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.
Trading Plan
How to trade intraday pullbackHello friends,
Market finally picked a direction and it looks like it's gonna continue downtrend. Many novice traders are long biased and they find it very difficult to trade in down-trending market. Today, I am going to share a simple strategy for making quick gains by trading pullback in a downtrend.
Below is a chart of NASDAQ:AMZN in daily timeframe. You can see that price is in a downtrend.
Below is 5 minutes timeframe chart of NASDAQ:AMZN .
You can see that above chart fulfills all the rules mentioned below. For this trade, Risk to Reward ratio is 1:3.
Checklist -
1. Price is making LL while RSI is making HL - Bullish Divergence(highlighted in the chart)
2. RSI is below 30 - Price is oversold
3. Price is showing signs of reversal - Long lower wick candle(highlighted in the chart)
4. Above three confluences occurs during the first 1.5 hours of market open before market goes into mid-day chop
5. Risk to Reward ratio is at least 1:2 (shown in the chart)
Entry -
1. Enter at the next candle open after reversal confirmation
Exit -
1. Set Stop-loss below the recent low
2. Set Target at the first resistance
Simple trading setup from swing range- Determine directional bias from HTF
- Find high/low trading range from previous day
- Drawn in fib level to see premium/discount zone for entry
- Spot CHoCH in different direction of HTF (Potential to grab liquidity)
- Wait and see Price action with HTF bias (In this case is bearish)
- Price entered premium zone for open short position
- Wait for lower time frame BOS before entry
- Target imbalance zone/ Previous key level low/ Fair value gap (RR 2.65, not bad, since we get entry outside premium zone but more confirmation)
'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!
A tweak to my trading plan. Weird, but stats don't lie.My trading has been evolving at a rapid pace recently.
In the last 2 years I made a transition from being a swing-trader to day-trading. Some things, the backbone, of swing-trading carried over to day, but with a lot of extra thing that I didn't utilize prior.
I went from taking 5-10 trades a month, to taking 20 trades a week. Results didn't go up linearly, but they did go up nevertheless.
The reason for switching to day-trading was due to deeper understanding of my own personal character as well as my flaws. I wasn't that patient to hold a trade for 2-3 days, and if a trade is missed for any reason it would hurt me like hell because I had to wait another 2-3 days for price to develop another one. And what's worse is that when the missed one ended up making profits, and the next one was a statistical loss. That hurt me deep.
The switch to day-trading happened primarily because of that, missing a trade here doesn't hurt the same way because there are way more of them constantly developing. On top of that holding period went from 2-3 days on average to 30-60 minutes. I can be in and out quicker, and be less prone to making suboptimal decision after price has been stalling for 2 days in before breakout. In short, day-trading suited me better.
In day-trading style I was targeting 2-3:1 RR. Playing with different targets, I came to realize that -0.27 on Fib Retracement was a good target as it offered a perfect blend of RR as well as capturing that quick swing. But, I also didn't like when price almost came to target and turned around to loss, so I came up with a 80% rule. If price climbs up to 80% of the way to the target and fails to keep going - I manually close for 80% of the move's profits. This was pretty good overall.
However, after doing review for the last 100 trades I noticed a weird pattern. With my approach price often goes to 1:1. In 100% of times when price went to reach 1:1 it did the following:
* 30% price went to full target.
* 30% price either turned around SnD level, or reached 80% and turned around.
* 40% price touches 1:1 and turns around into a moved stop, original stop, or manual exit for around 0.
When I combined the average results of all these trades (and that's a pretty huge sample size) - I realized a new angle to my trading. What happened is that there is almost no difference in the long-term results if I were to simply target 1:1 fully and be done with a trade. This would give me way less time being in a trade, less teetering with it, even quicker in and outs, slightly better long-term profits. It's weird, but it seems that my personality and my trading is more suited toward HSR trading and not HRR trading.
HSR = High Strike Rate.
HRR = High Reward Risk Ratio.
But my average risk is also going to be much smaller, because my early exits are quite on point overall. In the last 100 trades my early exit accuracy is around 80%. It's weirdly huge.
So, there's that. Constant improvement, constant tweaking. For now I will be trading and targeting 1:1s only + early exits.
Pro's & Con's of Multiple Timeframe AnalysisHere comes another important workshop "Pro's & Con's of Multiple Timeframe Analysis".
In this video, I will be breaking down some of the advantages and disadvantages of Multiple Timeframe Analysis, watch the full video and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Hope it helps!
Trade safe and take care.
How to play with imbalance barShares experience to play imbalance of order in M15/M5 timeframe with an obvious Order block that facilitate for open sell position real quick.
- Marked imbalance area occur from 2 huge bearish bar.
- Price pullback to fill that gap.
- Draw in trend line from M5 timeframe and see if price breakout.
- Spot price retrace to premium zone of fib level facilitate to open Short.
- Open short with stop loss above marked out zone.
- Target at order block level with 3.3R
Learn How to Trade Double Top Formation | Full Guide 📚
Your ultimate guide for double top pattern trading.
Entry selection / stop placement / target selection explained.
Meaning of the pattern and identification rules.
Important tips & real market exampe.
❤️Please, support this video with like and comment!❤️
Easiest Way to Manage TradesTrade Managements is one of the pillars of successful trading.
We can enter good trades (which is difficult in itself), but still not be profitable because our trade management skills/techniques are simply not there.
In this post I want to talk about the easiest way to manage trades.
(Before we start we must mention that an actual EASIEST way is hugely dependent upon each trader's unique personality and circumstances. What works for one may not work for another and vice versa. There is no precisely one answer).
With that being said, there is a way that is much less popular and flashy, but that helps to trades so much.
That is: SCALE OUTS.
Scale outs can be extremely frustrating and cause a lot of FOMOs and FOFR (fears of future regrets).
Let's talk about cons with examples:
Let's say you enter a trade that has 3:1 reward risk ratio. You decide to take 1/2 off a trade off at 1:1 area, and then price continues to go to your target. In this example you just made: (0.5 * 1) + (0.5*3) = +2.
So, instead of making full +3 points, you think, you make 'only' +2. This can be frustrating. So next time you decide to not do scale outs, but watch what would happen:
Price goes to your 1:1 target, and then turns around and you get tapped for a full -1 loss. Had you scale out You'd make: (+0.5 * 1) + (-0.5 * 1) = 0. Effectively you hit a breakeven trade.
If your strike rate is at 50%, then the results profits wise are exactly the same: (+3 -1) = +2 and (+2 + 0) = +2. However, the scale out route flattens your emotional volatility all the way down and instead of being elated for banking +3 -> you bank slightly less at +2. On the other hand, instead of losing -1 you hit Breakeven for 0. Your emotional curve and psychological capital are thus preserved and it's much much EASIER to make better decisions throughout the trading session, week, and month.
Scale outs aren't glamorous because they don't spark that "BIG TRADE" dopamine. But what it does is helps you to stay in the game and actually PAY YOURSELF quick whenever your analysis proves to be profitable. Instead of waiting for full +3, you actively taking profits and paying yourself, while the long-run results are relatively similar. Even if longer-term results would be smaller - the price is worth to be paid for that emotional flattening. But it won't be that much of a difference anyway simply due to statistical distribution. Price often does go 1:1, but much less so in does go to 3:1. Banking these frequent 1:1s both reduces risk AND gives profits.
Scaleouts work GREAT if you are one of those traders who can benefit from them. There is another group of people, who perform much better with SCALEINs. But that is a story for another day.
Lightwork_
5 BIG MISTAKES TRADERS MAKE!Hey traders,
I've had the privilege to have been involved in trading, both retail trading and working within a prop firm for many years. The biggest benefit I get, is to work with so many different traders with so many different strategies, personalities, timeframes, assets, you name it. I've probably worked with a trader that trades it. Now, there's a few things that are extremely common in all traders, regardless of what or how they are trading. It's the same mistakes that keep making traders fail. So today, I'm going to explain what five of these mistakes are and how to avoid them. I will also discuss how to incorporate them to ensure that you don't get hit by the stone wall that many traders do. If you have any extra information to add, please do so in the comments. I look forward to hearing from you all.
TRADING WITHOUT A PLAN
This right here is the biggest one and this is usually for the early beginners or even strategy jumpers. You must have a plan. That is non negotiable if you ever want to see some kind of consistency in training. I can tell you from experience, both personally and with working with traders from firms, that the more in depth that plan is, the better chance of success. The same way you create a business plan before launching a new endeavor. The same way you create a game plan for your team before you go out and verse the opponent. The same way politicians plan out their PR campaigns before running for office. You must have a thorough trading plan.
A plan can consist of a multitude of different things, from understanding what you're willing to lose, understanding overall position size, understanding your trading strategy, minimizing drawdowns, maximizing profits, the assets you are trading, the times you're going to be trading, how much time you actually going to be allocating to trading and setting up goals. A trading plan must be thorough, so you can not only track your progress, but when you start getting unmotivated or confused, you have something to look back on to realign you with where you are and where you want to be.
My final advice with your trading plan is stick to it. You will have bad trading days. You will have bad trading weeks. You will have bad trading months. Stick to your plan.
OVERTRADING
We've all been there. It's the start of a trading session. We've opened two positions. They've both gone on to be fantastic winners. You're unstoppable. Nothing can possibly go wrong from this point. You have mastered the markets. You are the best trader the world has ever seen. So what do you do? You open another seven positions because it's just free money on the table. And what happens? All seven of those positions lose, wiping off your original profit and some. This is so common in beginner traders. It's that aspect of unpredictability that they forget about in the markets.
Trading too much too soon is a serious issue and it needs to be worked on as soon as possible. I understand the excitement of being live in the markets, the excitement of the profits you could earn day today, but the reality of the situation is if your brand new. Trading too much is going to be a serious issue. What sitting back watching and not trading does is not only increases your patience, but also allows you to analyze the markets in a clearer state of mind, making your future decisions a whole level ahead.
Add that into the plan, give yourself a maximum number of positions per day if you are new. Trust me, it's going to help you progress.
FAILING TO CUT LOSSES
I've spoken about this a lot, especially in one of my recent webinars. A lot of traders are taught the whole set an forget method, and I'm not a big fan of it, but in some circumstances I won't lie. Yes, it does work. But a lot of the time, these trade ideas that they're in there actually give massive warning signals prior to hitting the stop loss that they are going to do that. The trader could have cut those losses a lot shorter. Now don't even get me started on traders that don't use a stop loss. What I wanted to do really in this segment is dive into the emotional side of failing to cut a loss.
It's true. I remember experiencing it early on my trading career, that feeling of when a trades going against you, but you did all the analysis, so it shouldn't be going against you. So what do you do? You hold on with hope and temptation that it will turn for the better. The reality of the situation is in very, very rarely does. It's a horrible feeling because some traders are prone to even giving those trades more room, adding to the position, moving there stop loss, removing their stop loss altogether. Everything you shouldn't be doing in the time that your analysis is going against you, most traders lean towards because they done all the research they needed to do and they cannot comprehend bring wrong.
The best way to battle this feeling, if you've ever felt it or still to this day feel that urge, is going back to number one. Trading with a plan. Have a plan. Risk management plans are the greatest things ever. We can plan for the absolute worst so when it does come in and everyone's going manic everywhere, we know exactly what to do, where to be and how to position ourselves. This will help you learn to cut those losses.
NOT UNDERSTANDING LEVERAGE
The world changed times are changing. You can access any type of information or access pretty much any type of market you want at the click of a button by the glorious internet. Same goes with trading is probably how most of you have gotten here, or even just into trading as a whole. The thing is, we reach out to these brokers and we open accounts with small amounts of money and they offer us great deals like 300 hundred or even 500 to 1 leverage.
That means with $1000 account, you can open $500,000 of currency. Now, the reality of the situation is most traders will never use all of that leverage. But as a result is that most trade is also wouldn't have experienced a no money call when opening a position, or perhaps a margin call, or a true understanding of when they put in 0.5 lots of EURUSD, what they are actually doing. Leverage is a great tool. Fantastic tool. When used correctly. Working at the firm, had so many traders reach out. They keep getting an error code. They say, "I can't open this position!? WHY!?!" and it's all because they don't have the margin requirements to actually open that position and it is alarming to see how many traders don't fully understand what leverages and margin is considering they have used it for years.
When you open a position of 0.5 lots on a U.S. dollar currency pair, for example, UUSDJPY. You are opening a position size of $50,000. You have just entered a $50,000 position. That means you are actively managing $50,000 while you are in that position. Let that sink in. Now that's just a position of 0.5 lots. There is traders pit there trading 10-100 lots and it is just baffling to understand the amount of risk there actually taking in accordance to their account size.
Do your research. Understand your position size and when you're doing your trading journal. Instead of doing lot sizes in your trading journal, I recommend you do actual position size, value. That will give you a much better understanding on the risk you undertake when you take positions and also if you can, lower your leverage. You don't need 500:1.
BEING ABLE TO ACCEPT LOSSES
Now this is a fun one and this is what I really wanted to chat about. Being able to accept losses can be one of the most damaging things a beginner trader can ever have, because what happens is they lose the value and respect that the market can take their money. Every market "guru" and every trading course out there tells you to remove emotion from the equation, accept that losses are gonna be a thing, and trade knowing that. Now most people go, "OK, let's do that." and surprisingly, they actually managed to pull it off. Which actually creates a bigger problem. They become reckless. They no longer care if there's a little bit of parameters different from their trading plan. They no longer care if there's key indicators that the trade idea is wrong because, "we're going to have losses. So what? This one might as well be one. If you're not in the market, you're not going to make money." they become reckless.
Do not remove emotion from your trading. Incorporate emotion into your trading and once again this results back to the first tip. Trade. With. A. Plan.
Traders, that is all for me today. These are five things that I've noticed in struggling traders which seemed to be a common recurrence. Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy the read. As always, have a fantastic trading week.
-Jordon Mellor
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:
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.
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!❤️
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%.
Is mindset holding you back 🤔Trading can be a rollercoaster of emotions.
Many traders are unaware of when their state of mind leads to underperforming trades and why it happens.
We are all different and unique when it comes to trading, and understanding the type of trader you are is essential to your success.
Traders can spend a lot of time studying technical indicators and strategies, but understanding the psychology driving your trading decisions is just as important.
The first starting point of getting on the right path in regards to trading psychology and emotions is by having the right one of two mindset choices.
There's two mindsets which will effect your trading results and progress massively.
They are 'Growth mindset' and 'Fixed mindset'
Of those two mindsets there is only a place for one when it comes to trading and that is 'GROWTH MINDSET'
The graphic on chart shows the difference between the two mindsets.
If you can't ditch the 'Fixed mindset ' you will never be able to progress in trading.
No matter how great of a trader you think you are, or how well you think you handle your emotions.
It's impossible to remove them from the equation completely when trading.
When emotions are combined with a 'Fixed mindset' mentality however you are going to feel emotional pain and loss of money when it comes to your trading.
Once you have learned to recognise your mindset, you can then begin the next important step of switching to the ' Growth mindset '
People with a ' Fixed mindset ' believe they are born with a certain amount of intelligence and that it is fixed for the rest of their lives.
People with a 'Growth mindset ' however know that intelligence is not fixed and that you can in effect grow your brain.
They see their traits as just a starting point and know that these can be developed by hard work, effort, dedication and challenge.
Having a growth mindset can improve your progress and attainment and this is crucial in being successful as a trader.
The brain can be developed like a muscle, changing and growing stronger the more it is used.
Your abilities are also very much like muscles they need training in order to perform at their peak.
You can learn how to do anything you want to do and you can get better at whatever that is with time and consistent practice.
Even if you have what you perceive to be a talent or ability for something, if you never practice that talent or ability you simply will never improve.
Applying this theory to your trading game will help you grow not just your accounts but as a person also.
Get that 'Growth mindset' and start believing in your ability to change.
Thanks for looking.
Darren 🙌
Trading Hours and Market ClockTime Zone: UTC + 4:30
01. Wellington NZX: 02:30 am - 09:15 am
02. Sydney ASX: 04:30 am - 10:30 am
03. Tokyo JPX: 04:30 am - 10:30 am
04. Singapore SGX: 05:30 am - 01:30 pm
05. Hong Kong HKEx: 06:00 am - 12:30 pm
06. Shanghai SSE: 06:00 am - 11:30 am
07. Mumbai NSE: 08:15 am - 02:30 pm
08. Dubai DFM: 10:30 am - 03:15 pm
09. London LSE: 11:30 am - 08:00 pm
10. Zurich SIX: 11:30 am - 08:00 pm
11. Frankfurt FWB: 11:30 am - 08:00 pm
12. New York NYSE NASDAQ: 06:00 pm - 12:30 am
13. Toronto TSX: 06:00 pm - 12:30 am
Motivation Is Not A Superpower - The Power of Not Giving UpI think most people overweight the word "motivation"
Motivation only gives you the sudden thrust to initiate, continue or terminate a certain behaviour at a given time, it is not lasting.
Without a good attitude, mental and physical toughness, effort, passion, and focus, motivation is nothing but a booster.
You do not need motivation to succeed as it only gets you started.
The power of not giving up is what determine our achievement.
The same goes into trading, I've coached/ talked to more than 30 Traders in the past, most of them have extreme level of interest in the beginning.
But as time goes by, I saw almost every of them walk away from this business, not because they do not know trading will probably bring them financial freedom, but because their fear of failure has overweighted their motivation to succeed.
Probably because they have blown up multiple accounts, instead of digging into the root of cause and finding solutions, they give up after several failure.
Trading is just like any business, it requires time, energy, effort, tear, money, ongoing passion, high level of discipline and consistency to outperform the 90 - 95% of losing Traders.
The more you are able to become a problem-solvers, the higher the chance you may succeed.
What I always suggest to inconsistent Traders, is to become a specialist. Specialize in certain markets, certain timeframe, certain currency pairs, don't try to have your eyes all over the place.
If you're constantly shifting your focus, you will never get anything done. You only need to master in one specific asset/ pair to become consistently profitable.
Think about it and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Becoming A Flexible TraderTo become a flexible Trader might sounds like an easy thing to do, but to become a consistently profitable Trader in the market takes lots of internal growth.
In this video I'll be sharing some of my personal experiences and advice into becoming all-rounded 'good ' Trader.
If you like the content make sure you click the like button and share it with anyone else who needs to watch this.
Trade safe and take care.
All the content I've posted are for educational purposes, please perform your own research and only take it as a reference.
Never Try To Hide Your Mistakes By Making More MistakesOne of the common patterns amongst Traders that's really causing them to unable to achieve consistency, is the fact that they do not own up/ admit their mistakes.
We're all humans, and we're bound to make errors every day, week, or month.
There's nothing wrong with making mistakes, and certainly making mistakes don't make you look stupid. It is the way that you refuse to admit that you've made mistakes that makes you look stupid.
Imagine today you've taken trades you're not supposed to take. During your self-reflection, you clearly knew you've over-traded, but you try to comfort yourself by putting the blame onto the markets, "the market condition was bad today, etc...".
Look.. Now you've made two mistakes.
1. Over-traded
2. Not being honest to yourself that you over-traded
Lying to yourself is one of the worst lies you can ever make. Overtime, It transforms and convinces you into accepting lies because it'd probably turned into a bad habit. It prevents you from growth, advance, and achieve.
Some of you probably have experienced lying to others. Ask yourself honestly, how many lies do you have to make up afterwards JUST TO cover up the first lie?
It's the same goes to yourself, your mind. The willingness to have complete transparency within your mind will boost your personal growth.
Sometimes, if you're experiencing some horrible trading days or months, make it a habit of sharing your mistakes with someone else. Trust me, the more you're willing to own up your errors, the better you perform.
Because now that you knew your problems, then you can always find solutions around it, if not, seek for help!
"Stop it, Picasso! Trading should be kept simple."Quick question: which of the two illustrations portrayed on the graph do you enjoy more?
If your preference is the one on the right, then you should have definitely continued the legacy of the Renaissance era artists. On the contrary, if you prefer the one on the left-hand side of the screen, let’s become friends.
Starting with the portrait (let’s put it that way) on the left, we can observe how everyhting is illustrated in a crystal clear way. Firstly, no indicators have been used, which makes it easier for us to read the chart. Second, it has been shown that with as few as 2-3 confluences, a trade has been executed.
On the opposite side of the road, we have the portrait which is depicted on the right side of the screen. We can see how blurry, messed up and confusing it all looks. Two random EMA’s crossing each other, ABCD patterns, Elliott Waves, tens of thousands of Fibonacci retracement levels, random Support&Resistance levels and many other indicators have been added into the chart with zero purpose. Yes, indicators could and should be used as confluences. However, by adding tens of indicators into your charts, you are not beating the market. Just like in real life, everything should be utilised in moderation.
The purpose of this idea is not trying to damage the reputation of indicator trading, but to show that pure price action will always be the king. Many beginning traders get tricked into believing that by adding multiple indicators into their charts, they will have a high win rate, a successful trading journey, long-term profitability. Little do they know that many indicators contradict to each other and perplex novices into entering random positions.
Of course, as we always say, if it works for you, then go for it. Chart analysis is only a part of your trading plan. There is also psychology, risk management, discipline and so forth.
Self-Reflection Is The Key To GrowthHi Traders, in the previous mindset sharing I talked about the simple equation that has helped me to progress faster
"Pain + Reflection = Process"
But you could be thinking "How do i reflect?" OR "I do reflect a lot, but I don't see myself going anywhere."
I believe it all comes down to the way you perform your self-reflection & self-reviewing process.
If you're not digging into the root of problems, you'll never get rid of it.
Let's assume today you've taken 5 trades. Now the market has closed, you're performing your daily reflection.
First thing first, is to write down a list of what you think you've done right, and what you've done wrong.
Maybe your entry was perfect, but you did not manage the trade well, whether you size in too big/ aggressively or you did not manage your exits well.
Be very real to yourself when you're doing your self-reflection, do not try to hide things or blame things just because it makes you feel good.
I've seen quite some numbers of Traders not admitting their own mistakes, trying to put the blame to the market or any external factors.
Being true to yourself is the first step to changes, if you can't even be honest to yourself, there's no way you can improve.
After you've written down the list, now question yourself:
"Is there anything that could be improved?" OR "Is there anything that I could eliminate because they're impeding your overall performance?"
Most of the times, Traders are not achieving consistency mainly because of the ONE mistake that they've been repeating, and it turned into a habit.
After you've performed your self-reflection, make sure you write down your conclusion and make sure you do not repeat the same mistakes again tomorrow.
One step at a time, repeat this process every day.
53 pip profit + Horizon wins yet again! + New Horizon tradeIf these ranges lasted forever, I wouldn't mind at all.
I took 53 pips this morning long, this was something I posted 2 times about last night and this morning, so check those out for a more in depth look at the signals that lead to that move. It's really important in this market to be in before the move happens, you miss out on a lot of money, and your exposure almost triples when you chase the market. Remember that.
Horizon took 76 pip profit today from last Friday. That's nearly 50 pips net, since the beginning of this range. It took a 60 pip loss after being up almost 80 pips on Thursday. It couldn't find a valid exit, which is annoying considering that this strategy could have produced over 140 pips in profit last week. Trust me I've played with trailing stops and static profit targets with this strategy and they just don't work nearly as well as just letting trades run and waiting for a strong exit signal. Trade number 3 was the worst loss Horizon has taken to date, I mentioned earlier that Horizon assesses stop losses on bar close and not in real time, so the strategy is exposed adversely to large break out candles like the one in the picture below. This is a risk that I'm willing to accept though because A. Horizon mitigates that risk using multiple confirmation protocols and B. the RR is 3-4 times the losses. This strategy is designed to take 30-50 pips on average, with occasional 100-200 pip trend. As things stand, Horizon's average loss is only about 20-30 pips. Plus Horizon's wining 6-7/10 at this point so it's all good! Plus I'm adding some logic this week that I'm hoping will boost performance even further. So far it's 2/3 and currently 30 pips up on it's 4th live trade. That said if I DID find a better alternative to this stop loss strategy, I would more than likely cut my max draw down in half. It's sitting at about 8-9 right now, which I would love to get down to about 5% using the same risk. Horizon's current exposure is 1.7% per trade because of the draw down rules that FTMO and other prop firms put in place. With my own capital, I could easily raise that to 2-3%, I don't really want to though (yes I do)
Horizon , like I mentioned has pyramided a short trade which has been as high as 35 pips profit, so far, so this one's looking like a winner as well.
Overall that's 150 pips taken between me and the machine in the last 4-5 days, so very happy, and I'm praying for even further success in the coming weeks. I'll link each post so you can audit my trades. I post these trades well before the moves actually happen.