Price Action Swing Trading - The PAST Strategy

[myknees]

"Not so patient now"

I personally reckon the last video you did was spot on, more of the same for me

Thanks as always.

 

[Nigel Price]

Hello guys -

I hope everyone is keeping well!

I'm thinking that the recent USD strength might be beginning to crack -

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I'm thinking about maybe expressing a view on it on USD/CAD or perhaps USD/JPY.

I also think that there could be an opportunity to go long AUS/USD.

I discuss it all in my weekly update here on on Youtube

I also did an analysis of March's trades - you might be interested in what I found - it's a very healthy exercise to review your trades at the end of each month at least.

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All the best for now - if you have any questions or comments, I'll be around here for the next couple of days, would be great to have a chat. I think we have all ignored EarnForex this last while, me included, it would be nice to get the conversation going again!

All the best, Nigel

 

[geeno]

It would be nice to see this thread alive & kicking

I've read it, tried to pick up as much as possible, but it's always good to get some kind of confirmation that you're on the right track..

 

[Nigel Price]

It would be nice to see this thread alive & kicking

I've read it, tried to pick up as much as possible, but it's always good to get some kind of confirmation that you're on the right track..

Morning geeno - welcome to the thread!

If you have any questions just give me a shout

Well done for reading the the thread - it has turned into a bit of a monster over the months! People always say that Ulysses is a tough read, but I am sure the Earnforex PAST Trading thread could give James Joyce a run for his money! LOL

The condensed version is in the free eBook, in case you weren't aware of it.

As for the USDCAD trade I was talking about above, I am standing aside here for a while on CAD - the USD just seems to be very reluctant to roll over yet - it was very strong yesterday and that strength seems to be continuing into today. USDJPY is looking like a slightly better bet right now - but let's just stay patient and let the market show us what it intends to do. No point in jumping in on a 50/50 and losing money.

Is it the end of the world if we have to wait till next week before we get a trade? Of course not

Plus the Masters is on in Augusta so there is plenty keep us occupied over the weekend.

 

[geeno]

Thanks Nigel - yes, I've read the e-book as well.

It's a very appealing way of trading (if you can make it work for you that is!). I hope to improve more & would be great to get your & other experienced users opinions here.

I'll maybe post a few charts up from next week to get some views..

cheers, & enjoy the golf (c'mon Rory!)

 

[Nigel Price]

It's a very appealing way of trading (if you can make it work for you that is!).

Just concentrate at least as much, if not more, of your attention on keeping your losers small, and winners big, rather than the candles and trendlines. The candles and trendlines are there to help you keep your losers small and winners big - if you know what I mean!

I find that most people I talk to have average losing trade sizes that are waaay too big relative to their average winners. That puts them under pressure to get more of their trades to be profitable.

That isn't surprising, because there is broker data available that backs it up - I can't remember exactly, but I think the average for retail traders is something like an average losing trade size is almost twice the size of the average winner.

If you check my stats from March above, my strike rate was only 13% for the month. I was wrong 83% of the time. When you make sure that your losers are really small, it takes soooo much pressure off you to get trades correct.

If I were you geeno, I'd take a moment this weekend to calculate your average winner size, average loser size and strike rate - just out of interest. I bet there is a way that we could tweak them a little bit to get you profitable. (of course that's only if you aren't doing well already!)

cheers, & enjoy the golf (c'mon Rory!)

Ha, since very publicly announcing that Ireland would "tank" Wales in one of my video reports (they lost) I have promised to do no more sporting commentary, and certainly no predictions! So Rory languishing where he is now has nothing to do with me!

Although it is teed up lovely now for a massive comeback from someone in the field - I don't think that Spieth can keep up that pace he has played the first two rounds with. Will be very interesting to see how he copes with a few bogeys in a row if they come along, coupled with someone coming storming through the field. But his first two rounds have been astonishingly good.

I don't really play golf at all, but I do love watching a major!

 

[Nigel Price]

It was a lovely coincidence that in my last video report I talked a lot about how important it is to acknowledge that your analysis can often be wrong - because boy, was I wrong on dollar weakness this week!

To be fair though, it hasn't been that strong against the two pairs I was looking at, namely USD/CAD and USD/JPY, but when you look across the board, it was very strong on the week.

Here is the dollar index -

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I managed to get a short on USD/JPY on Friday afternoon, but I'm not that hopeful that it will last very long -

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There is one intriguing bit of price action that stood out to me on USD/CAD - firstly let's remind ourselves of the weekly -

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So there has been no taking control of the market by the bulls on the weekly chart - now let's take a look at the daily....

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Nice long wick there, isn't it! It might just be a case, which it so often is in trading, of not being wrong, just being early.

USD/CAD will definitely be on my radar at the start of next week.

Have a great weekend guys, catch you Monday!

 

[stuart1984]

Hi everyone

How is everyone getting on? Been a while since I popped in....

Nigel I have been enjoying the video updates, much appreciated.

Stuart

 

[myknees]

Nigel,

Great to see you back in action, those video updates are awesome and thanks so much they must take you ages - I still have an eye on EURGBP, your indicator has identified 2 long wicks and a strong reversal 3 out of the past 5 weeks.

 

[Nigel Price]

Afternoon guys, so USD/CAD has taken a bit of a tumble today, as has USD/JPY. If you check my post from Friday, you'll see I was sort of gearing myself up for some dollar weakness on these pairs.

So it seems like my bearish USD idea might just be starting to play out.

I got in on USD/CAD at the red line on the chart below:

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Over the weekend, I was thinking that I had been focusing recently a lot on the longer timeframes and have been neglecting entries.

So as I saw USD/CAD potentially lining up for a selling opportunity yesterday morning, I decided to record yesterday's trading session for this week's report.

You can find the Youtube video here.

It's a pretty long watch, nearly 2 hours in length, but I don't think I have ever done a more comprehensive overview of my entry process before. It's pretty much like the live posting that I have done in this thread, but on steroids or something

Hopefully you get some value out of it. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to post them on here and I would be delighted to answer them.

All the best, Nigel

 

[geeno]

Thanks for the video Nigel - have watched the first half, will settle down with a cuppa for Part II tonight.

This is a trade I've just entered on the 5 min chart AUDUSD with a 7 pip stoploss - I wonder what you think? Is the stoploss a bit tight?

There seems to be a good downtrend on the 5 min, & the higher timeframes seem to support general bearishness. Everything seems to be knocking on the 0.7555 level..

 

[Nigel Price]

Morning guys, below is an updated chart from the USD/CAD setup I have been watching.

I just wanted to remind you, as I say at the beginning of the youtube video, I was only trading this on the 1 minute chart to try to get the whole process fitted into one day, for the purposes of making the video for you.

Ordinarily, I would not be trading on a time frame as low as the 1 minute chart, and I'm not at all suggesting that you should do so either.

The principles that I am teaching in that video and here on the forum are applicable to all timeframes. In fact, as you move up the timeframes, it probably gets a bit easier.

The only factor that compromise that increase in ease of trading of the higher timeframes is your ability to exercise some patience and wait for the market to do its thing.

If you want to trade on the 1 minute timeframes, and you can do so profitably, I say nothing other than fair play to you.

If you stand a better chance of success trading on the higher timeframes (which I happen to think is the case for most people), then you should stick to them.

But what you certainly should not do is to mix them - if you are trading the 4 hour chart, but are exercising the patience/activity level of someone who is trading the 1 minute chart, you are going to run into trouble.

Don't try to trade long timeframes with an intraday mentality - the two don't mix.

So figure out what suits your own circumstances the best, and stick to that.

Hope that makes sense!

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Let's see what happens with this USD/CAD trade then so - if we could break the lower orange trendline, we could really be in business, otherwise we are still consolidating.

No donwside - all potential upside - that is the way we want to try to position ourselves in the market.

Thanks if you watched the video

 

[Nigel Price]

Thanks for the video Nigel - have watched the first half, will settle down with a cuppa for Part II tonight.

This is a trade I've just entered on the 5 min chart AUDUSD with a 7 pip stoploss - I wonder what you think? Is the stoploss a bit tight?

There seems to be a good downtrend on the 5 min, & the higher timeframes seem to support general bearishness. Everything seems to be knocking on the 0.7555 level..

Morning geeno - as far as your entry is concerned, that is very impressive. 7 pips is tiny!

But I what I would say is that you will have to prepared to take plenty of those small losses before you get a big move. But to be fair, if your average loss is somewhere around 7-10 pips, you won't need to get many winners in order to be profitable.

In terms of the higher timeframes - looking at the Aussie, you are right, there does seem to be overall bearishness alright - am I right in thinking you are trading this as a continuation of the current bearish move?

Personally, (and this is only my style, everyone should trade in a way that suits them best) I like to look for evidence of a reversal on the higher timeframes, and then use my tight entries to try to get in at the very beginning of a potentially large move.

You'll notice at the start of the USD/CAD video - I am looking at reversals of the bullish trend on both the weekly and the daily (it was only a very small bullish trend on the daily chart, but there were three bullish candles nonetheless).

I'm all about getting in at the very start of very big moves - that's where I have seen the greatest profits. On Aussie, I would say that the big move to the downside could already be behind us - is there potential for another 1,000 pips to the downside on Aussie? Possibly, but given that it has already fallen 1,700 pips in the last few months, I get the feeling that the large move there might have already taken place....

From Chapter 4 of the PAST ebook:

“I believe the very best money is made at the market turns. Everyone says that you get killed trying to pick tops and bottoms and you make all your money by playing the trend in the middle. Well for twelve years I have been missing the meat in the middle but I have made a lot of money at tops and bottoms.”

Paul Tudor Jones

But who knows what is going to happen - I certainly don't! As long as you are keeping your losses small and your winners big, you'll struggle not to do well.

Hope that helps! Thanks for the chart and the question. It took me about 18 months to figure out how to post charts on here - and you got it right first time! Fair play!

 

[Nigel Price]

There is a Canadian rate decision out today, so there will be volatility surrounding that I'd imagine.

The trade is currently +115 in profit, and to be honest I am leaning towards just keeping it open through the announcement. I will either make a lot, or lose nothing - if the risk v reward is skewed in your favour like that - it makes sense to keep the trade open.

Even if the trade gets taken out, its still probably the correct thing to do. Trying to make the most out of positive risk v reward situations doesn't always deliver profit in the short term, but in the long term, the rewards do come.

The main lower orange trendline on the chart above is the one that I am really watching - if a spike occurred and took out my open trade, it wouldn't really be the end of the world

 

[Nigel Price]

I was talking about Ray Dalio in a report from a couple of weeks ago, mentioning how I suspected he was nicking my articles LOL

Anyway, you'll struggle to get a better video on the economy that the one he put out there a few months ago - if you haven't seen it before I'd recommend you give it a watch

Here it is on youtube.

 

[geeno]

In terms of the higher timeframes - looking at the Aussie, you are right, there does seem to be overall bearishness alright - am I right in thinking you are trading this as a continuation of the current bearish move?

Yes, that's it with this one really. I sometimes try to get in on continuation moves just to practice spotting and trading the set-ups. I know you've been mentioning about possible Dollar weakness recently which was in the back of my mind, but it just looked like the Aussie might be a bit frail too so worth a shot. (Looks like it's going to be stopped out for Break Even as I write.)

Personally, (and this is only my style, everyone should trade in a way that suits them best) I like to look for evidence of a reversal on the higher timeframes, and then use my tight entries to try to get in at the very beginning of a potentially large move.

Normally this is what I would try to look out for as well, but for the sake of practice I sometimes look at other timeframe combinations. For this 5min entry, I used the 4hr as my anchor:

From Chapter 4 of the PAST ebook:

“I believe the very best money is made at the market turns. Everyone says that you get killed trying to pick tops and bottoms and you make all your money by playing the trend in the middle. Well for twelve years I have been missing the meat in the middle but I have made a lot of money at tops and bottoms.”

Paul Tudor Jones

I've read that quote, but it does seem tricky to call market turns. Do you think there's also room for trying to get in on moves that may already be underway? (The Aussie trade above may be a bit too late I agree, but in general?)

Hope that helps! Thanks for the chart and the question. It took me about 18 months to figure out how to post charts on here - and you got it right first time! Fair play!

Pure luck!

 

[Nigel Price]

I've read that quote, but it does seem tricky to call market turns. Do you think there's also room for trying to get in on moves that may already be underway? (The Aussie trade above may be a bit too late I agree, but in general?)

Absolutely, there is room to get in on moves that are already underway geeno.

Whatever it is, if it works for you, and you are seeing results with it, continue doing it.

I just sometimes think that we can fall into believing stuff about the market, and trading, just because it is repeated all the time. The classic one is that the trend is your friend. It has somehow morphed into this idea that as long as you trade in the direction of the trend, all of your worries will go away.

It's just not the case - the trading world is full of trend traders losing money hand over fist.

I totally accept that the same thing could be said of "cutting losers and letting winners run" - which of course is the mantra that I regularly repeat.

I suppose the reason why I'm so enthusiastic about repeating it is because I have seen the difference applying it has made to my performance.

We can talk about the merits or otherwise of approaches all day long - but the ultimate arbiter is your p&l account - it won't lie to you.

If you are losing money over the medium/long term, something you are doing is wrong and you should keep an open mind to other approaches.

If you are making money over the medium/long term, something you are doing is right, and you probably should just continue doing it.

Well done on the Aussie trade - remember, a B/E trade is a good trade!

Rule No. 1 : Don't lose money.

Rule No.2: Don't forget Rule No.1

Think it was Uncle Warren who said that....

 

[Nigel Price]

Lunchtime update

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[geeno]

USDCAD tumbles

What a move on the Loonie!

The call at the top was great, but I wonder, if you had missed that move, what would you look to do now?

1. Accept that you missed the boat & look to other pairs
2. Wait for a retracement to try & get in
3. Say 'I'll get in as soon as possible' (see below)
4. Let the dust settle before doing anything

 

[bellafx]

How you feel about my forecast?