the wrong side of the envelope. This is important! 4) You take profit either when you're happy (typically 1:1 or greater), or with a trailing stop loss. The purpose of this trading system is to trade the *exact* trend you're on currently, rather than going for some kind of fibonacci pullback or whatever. On top of that, your losses are well controlled since your entries usually won't be far from your exit if you're wrong. Example:
Education
by WinkleTrades
2
HOW-TO: Build your strategy with Protervus Trading ToolkitHi Traders! This tutorial will show you how to build your own strategy and link it to Protervus Trading Toolking (PTT) . First of all, let me remind everyone that this content should be considered educational material, and backtesting results are not a guarantee. My goal is not to provide ready-made strategies, signals, or infallible methods, but rather indicators and tools to help you focus on your own research and build a reliable trading plan based on discipline. So, without further ado let's start building our first strategy! For this tutorial we'll build a simple EMA Cross strategy and add the Chaining Snippet to link it to PTT. The first step is to create a new indicator in Pine Editor and add the initial requirements: //@version=5 indicator("EMA Cross (data chaining)", overlay = true) Let's now create the inputs where we will be editing EMAs' length: FastEmaLen = input.int(50, title = "Fast EMA Length") SlowEmaLen = input.int(200, title = "Fast EMA Length") At this point we can proceed by calculating the two EMAs: FastEma = ta.ema(close, FastEmaLen) SlowEma = ta.ema(close, SlowEmaLen) We are now ready to script our Entry conditions: BullishCross = ta.crossover(FastEma, SlowEma) BearishCross = ta.crossunder(FastEma, SlowEma) We also wish to see the two EMAs plotted on the chart, so we will add the following code: plot(FastEma, color = color.new(color.green, 0)) plot(SlowEma, color = color.new(color.red, 0)) At this point, our code should look like this: Great, we are now ready to add PTT Snippet by pasting all the code at the end of the one we just wrote. Let's head to the CONDITIONS INPUTS section and replace the placeholder text for EntryCondition_1 , giving it a proper name: EntryCondition_1 = input.bool(true, 'Ema Cross', group = 'Entry Conditions') We can also add null to the unused inputs to clear the settings panel: ADDING ENTRY CONDITIONS We'll now be adding our Long and Short Entry conditions in the ENTRY \ FILTER CONDITIONS section. In LongEntryCondition_1 we should replace null with BullishCross : LongEntryCondition_1 = BullishCross Same for ShortEntryCondition_1 down below: ShortEntryCondition_1 = BearishCross Guess what? We're done! We just added our Entry conditions: We can now compile the script and add our indicator to the chart, along with PTT. Let's open PTT and select "EMA Cross (data chaining): Chained Data" in the Source Selection drop-down menu - the data will now be forwarded to PTT and we can start tweaking the settings to experiment with our new strategy: ADDING EXIT CONDITIONS Let's say we now also want to add an Exit condition for when the price goes above (or below) the fast EMA, signaling a trend reversal: we can do that in no time! Go back at the top of the code, and right after our EMA calculations, add: PriceAboveFastEma = ta.crossover(close, FastEma) PriceBelowFastEma = ta.crossunder(close, FastEma) Of course, we also need to add the newly created conditions in the snippet code. Let's find the section EXIT CONDITIONS and, just like our Entry conditions, we can replace the null placeholder with our actual conditions: LongExitCondition_1 = PriceBelowFastEma ... ShortExitCondition_1 = PriceAboveFastEma If we also want to use these conditions as Stops, we can add them to the STOP CONDITIONS section: Note: Exit Conditions will close the trade in profit, while Stop Conditions will close the trade in loss. Still, you should not worry about scripting it yourself: PTT will take care of analyzing the trade and separate Exits from Stops when the signal to close the position is received. ADDING FILTER CONDITIONS Besides using our indicator to open and close trades, we can also use it to filter the signal from another, chained indicator. To keep this tutorial simple, let's use the same EMA Cross script, so we can add it again to the chart and use the first one as Signal, and the second as Filter. Let's add our Filter conditions in the script: FastAboveSlow = FastEma > SlowEma SlowAboveFast = FastEma < SlowEma Just like we did in the previous steps, we should now add the option in the settings panel and the Filter conditions in the snippet code: CHAINING INDICATORS We currently have one EMA Cross indicator working as Signal in the chain, linked to PTT on the chart: Let's copy-and-paste the EMA Cross indicator (or add it again) to have two of them. The first one on the chain will act as Filter, so in the settings let's give the two EMAs a longer length (e.g. 250 and 300) in order to verify the trend and discard signals received when it's not favorable. Remember to set output mode as Filter, and tick the Filter box. The second one will be our Signal: we can choose the length of the two EMAs we will use as Entry \ Exit when a cross happens (e.g. 100 and 200), enabling our Entry and Exit conditions by ticking the boxes. This time, we will tick the "Receive Data" box, and select the Chained source of the Filter: If before linking the Filter you already had the Signal linked to PTT, you will notice it automatically recalculates the data - and if our Filter works as intended, the improvements will be visible ;) EXTRAS If your indicator doesn't plot anything on the chart, we must enable a "Dummy Plot" in order to prevent issues, since we are sending chained data as an invisible plot and it cannot be the only plot in the code. Just un-comment the line plot(close < 0 ? close : na, title='Dummy Plot') to avoid this problem: ADDING SIGNALS MARKERS PTT will show all labels and markers for trades, but if you wish to have them on the indicator or just to debug your signals, you can enable and customize the last lines in the snippet: CHAINING SCHEMA |-- Filters (optional, any number of filters - linked one to another) |---- Signal (mandatory, only one indicator must be set to Signal - in case of multiple Filters, Signal must be linked to the last Filter in the chain) |------ Protervus Trading Toolkit (linked to Signal) |-------- PTT Plugins (Strategy Wrapper, Trade Progression, etc - linked to PTT) NOTES - When you chain an indicator, its source remains "locked" even if you un-tick the Receive Data box. If you wish to use that source on another indicator you should un-link it first (just select "Close" as source to free the indicator's chain output). - If you remove indicators in the chain, all other indicators linked AFTER it will be deleted - to prevent this, you should un-link chained indicators before removing them. - Pine Script is limited to one source input per indicator, so you cannot chain indicators that let you choose another source to calculate data: for example, if you have an RSI indicator with a source selection ( input.source ) you must remove that input and only use the one for chaining. You can read more on PineScript Reference page.
FTX:BTCUSDEducation
by Protervus
2
What are True and False Break Outs ?False Break outs impose considerable loss to traders. How to recognize a false break out? To recognize a false break out we should first learn what is a true break out? In fact,simply, Every break out which is not a true one is a false break out. BTC in it's recent movements shows two beautiful example of false break outs. As shown on the chart, we have a dynamic resistance line with three clear rejections and two false break outs. It means before 1st break out which was 4th rejection BTC had a chance to break out the resistance but it never succeeded. Why? A true break out has three important conditions : 1. first of all, Break out should be done by a strong high volume bullish candle and at least 50 % of body of such candle should be placed above the valid resistance. 2. A pull back to broken resistance and rotation is necessary to be sure about true break out. Please note sometime we may not see a complete pull back ( if there is a support before broken resistance) but who can accept the risk of false break out? 3. Continuation of movement in direction of break out. As we can see, BTC in it's 4th and 5th attempts to break the line was unsuccessful even to fulfill the first condition. Also shown on the chart is what could have been a true break out. Although simple in concept, false break outs are headaches for some traders. What makes traders to fall in the trap of false break outs is not because of complexity of the concept ( As it is very simple ). It is about controlling emotions and psychology. Good luck everybody.
COINBASE:BTCUSDEducation
by SaeedSajedi
6
What is Spread in Trading | Trading Basics 📚 Hey traders, It turned out that many newbie traders completely neglect spreads in their trading. In this post, we will discuss what is the market spread and how it can occasionally spoil a seemingly good trade. 💱No matter what financial instrument we trade, in order to buy the asset we need to have a counterpart that is willing to sell it to us and vice versa, if we want to sell the asset, we need to have someone to sell it to. The market provides a convenient exchange between buyers and sellers. The asset price is determined by a current supply and demand. However, even the most liquid markets have two prices: bid and ask. 🙋‍♂️Ask price represents the lowest price the market participants are willing to sell the asset to you, while 🙇‍♂️bid price shows the highest price the market participants are willing to buy the asset from you. Bid and ask price are almost never equal. The difference between them is called the spread. 📈The spread size depends on liquidity of the market. 📍Higher liquidity implies bigger trading volumes and greater number of market participants, making it easier for them to make an exchange. On such markets we see lower spreads. 📍From the other side, less liquid markets are categorized with low trading volumes, making it harder for the market participants to find a counterpart for the exchange. On such market, spreads are usually high. For example, current EURUSD price is 1.0249 / 1.0269. Bid price is 1.0249 - you open short position on that price. Ask price is 1.0269 - you open long position on that price. The spread is 2 pips. ❗️Spreads must always be considered in a calculation of a risk to reward ratio for the trade. For scalpers and day traders, higher than usual spread may spoil a seemingly good trade. Always check spreads before you open the trade. In 2020, for example, we saw unusually high spreads on Gold during UK/NY trading sessions. Spreads were so high that I did not manage to open a trade for a couple of days. Not considering spreads in such a situation would cost you a lot of money. Do you consider spread when you trade?🤓 ❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section. Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
Education
by VasilyTrader
3
Stand Up Strong, Do It Again - The Power of Not Giving UpMost of us, we all go through periods of vulnerability, periods where we are filled with negativity and pressure. If none of your surroundings comprehend you, I am here rooting for you. The path to a better self is never going to be an easy route, we go through failure, periods of low energy, periods of depression. But... so what? Life still goes on. No one will be there patting on your shoulder carrying you up. You got to stand up strong alone, and continue paddling. Fail once, do it again. Fail twice, do it again. Fail thrice, do it again. UNTIL you succeed. The toughest and strongest human being are those who refuse to give up, who truly the process of getting beaten up again and again. The same goes into trading; "90% of Trader blow up 90% of their capital within 90 days" So how do you become a winner in such a competitive place? Is to simply survive. Survive long enough so you get to build a stream of trading lessons from your mistakes. You then constantly review your mistakes and fix them like a specialist. The longer you stay in the market, the higher the chance you are going to become the top 10%.
KRAKEN:BTCUSDEducation
by TraderNeoh
3
Measure Reward-to-Risk Ratio (RRR) key Takeaways 1. The risk/reward ratio is used by traders and investors to manage their capital and risk of loss. 2. The ratio helps assess the expected return and risk of a given trade. 3. An appropriate risk reward ratio tends to be anything greater than 1:3. How to Measure Reward-to-Risk (RRR) ? 1. Evaluate the potential price levels for your stop loss (SL) and profit target (PT) 2. Measure the distance between your entry and your stop loss (SL). This is your “Potential Risk“. 3. Measure the distance between your entry and your profit target (PT). This is your “Potential Reward“. 4. Divide the two: Potential Reward / Potential Risk. RRR Calculation 1. Potential Risk = 66.24 - 63.73 = 2.51 2. Potential Reward = 63.73 - 54.97 = 8.76 3. RRR = Potential Reward / Potential Risk = 8.76/2.51 = 3.49
BINANCE:LTCUSD.PEducation
by yaser_rahmati