[AMA] Trading Strategies That Secured My Accounts Over 15 Years

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Today, we will dive into “[AMA] Trading Strategies That Secured My Accounts Over 15 Years" 👇

This is a summation of accumulated core techniques that grew my accounts parabolically. I hate seeing people get torpedoed by the markets and here's a toast you folks see less broker bombing runs on your accounts.

Okay. Let's commence with a clear statement that I am no self-proclaimed trading guru nor am I selling trading products nor advice. Trading is my hobby and a sideline that complements my legal practice and business ventures.

I started my forex journey early 2000. Brokers at a company called Performance Foreign Exchange handled my funds and promptly blew my account. Moved to another company CIC Asia and their managers imploded my account again. Really vexing. So I started learning everything I could to manually manage my own account. Would you believe I started with that yellow book Dummies Guide to Forex Trading?

Then I discovered ForexFactory.com , BabyPips.com and a lot of crappy youtubers. I started making money. I also started losing money. But I made more money than I lost. Anyone who tells you trading is gambling is partially correct. You're betting on the economy and that the economy agrees with all your lines and squiggles. Just remember that the economy is a mean bitch and can slap all your scribbles so you need godly risk management.

By 2016 I pretty much hurdled growth pains. Things got even better when I discovered Ctrader that year. I abandoned Metatrader which felt like a clunky Fiat next to the Lambo that Ctrader was.

By end of 2019 I decided to abandon most forex pairs except majors. I moved on to trading indices, oil and metals almost exclusively. Here's why: indices move very fast. When you get into the momentum of a move, you hit take profit almost within minutes. Positions on FX can take hours or days to close in reasonable profit. When I do US30 or Nasdaq or JP225 Nikkei, I often hit 100 points in less time to brew a coffee. This allows me to jump in at the next retrace. Again.

And Again.

And Again.

That's a lot of profit. Seriously, I can successfully win several trades in a day just doing this.

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2020 came and the COVID pandemic killed most of my brick and mortar businesses. I was partner/investor at an SEO company, a restaurant chain, a travel agency and a hotel. They all went under. Badly. But not trading. Trading works whether the economy goes up and down. So I sustained myself through lockdowns by trading on a daily basis. That kept me afloat and liquid.

All around me I saw folks spiral into bankruptcy and despair. So I tried to help the best way I can by sharing several of my forecasts on my tradingview account. I swing trade using wave analysis and price structure for long term profits; that's what I post on Tradingview and my telegram channel. But I also scalp like a demon and like closing out multiple positions in a single day so I can withdraw quickly.

Here's how I scalp and the rules I follow

1. First find yourself a broker with awesome spreads. I trade on ICMarkets and FXPro for that reason.

2. Trade only indices. Indices like Nasdaq, US30 and DE30 often have one long term trajectory: UP. That means if you want to maximize your win probabilities, you don't short the market. You long it. Even if you incur temporary drawdown from market crashes arising from Godzilla attacking the capitol, you will still see recovery.

Let's Start

• Start by marking up support and resistance on the Daily Chart and Hourly chart. Just three levels above and below current market price is great. This will let you see potential points of market reversal. I personally will not open a trade within 200 points of a daily S/R line nor 100 points near an hourly S/R line. I prefer to wait for price action at those zones. Either reversal or penetration. Yep. Most of you like penetration. :) Rayner Teo is one of the top FX youtubers and he consistently talks about area of value. Stray outside the area of value and your positions will be lost. Think of the S/R zones as confining you within area. The 200 pips buffer zone where you stop trading prior to S/R zones ensures you keep within areas of liquidity. Be wary of trading breakouts. Institutions know that stop losses are sprinkled around these areas and waiting to stop you out. A lot of content on this here: Rayner Teo - YouTube

• Once the charts are marked up, I throw on a 200 EMA and 21 EMA on the charts. I look at the big picture on H1 then I drop to M15 where I take my entries. For swing trading, consult the Daily Chart for trajectory and drop to the 4H chart. Arty is perhaps the funniest teacher with an impeccable knack for price action trading using moving averages. He endorses the 200, 50 and 21 period EMAs to provide ICBM-level guidance. Key to his instruction is trading in the direction of the master trend only except on sure reversals. I agree. For years, I move with the flow of the 200 or even 400 EMA. The 50 EMA isn't so important as weak trends penetrate this EMA. You however know your direction is strong when price bounces fiercely off the 13 or 21 EMA. Check out Arty's channel: The Moving Average - YouTube . There are no long winded bits of self-promotion here, he goes straight to the trading measures and counter measures. Now being the generous soul, he went further and released two free Tradingview indicators that in my opinion are worth more than most courses sold out there: UK100GBP 7147.0 ▲ +0.45% TMA (tradingview.com)

• Ramble aside, if the price is above the 200 EMA, I will look only for buys. If below 200, I look only for sells.

• I will then wait for a pullback of price to the 21 EMA because trading at the tip of a bullish or bearish impulse is a dumb way to incur drawdown. If price doesn't pull back all that way, the least you can do is await a pullback to the 38.2% or 61.8% fibonacci retracement. If the retracement levels align with market structure, that's even better confluence. I took a course from TransparentFX back 2019 and this Italian author is perhaps the best on Tradingview. His core method is the ICI Strategy- known also as the Impulse Correction Impulse. Always wait for an impulse on the daily or one hour chart. Don't trade just yet. Bide your time for the correction which should be at least to the 38.2% fibonacci. For GBP pairs, it's often the 61% or 76% fib. Once the retrace is complete, he asserts checking the MACD going over zero for long positions and below zero for shorts. I find that this works most of the time however it gets me in late. The better option is to consult the RSI breaching the neutrality level of 50. This is something I did far back as 2015 and something Arty also asserts. Nick of Tradingview publishes multiple forecasts on Tradingview that don't cost a cent. Check em here Trader transparent-fx — Trading Ideas & Charts — TradingView

• Pause right there. Opening a position at the pullback is part of the formula. You need more confirmation because sometimes the pullback goes wayyyyy below the pullback and sometimes does an utter reversal. What I then do is monitor the RSI during the pullback at the trading timeframe. Assuming I want to BUY at the pullback to the 21 EMA or the fib retracement. Obviously RSI will be below 50 during the pullback. I then bide my time until RSI goes above 50 after the pullback. This tells me that buyers are taking control and the pullback was just temporary. That's when I enter the market order. The RSI trick is superior to Nick's endorsement of MACD.

• For indices, I set my take profit at the last hourly swing high or I execute a partial volume close of 70% at 100 points and let the rest run with a trail stop that has an 80 point tail. Indices tend to move 100 to 800 points before the next retrace so the latter is my favored method. If trading FX pairs, I set take profit no more than 6 to 10 pips. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up. It's safer to jump in and out the market than to aspire for 1000 pips and get stopped out when China invades USA in a blitzkrieg.

• Stop loss is set at hourly market structure OR on the bottom of the engulfing impulse candle that rejected the pullback zone.

• And that leads me to engulfing impulse candles. They're often your best bet for entry. When you see large candles that reject a pullback zone, wait for that candle to close then take a market order at the close of that candle. Price should continue on in that direction. Your SL can be the length of that candle. Your TP can be 1.5 to 2x the length of that candle. Arty calls this big ass candles. I always referred to them as momentum candles and they're your ammo to safer trading.

• Anal for extra confirmation? Sometimes I look at the stochastic RSI. I would open a BUY if there was a recent cross-over from an oversold condition. Vice versa for shorts. This isn't so important though as the stochs tend to remain stretched in extended situations.

• Special sauce: Order Blocks. This deserves an altogether separate walkthrough but if you master order blocks, you trade with the Institutions. There's nothing safer than that. There's a great primer here How To Find And Use ICT Order Blocks In Your Trading - PriceActionNinja.com and here How to Spot Central Banks Orders and Trade Forex Order Blocks (the5ers.com) . In simplest terms, an order block is the accumulation of massive shorts and longs by Banks and Institutions which drive the price up or down. It's easy to recognize these.... look for periods of consolidation then a spike of five to eight candles of the same color. When this happens, you know that market makers are moving the markets. How does knowing this help you? When you see 5 to 8 candles of the same color, you know the price will return to its initiating point . This return is necessary because liquidity must be captured by the hedge funds. Sometimes the return is simply a very long wick (also called a wick trick). Sometimes it's a full return. When you see an order block, don't trade. Wait. Then open a position at the exact area where the spike occurred. Happens all the time regardless of time frame that the order block is observed. Master order blocks and you won't be one of the sad folks who open a position at the tip of a huge spike and then gets stopped out when price reverses hundreds of pips. Understand that because of the fractal nature of markets, order blocks can be discovered on the Daily, 4h, 1h and even 5m charts. Find them and you know price MUST return the the genesis of these spikes. They're perfect entries for trading.

• Final silver bullet: Commitment of Traders Reports. The COT is published here Commitments of Traders | CFTCand while most will not be able to make sense of the data, some folks simplify the reports on TradingView. Having the latest COT report tells you where market movers are going long and short. If you know for instance that 7k longs were added to EURUSD and 3k shorts were closed, EURUSD will go bullish for a few weeks. These big players wield extraordinary market moving power unlike us retail traders. Trade on the same vein. Less guess work for you. A fella I know publishes simplified reports on Instagram of all places: Commitments of Traders Reports (@cot_report) • Instagram photos and videos

That's the entire arsenal. I'm not a financial advisor, a trading expert, nor signal provider. I'm like the rest of you- a fella eking out from multiple streams of income to get by during these trying times. Times are tough and it's great that we put out our best practices. These are all the best things I picked up from various mentors, paid or otherwise. Let these guide you.

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