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Retail vs. Smart Money - Truth vs. Manipulation tutorial - *SMT* SMT= Smart Money Theory. Look at the related idea for a previous tutorial on this. This will be a continuation of that tutorial, how we're taught to trade is manipulation tactics by the institutions, and how to realize whats actually happening. When I first started, I started to learn how to trade under a an MLM company called iMarkets Live. Some instructors were good and were starting to catch on to what was happening to price action. Others just marked levels,. or tried to use way too many jndicators to find a trade. I ended up losing a lot of money that year because there was no cohesion. I find myself asking "why?" a lot. And if this "Trade the trend is supposed to work so well, why was I getting screwed so bad everytime I went to trade off that trend line. Until I fdinally found the one person who dug deep into the charts and found the truth and I've never seen any other trade get more accurate while trading live. 1. Price is manipulated on every chart. That is their commodity to protect and they'll go down in flames protecting their commodity. Whether that commodity is currency or stocks, there's someone or groups that own enough to control the chart. And that algorithm re-starts everydsay at midnight NY Time. Just before the London session starts 2. The charts above represent what a smart Money Technical Analyst would create for his chart, the second is the retail theory, how your "Taught" to think what tedhnical analysis is supposed to be. Fore example, you would normally out a trendline going down atop the downtrend, and when the price breaks that down trend then you'll told wait for the "Retest" of the price to hit that trend line. But sometimes it doesn't and you've missed your opportunity at a breakaway right? No, you just followed the wrong path on how to read price action. And could've caught that breakaway knowingt that it's not "retesting" the top trendline, instead it's finding the last price that the institutions sold off hard to try and make the retail traders sell as well. Evidently they were successful because the institution then come in and buy it up and a huge discount. And they buy up so much at the start of the run, it breaks the structures previous swing high In fact they probabloy are still holding a short position near that swing high so aftyer it breaks the high and closes above it, it retraces slightly back to the price area of the the previous high. Why? So they can then breakeven on the trade of holding that short while also capitalizing on the long they are taking because of how much of a discount they were able to buy up. Lets take the current chart for example. When you see the price formation of a low / high / lower low, The last bullish candle in the high formation is now Resistance that will turn Support. I have the Low / High / Lower Low Color Coordinated with it's Breaker Blocks Border or just "Breaker." As you can see it, each time it breaks the previous structures high (Where I write Break of structure with a line at the top of previous DAILY body that was broke and closed abnove, thje price then slighjtly retreats, back into that High candle's price range, doesn't close below it and then makes another large move to the upside. Its retreating down to a place where they could still be hold a short from the previous quarter (yes, you read that right, they have deep pockets, they can be in the red forever and ity weon't matter, they;'ll manipulate it until they get what's theirs, this is why Larry Williams has 90 day lookbacks in his analysis) Here's the scary part. Now that you have read that and it seems so obvious and your going "Why was I taught to think about it like this?" (See Next Chart) I was taught to think of analysis this way, I'm sure you have at one point. When the trendline breaks then we should see a retest and more bullish trend / channel. However, after it breaks the trendline, it didn't retest, neither is it really following the "Channel" it created. It's inside the channel but Following the trend as you would like to see, correct? even if we look a little closer on the 4 hour it looks further off Why is it not doing exactly as we were taught it should? Because we were taught wrong. Price doesn't know if it's following a channel, it doersn't know if it's creating a Triangle, it doesn't know if it's making a flag. What does it remember? Price levels. Therefore, the way we were taught was wrong and the correct way to look at support and resistance is actually an area within a price range. Why? As mentioned before, it's the institutions ,manipulating the charts to retreat back to an are to where it may have been holding a short and is now looking to break even while cranking up the long earnings. This is all by design. Now look at the chart again with how I just explained it, look for the break of structure, check for the close above the previous swing high close, then see where the price falls to, check to see if it is within a high of a previous swing high candle. If it breaks lower and closes lower, then we have 1 of 2 things 1) Price could have run into a Bearish Breaker (Where you have a High / Low / Higher High and the Low of that formation is a breaker that reject the price and we could see the price start to retrace lower. or 2) Also Look to see if the Break of structure that was broken has a string of balanced bullish candles to form one large Breaker. If so, the price may look like it is lower than what it should, but still within the breraker. i.e. CURRENT PRICE (see chart) We have a large breaker if you consider the two balanced bullish candles on the far left. If the are balanced, they act as one candle (Meaning their wicks touch, there's no fair value gap) See Chart - So I see this as still being within the Bullish vain, and we'll have to see if it's going to keep reaching for the break of structure. Why is it going tio the break of Structure? That is where the Liquidity is sitting by the retail user and the institutions want to take that liquidity for their own pockets. Howevever, We'll Save Liquidity for Next "Smart Money Knowledge Tutorial" If you have any questions please shoot them below. I'll do my best to answer. If it doesn't make sense to you and you see a flaw in my analysis, a flaw in my reasoning as to why it would be manipulated, please let me know. Personally, I like having an answer as to why price does what it does, which is why I am behind the Smart Money theory of Manipulation. It makes way more sense than the previous explanation of "It just breaks trend and will continue in that direction." ..... where I feel "This is the area price was before on a short and the institutions need to break even after blowing past it making profit up to that point" I hope I was able to break this "Smart Money" theory down a bit further and was able to help make sense of thewe things.l This was inspired by a meme I had seen on LinkedIn of the price running up pasty the break of structure and there's a trendline on top of the rear down slope and the price retests and starts moving up. The meme was based off this with a person almost in tears of joy. My point? Don't see the price action as a result above. Understand it as this I went to write my explanation that was a different interpretation and by the time I finished I couldn't find the Meme again. So I felt it was my calling to continue writing a major Smart Money Analysis points that many people need to see and hear. If you enjoy these explainations of Smart Money, please let me know and I'll continue on a series of these with a point behind each one. Thank you! - Bodies X Wix OANDA:GBPUSD FX:GBPUSD CAPITALCOM:GBPUSD
Education
by BodiesXWix
7
$ETH - Daily Bearish Order Block - Short to Liquidity 1172 *SMT* Entry - 1206.93 (1207)) (NOW - ) S/L - 1267.49 (Must close above on the on or 4 hour chart before I will manuall remove myself from the trade, otherwise it m,ight just liquidity run through th number and drop) Take Profit 1- 1150.27 Take profit 2 - 1120.36 Take Profit 3 - 1172 SMT= Smart Money Theory. See related Idea. ASmart Money does not focus on retail Technical Analysis. NO, trendlines, wedges, bull flags, bear flags, channels, moving averages, harmonics, etc. All of that is a distraction, price does two things. 1) Finds and attacks liquidity, 2) Finds and fills imbalances. Currently the price of ethereum, did hit my previous suggestion as I thought before raising up again. It got down to 1177 when I was safe with 1194, but I knew there was a 1 hour fair value gap (imbalance) at around 1157-1163. During the asian session it has risen quickly to the dailt bearish order block as shown in the picture. At this point it should get rejected and it will probably take all week to get to the Sell side liquidity at $1171. As price has moved up through the daily fair value gap that means it has mitigated on side of that gap. Price moving down to $1145 that is the bottom of the daily fair value gap. The momentum will be continuing down and head towards the equal lows where most people have their buy lim its set. Smart Money will know this and drive the chart down even furtrher. The one hour fair value gap will need mitigated and that might take more time as well becAuse it could consolidate in that area. (see where the arrows are in chart) Don't fall for the triple bottom, that is to get you to bite when then are goping to force you to lose money. Instead you should be shorting now and take profit at that time. with the current wave the golden ratio extension hits the next daily fair value gap. That will be Ethereum's possible next move After it get's under the sell-saide liquidity that price would be 1332.... or will it drop further to the 860 I've already said twice now? I'm not sure, but as for now I'm shorting til 1071 COINBASE:ETHUSD BYBIT:ETHWUSDT.P CME:ETH1! CRYPTOCAP:ETH.D
COINBASE:ETHUSDShort
by BodiesXWix
1
$ETH - Could Long, but not yet - Below 1194 *SMT**SMT = Smart Money Theory. See Related Idea for Tuorial/Explaination on Smart Money Keeping to the principles of SMT, There are two Redeliver-Rebalances below current market price. A redliver Rebalance is like a fair value gap except where the Wicks don't touch, a presiding wick outreaches a proceeding candle. These act as imbalances i which price seeks. We should see the price possibly move up to the bearish order bock . Why? to suck in all the buyers. Then Smart Money Takes the chart against the buyers (CHARTED HERE: After bouncing off the bearish order block it should seek that imblanace where the Redeliver-rebalances are. It should fill the small 15 min one or just run right through it, to the second one which is near 1194. The 11 94 i also near the Smart Money Buy Zone or discount of the current "wave" (Last low before breaking and closing above the preceding high); At that point Smart Money will then buy ETH at a discount rate and should take the price higher. How much higher? I don't know because I'll need to see the price action on the way down... it could go even lower. So for the safety of my account, I'm playing it safe and only going to where I the it will travel the last furthest. It could drop and fill the R-R and hit the Bullish Order Block at 1192.68 before we see a hard bounce up again. I have it going to that low until there until the "Crypto week/day" ends. After that it's a waiting game to see where it goes, but I still have it ultimately going as low as 860. The current -1 standard deviation of the current high/Low is actually around 804 where there's more confluence for price to reach, but playing it safe I'm thinking 860, that 804 mark where the Weekly fair value gap is below the sell side Liquidity All we can do now is wait Happy Trading and good luck Again, this information comes from my observational training and mentoring under ICT. COINBASE:ETHUSD CME:ETH1! BYBIT:ETHUSDT.P CRYPTOCAP:ETH.D
COINBASE:ETHUSDShort
by BodiesXWix
6
$ETH Short Now to 1292 (Scalpish) *SMT* EDIT: SL ChangeSMT = See related idea about "Smart Money TA" Price has broken buy side liquidity. Retail is expecting a breakout. And it's doing a good job of acting like it is going to continue upward Nope, It is now looking for an Imbalance. Below is a 4 HR Fair Value Gap. I'm being conservative and only reaching for the 62% retracement of the pullback. Additionally it would break the liquidity sitting at 1294.27. it could get deeper, it also may not. I edited the SL Because Price could possibly reach up tot the 15 minute Bearish Order Blocks. Entrance - now (1313.40) S/L - 1329.61 (Edited) TP - 1292.45 KUCOIN:ETHUSDT COINBASE:ETHUSD CME:ETH1! CME:ETB1!
Short
by BodiesXWix
2
$EURUSD - UPDATE: New Entry, Close 15 min FVG then BEARISH *SMT**SMT = SMART MONEY THEORY* WHERE INSTITUTIONS RIP RETAIL TRADERS TO SHREDS BECAUSE THEY DON'T THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. Please see related Idea for details. I posted on earlier 0.98045but after watching it closely I only believe it will get as high as enclosing a 15 min Fair Value Gap, then it wil drop aiming for the liquidity uner neath last friday's lows. which is also 1 standard deviation below the Asian Range during the Asian Session. I'M GOING 2% OF ACCOUNT -USING ALL 50 OF MY LEVERAGE entry - 0.98045 S/L - 0.98540 TP 0.97080 IF YOU FIB FROM THAT LAST 15 MIN CANDLE UP BEFORE THE LARGE DROP, YOU'LL SEE IT WILL RETURN ABOUT 80% OF THE RETRACEMENT. THAT'S ABOUT NORMAL FOR RETRACEMENTS. OANDA:EURUSD BMFBOVESPA:EUR1! ICEUS:DX1! BIST:EURUSD1!
Short
by BodiesXWix
3
$BTC - Last Short before Pivot to Bulishness: Near $15,825 *SMT**SMT* = Smart Money Theory = everything you think that is not retail related to trading. First, SMT does not believe that triangles, wedges , trendlines , channels, harmonics, etc. has any effect on how price reacts. I'm Sorry, but you won't convince me that Tasla or Bitcoin knows it has created a triangle and that it knows how to react from that? It does and will remember price levels, that's it. The second is to recognize that the price is not random, it is set by an algorithm controlled by those that control the asset. The Third thing to remember is regarding what price action will do - 2 things 1) move toward attacking where there is Liquidity (Equal Highs, Equal Lows, phantom Trendlines,etc.) and 2) Move toward Imbalance (Fair Value Gaps, Liquidity Voids. Open Gaps) Halfway points in fair value gaps, order blocks, Breakers, are always a price to aim for. Support and resistance onnly exist to protect profits, as soon as an institution wants more, they'll all use the same Options strategy amd that's then Support and resistance is broken. That's the basics. The rest is very unique in the vocabulary you need to have and the concepts that wrap around these ideas.* Bitcoin - It dropped pretty hard after entering a 4 hour fair value gap. This is called an institutional order flow entry drill (IOFED). It drops down to "Support" To where retailers would probably start buying. However, If you haven't done a monthly time dframe analysis on this chart, you will be lost. There is a monthly fair value gap below current market price. After the current price hit support and came back up it then hit a bearish order block followed by another (IOFED) And this is where I believe the price will definitely take a dive as most retail positions are buying. Here's the chart depicting such safe support and retail buying in one area Options on the Bitcoin micro, for an institution to protect their asset would buy a put and buy a call. Therefor if it reaches the put strike price they can excericise the right to buy at that price and they want it lower so they can buy at a discount. So institutions know what retail is doing there for they can sell their assets and short the future/option to hedge against the sell. to get the price to start dropping. Once retail sees that it is dropping further than they want, then they eill start selling with Institutions pushing it down further. Institutions usually knmow the gap theory and will end their option/future at the midway of the monthly fair value gap and start buying up again at an enormous amount because this time it will be in the $15k range. This is about an 80% pullback from the previous low, which is exactly how the chart from 2017/2018 acted. So this should be the last hurrah of a drop. It can fill up the entire Fair value gap below but it doesn't have to. We'll just have to wait and see. Heres a chart of the monthly and where that fair value gap is. That gold line is the imbalance that price wants to fill. 2017 80% pullback VS 2022 80% Pullback 1. 2017/18 2. 2022 At first you were probabbly scratching your head or laughing at my idea. But go back and look through my last 5-6 ideas. I've pretty much been spot on the more I am involved in studying smart money. At least getting near an entry zone and hitting a take 1 profit. Thats All I need daily and I can do this for a living. What do you think? Is $16k ish too low? or do you think lower? Why? I think we're nearing the end of the pullback journey. based on history and Smart Money Technical Analaysis. Also the Commitment of traders report has the institutions adding shorts to their positions. See barchart.com chart, so if the institutions believe it's still shorting, why wouldn't we? See below Barchart CoT. It's the indicator at the bottom of the chart, and the red line represents Institutional Positions. As you can see it's lowering which means it's adding more net shorts. www.barchart.com So good luck and happy trading. COINBASE:BTCUSD BITSTAMP:BTCUSD
COINBASE:BTCUSDShort
by BodiesXWix
14
$GBPUSD - Sell Side Liquidity at -1 Standard Dev. *SMT*\*SMT* = Smart Money Theory = everything you think that is not retail related to trading. First, SMT does not believe that triangles, wedges , trendlines , channels, harmonics, etc. has any effect on how price reacts. I'm Sorry, but you won't convince me that Bitcoin knows it has created a triangle and that it knows how to react from that? It does and will remember price levels, that's it. The second is to recognize that the price is not random, it is set by an algorithm controlled by those that control the asset. The Third thing to remember is price will move toward attacking where there is Liquidity (Equal Highs, Equal Lows, phantom Trendlines etc.) and Balance (Fair Value Gaps, Liquidity Voids.) That's the basics. The rest is very unique in the vocabulary you need to have and the concepts that wrap around these ideas.* Asian Session Lesson - Doesn't always happen but I believe the way it is forming it will. During the Asian Session the high of that session did break a high from last asian session. If you box in the asian session and draw out the deviations, (1x, 1.5x, 2x, etc. you might find some confluences. Also take note of the opening price at midnight (1.14320). If you notice the rere are equal lows below the current price. Which is where the liquidity lies, where retail traders place their buy limits and sell stops. Usuaully when you see this after an asian session the price will rise during the London session to get you to believe that it's going to continue the trend. However, what smart Money usually does, is they will find a point that may bne higher than the high but usually at a bearish order block near the high or deviation. This is where the Judas swing comes into play. And this will have most retail traders buying into that high. Could drop a little at first ti get even with the current even lows or drop just a little below them. The rise up during London Session, above NY Opening price, That's when you expect price to hit the bearish order block somewhere and start to drop on the other side of the price of hte new york open. In my educated smart money guess, it would het just above the current high and then start plummeting as soon as London is about to slow down 4 am ish. 6 am you see it pixk back up and move up into a breaker or a bearish order block it formed , and fall harderpast the equal lows probably to the -1.5x deviation of the Asion Session, Aroun 1.13200 Here's my two guesses on one chart. Let's see if that's wut Smart Money Wants to do. If it even wants to do that at all. I could be wrong and it just go straight up through the liquidity above. But the equal lows have me against that. Price 1 Attacks Liquidity and 2 Moves towards imbalances I had to add another chart because I have people that follow me that say my numbers are too small so I made one that a=had big numbers for them and it was more focused on the area. I'll update as it goes on when I can. It already looks like price is swinging up though There's a smart Money Lesson for the day Good Luck and Happy Tradin g Bodies X Wix OANDA:GBPUSD
Short
by BodiesXWix
EUR/USD 1H BREAKER BLOCK TRADE IDEAGreetings traders, I will outline the short I am currently eyeing on EUR/USD. If you pay attention to market structure it should be clear to you that EUR/USD is in a long-term downtrend and therefore higher probability trades will be found shorting this pair - the trend is your friend as they say. If you look at your 4H chart you will see the area of resistance which forced EUR/USD lower this week, this being the 4H bearish order block. Moving onto the 1H chart we see that the market stop hunted the highs at June 22nd, rejecting at the close of the 4H bearish order block (4H -OB), then broke market structure to the downside as indicated by the grey horizontal arrow. Once this price action occurs, the bearish candle before the stop hunt is validated as a bearish breaker block (represented in the chart by the red rectangle and labelled as 1H -BB) and all one would need to do is wait patiently until price returns to the breaker to have a high probability bearish trade. That my friends is exactly what I aim to do - my entry lies a few pipettes below the close of the 1H -BB and my stop loss lies above the high of the breaker block. My targets are at the sellside liquidity pools below the respective lows of June 23rd but I will not marry this idea. Depending on how the market behaves I will take partials or close the trade entirely. Remember traders, anything can happen in the market, the astute trader acknowledges this and seeks to manage risks while waiting patiently on his preferred setups. This is what is needed in order to thrive long-term in this game. Hopefully the market reaches our entry point, if it doesn't, unlucky, we move. If the trade loses, unlucky, we move, but one thing is for certain, we move. May the markets be with you.
Short
by CorpusFX
$BTC - Run May Have Been Short Lived - FVG's Below To FilL *SMT**SMT* = Smart Money Theory = everything you think that is not retail related to trading. First, SMT does not believe that triangles, wedges , trendlines , channels, harmonics, etc. has any effect on how price reacts. I'm Sorry, but you won't convince me that Bitcoin knows it has created a triangle and that it knows how to react from that? It does and will remember price levels, that's it. The second is to recognize that the price is not random, it is set by an algorithm controlled by those that control the asset. The Third thing to remember is price will move toward attacking where there is Liquidity (Equal Highs, Equal Lows, phantom Trendlines etc.) and Balance (Fair Value Gaps, Liquidity Voids.) That's the basics. The rest is very unique in the vocabulary you need to have and the concepts that wrap around these ideas. TLDR; Entry: 32,100 Stop Loss: 33,080 Take Profit: 28,000 After placing a Fib on the Current Wave, It became clear that we may be headed lower.... again. My Mentorship taught me to think of weekly profiles and how weekly candles form. The rush up just seemed like a wick for the week. Then I pulled the fib and noticed that the Discount price was at the exact line for the large Fair Value Gap (Imbalance) below. Additionally, I went to Barchart.com and looked at the Commitment of Traders report to find that Commercial traderds have reported additional net shorts than previously recorded. That was my first tip that Bitc could be going down as of Yesterday. I still Have my Analysis that BTC will get to 21,400. But for now, let's take baby steps and look to se if 28,000 first.
CME:BTC1!Short
by BodiesXWix
5
$ZEC - Retracing to Bullish OB Then Attack Liquidity Above *SMT**SMT* = Smart Money Theory = everything you think that is not retail related to trading. First, SMT does not believe that triangles, wedges , trendlines , channels, harmonics, etc. has any effect on how price reacts. I'm Sorry, but you won't convince me that Bitcoin knows it has created a triangle and that it knows how to react from that? It does and will remember price levels, that's it. The second is to recognize that the price is not random, it is set by an algorithm controlled by those that control the asset. The Third thing to remember is price will move toward attacking where there is Liquidity (Equal Highs, Equal Lows, phantom Trendlines etc.) and Balance (Fair Value Gaps, Liquidity Voids.) That's the basics. The rest is very unique in the vocabulary you need to have and the concepts that wrap around these ideas. TLDR; Entry: 92.3-92.5 Stop Loss: (88.5-89.2 Depending on Broker and how much your willing to give up below the Bullish Order Block) Take Profit 1: 96.3-96.4 20-25% of profit removed here (Move SL to 90) Take Profit 2: 97.4-97.6 (Bulk of the trade off here up to 85%-98% of the trade, move stop into break even) Take Profit 3: 99.5-99.6 (127% Extension meets the Fair Value Gap Above the equal highs/Liquidity Line On the Hourly it appears that after price had broker the structure of the lower dealing range, it retraced back down to the breaker of that range and continued up until it hit equal highs with the price before th major drop off. These equal high are creating artificial Liquidity meaning that most traders who see the equal highs automatically think "Resistance" It may be met with some resistance but smart money or Institutional traders know that there are retail traders that have their shorts sitting there with, most likely, a short stop loss.... Or a buy stop with a short stop loss. I see this everytime, The price will come trigger the buy stop people and to take out the SL of the people Shorting with a limit, then it falls more to take the buy stop traders SL out, then continue up to find an imbalance or liquidity. And there's an imbalance at exactly the 127% extension.If there's a slight chance that doesn't happen I do have multiple take profits set up, but more than likely this will be the scenario. I've seen play out so many times that I know there's players in the room with large amounts of money able to manipulate the charts right when they want to. If this doesn't Happen, I'LL be Surprised. Good luck and happy trading :)
Long
by BodiesXWix