Captains Chest Naked Trading Updated 22-7-13

The Captains Chest - Naked Trading & Other Stuff by Captain Jack » Tue Mar 05, 2013 2:34 am

I'm going to start a thread here in hopes of providing some insight into trading without systems, indicators or EA's. Most of you have heard many people talking about trading price. Most of you probably are still wondering what the hell they are talking about when they say....Trade price....WTF? This is how I trade and just possibly, the light might turn on for some people and they will begin to actually "see" price as it really is. I'm not going to get into candlestick patterns as they are covered by many experts in the field. What I will be talking about is price action and price patterns - it's what you see on your screen when it's "naked", void of anything that clouds your view. Perhaps, if you follow along, you will understand better, why price moves the way it does. Price is "alive" in a manner of speaking. I treat it as a hunter would his prey. Learning it's habits, and it does have habits that repeat over and over, makes all the difference between bringing home a trophy buck, putting meat on your table or going hungry another day.

When I look at all the systems, EA's, indicators and a the latest bells and whistles that people use to make their trades, I can't help but compare those people to "trappers". They are setting a trap....maybe the fox will show up and get caught, but more than likely, the sly little devil will backtrack on you and slink away. I'm not saying "trapping" is a bad method for hunting, I'm just saying all the conditions have to be right for the prey to get caught. This is why ALL EA's and systems work some of the time, but none them work all off the time. When the conditions are correct, the EA or system's trap will spring and you got a yourself another pelt. Sometimes, the trap is sprung but fails to catch the prey and sometimes, the trap never springs. Your success as a "trapper" depends on a mechanical trap, left to it's own means. Let's not forget that the fox is a cunning creature and he will learn your trapping ways. He learns to survive by adapting to your ways.Trappers who can't adapt to the changing ways of the fox, will not last long in the forex wilderness.

On the other hand, the hunter takes more of an active roll in "the hunt". He doesn't just set a box and come back and check it 4 days later. He spends days in the prey's habitat, learning all he can of his adversary. He actively tracks his prey, looking for sign along the way. Learning when and where it feeds, and what it eats and if the prey is large enough, finding the remains of a "trapper" or two along the way. Soon enough though, the hunter tracks the fox right into his den, where the fox lives and is most comfortable. Before it knows it, the fox is skinned and the hunter bags another trophy.

Price moves with direction "and" intent. Too many people try to trade direction only and have not a clue as to the intent of price. Price moves for a set, determined reason. Make no mistake here, price does not move on it's own. Price is driven or piloted by somebody or some thing. It is

driven with intent. The direction of price is the easy part, it's intent is something entirely different.

Most if not all of the orders placed by every member here and in all the bucket shops across the world, never see the forex market. They are handled in house, by your brokers. The brokers have some influence over price and what happens to your trades. ECN brokers have the widest spread swings on the planet, blaming liquidity when a 60pip spike takes out your trade. . Staying with a fixed spread broker gives some protection from these guys but you pay a little more for each trade. In my trading, I use no stops for 99% of my trades. I trade by the seat of my pants and actively manage all of my trades If you are serious about trading these markets, sign up for trade rebates with one of the places on the net that offer them. I receive a 4 digit deposit each month from my provider as I make a great deal of trades across my accounts.

As the predator, I choose to take the fox in his den along with all his little babies. Learn some additional skill sets and your trading will improve greatly over time. Enter this thread with an open mind and leave all your "window clutter" and preconceived notions, ideas and beliefs of the forex market on the doorstep. You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

If you were going to war, would you buy your guns and ammo from your enemy? Easy answer NO! Unfortunately, in the forex wars, that's exactly what we have to do. The very terminals we use and the tools provided with them are given to us by the brokers, whose money we are trying to take. They set on the other side of the glass and they "see" everything we do. They know our habits and nature much better than we know theirs, or even our own. They know all the "tricks" in the book. They know all the tools we use and they use those very tools against us. How many times has a level or pivot point been broken, or a MA line crossed, with an order being placed, only to see price reverse and head the other way? The fox knows where every level or line is better than we. Most of these "markers" are used to set buy or sell stops, and TP or SL levels. A lot of people have heard of "stop hunts" but do they know what they are? Some people think it's a broker sniping their stops. It's not, although some brokers have been know to spike a spread to clear them in house. This type of activity has slowed from what it used to be. Has anybody heard of Steve Mauro? Pretty famous guy in forex who teaches high priced seminars of a subject called the Market Maker Method. Makes a lot of money doing so. In the EURGBP chart, what you are seeing in the end of an extended move and the beginning of the next move. All of the letters on the chart indicate what happens in between, and yes, there's a "stop hunt" there. The bulls and bears have no control of what has happened here and will happen time and time again, across all time frames. Price has been driven in many directions, to specific levels with intent. The rate of change in price is a factor in this process as well. It has been driven by that "some one or some thing", likely the Fox, to each point for reason. Trader mentality is the reason this process occurs over and over again. after all, traders are creatures of habit, set in their ways. I'm going to take an early entry into the direction I "think" price will move. I fully expect every trade I enter to provide me with a profit. It doesn't always happen, but that's my mentality. When I see "pins" like these, many times I will take entry into a trade I'm considering. I've set a stop here, for visual purposes, just below the pins. Most of the time, I'll add 10-15 pips above or below the pin. If I'm right, I've just entered into a high R:R value trade. If I'm wrong, I've got a very small loss. The "pins" are not the only reason for entry, but they are one of the "tracks" the fox leaves. Notice also that a bear pennant "appears" to be forming. This pennant formation, gives me notice of a possible false move lower before a break higher. The fox lives on deception. Let's see what happens with it. I'll begin discussing the lettered areas in the next coupe posts.

Welcome aboard, Pilgrim. Glad to see there is some interest in the area. I'm no expert on the subject and I'm not going to get all techie in terms here, just plain old simple language that we all can understand. If you want the opposite of what I'm going to do, look into Al Brooks series of books on price action. Deep stuff there.... We all should use the words and phrases here that we are comfortable with. To answer your question, yes this is an area of consolidation. It's also a round number @ .8600 and it has been an area of interest in the past. Since time is constant and price is always moving when the markets are open, price will visit and re-visit areas over time. Some areas tend to draw price's attention more than others. If you notice, price reached .8600 at the end of the extended up move, at the end of January and here it is, 1st week in March and price is still @ .8600. This area of "consolidation" could also be considered an area of "accumulation" or "distribution". It can be an area where a large position is offloaded, or another large position is established, or both. This area is the scene of a bloodbath as well. A lot of "price action" has taken place yet price has remained at the same level. With price at the same level it was at the end of January, there are a lot of pissed off traders in the world because of it. Led like lambs to the slaughter. There's been a lot of trapping going on, but it's the bulls and the bears who've been caught in the traps, and the sly fox is smiling at all of them. Never get "married" to your trades or the trend. Successful trading isn't about making the picture perfect, Forex Factory trade, where you enter at the exact high or low and exit at the perfect point with max profit. Successful trading is about conserving your capital, keeping losses small (trade to trade another day), by exiting a bad trade, using capital and leverage to your advantage when you are in a good trade, and bottom line, making a profit. You don't have to hit 100% of a move to make a profit. All you need to be in part of it, traveling in the same direction with price, with the same intent. In other words....you need to start looking at price and thinking about it as if you were on the side of the computer screen where the picture of it is painted. Think like the fox and not the hound, or your account ends up in an empty hole, with the fox laughing at you as he slinks away with your chickens. If the question ever comes to mind while in a profitable trade, "Should I exit here or wait?", exit and book your profit. Trade ended...move to the next trade. When I say trade ended, that's what I mean. DO NOT PISS ALL OVER YOURSELF IF YOU EXITED EARLY - YOU MADE A PROFIT - TRADE ENDED Understand there are two sides to the LCD, CRT or LED screens we all peer though. Do you ever wonder how the picture that appears on your screens, the one we stare at for hours on end, trying to find a clue as to what to do at any given time? Most people don't. They are too busy with everything that covers the surface of the screen, to see what lies below or beyond it. It's like being inside your house, looking outside through a window, but not being able to see anything other than the items that are on the surface of the glass. It could be condensation, snapshots, a thermometer, pretty little stickies the kids have laid on...or just plain dirt. The effect it has on you, is to draw your attention and your focus away from what lies outside, beyond the surface of the glass. Sure, you can still see it, but it will be out of focus and unclear, causing you to miss the details. There could also be a fox outside that window, happy to see all that stuff keeping you from seeing him, heading to the hen house. Those candles on the screen just don't appear by magic. They are created by a process. it happens in plain sight, right in front of you. However, the sly fox would prefer to distract you, disorient you and change your point of focus. The more "toys" that cover the glass of your "window" to price, the more your focus is pulled away from the very thing it should be locked on. Remove the toys and you have price. Keep some open, naked charts and spend some time looking at these. I'm not advocating you to ditch everything you are doing now, but learn what's happening with price so you can use your "tools" better. It's the only way the light switch gets flipped on. And when it does, BAM! It will hit you like a sledgehammer. Once you "see", you cannot "un-see". An epiphany, if you will. Bean time....back later.

Love Texas Hold'em and used LvlII on NASDAQ when I day traded back in the good old days. Now forex catches my eye. Sorry if I caught ya off guard with the price action wording. Like I say, Al Brooks and places like Your Trading Coach can do a great job on the specifics from a professional stand point. I'm a mix of psychology, patterns, habits, traits, ticks and tricks of price and a very different way of looking at the forex market and what makes price do what it does. It's really hard to explain, especially when I start showing you "price projections". Sometimes I feel like a modern day hunter, who uses a game camera to show him the foxes feeding time and location. Then all I have to do is show up on time. I've been a member here for a long time. Just haven't been very active. Can't promise I'll be regular, but I'm here for the moment. I'll be putting up a series of charts explaining what I see happening on the chart. In the mean time, chew on this one. Just an idea I have..... CJ Here's some of my thoughts on the action from "A" through "C" on the EURGBP pair..... BTW, .8755 is an area of interest for me here on this long trade.... CJ

erikskenne wrote:

Thanks Commander

What I see first is the yellow line which is some kind of middle line from were prize stretch out from and snap back to, dealing range maybe, then I see that lines as former support becomes resistance are very important to pay attention to. Also wait to set yr order until after news release. Just my newbie 2cent I didn't forget your post as I was saving it for later reply...delivered now. Yes, the yellow line tends to stand out and grab your attention. I mentioned earlier that price is always moving, returning to previous levels and that it is drawn to some areas and levels more frequently than others. Round numbers, sweet spots, pivots, support & resistance, fibo and gann numbers. Everything we use as tools of the trade as well as some I've missed. Areas that we seek out in our search for profits. Areas to begin and end trades. In other words, all of the areas that both bulls and bears frequent together. We've all heard it, "the bulls and bears are fighting it out here" yada yada... But in reality, it's not the bulls and the bears who control price, it's the fox or the shark or any number of larger predators who are also attracted to these "areas of interest" that price seems so drawn to. Remember also that I say price is driven to a point with intent. My question to you is, do bulls and bears create these areas of interest with their tools of trade, or are these areas created by something else, to draw the bulls and bears together in a small area? Hunters, who are predators, will sometimes use sound, corn, feed, meat, scent, dogs, other hunters, and numerous other methods to draw their prey to them. Sometimes, herding it into a smaller, confined area. Once the prey is within easy reach, it's an easy kill. Once trapped in a confined area, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Consider the question posed above again and think on this. Is price drawn to these "areas of interest" because of some tool we use, or because a numerical ratio says it is, or is price driven to these areas to trap bulls and bears into a feeding zone for the sharks, wolves, jackals and fox that "hunt" the same areas we do? Are the tools and indicators not the "bait" the fox uses to trap the bulls and bears? Trapping them in a confined area where confusion, pain and panic set it in? Take a look at this chart. Notice the tick volume as this "event" unfolds. In my opinion, the yellow line and all lines like it are the "bait" that draws the most number of traders, both bulls and bears, into a killing zone. Most will leave it with lighter accounts. You can make a lot of money in these areas when you recognize the sign. This is a 4hr chart and time moves slow. Traders are not focused on the broad picture, but tend to have "tunnel vision". Their focus is tight and narrow. Also note the "pins" that appear at a lot of the turning point - the tracks of the fox. When these occur on the lower time frames, scalpers get their asses handed to them do to the speed of the swings. Again, this is a "dirty" pattern with seeds of deception sown in. . They usually don't worry about covering it as much in the lower time frame but in the higher ones, you have more time to analyze it.

Something to keep an eye on over the upcoming days Mike.

All indicators are still lagging price and will always be behind. There is nothing that can predict the future path of price. But if there was, it might look something like this....

CJ

Here's the USDCAD on both the 15M 30M time frames....same pattern as the 4H on USDCAD and EURGBP… CJ

mjws00 wrote: Slow day trading for me. Gonna see what BOJ and London can muster. So I dove head first into Al Brooks. Figured two heads up on it had to be worth something. His style ain't nearly as entertaining. Hope the day went well for all. I got my foxy glasses on for later. Mike Al Brooks has price under a microscope....he knows his stuff and that's why I won't be tossing stuff like that out. I take a broader view and use fewer setups that work for me. "Railroad tracks" are the bomb for taking entry into a trade for me. When I see those and I'm looking for entry, I try to get it right in the "pins" at the top or bottom of the formation. The entry into the EURGBP trade was a bit late for me, as I was away when they formed, but got in real close. I have a SL of around 12 pips on that trade. When you are risking 2-3% per trade, a small stop loss allows you to enter with a much higher lot size. For example: 3% Risk SL of 15 pips, my lot size is 3.91 3% Risk SL of 100 pips, my lot size is .57 Since I trade the D1 and H4 time frames, I pull down some nice size moves. Lets say this trade rolls to TP1 and the take is 150 pips. The 1st trade above brings me 39.1 x 150 = $5950.00 The 2nd trade above brings in 5.7 x 150 = $855.00 I risk the same amount on both trades @ 3% but look at the outcome. This is how you turn low value R:R trades into R:R trades of 10+ and higher. I consider these trades "anchor" trades when I trade. as this trade progresses into profit, I will pyramid additional trades, as price progresses in its' journey. There are times when I see a "pause" or test approaching, I will l close the pyramid trades out, hold the anchor and begin pyramiding trades trades when price moves in desired direction. The folks from FXAW can tell you how effective this has been for me. I last linked a live account there, one from FXMC that started with a $4K deposit. After the account hit $32K, over about a month and a half period, I had generated over 40,000 green pips. I no longer link my live accounts but may start a small live account like that again for an exercise. My theory is why make 30 trades over 30 pair when I can make 30 trades in one pair. Works for me and works well. Those "railroad tracks" allow this type entry with a very high probability of success. Word of advice though, don't put a trade on like this anywhere near the time when spreads flare out. Your broker will take your SL with the widened spread and this is especially true for ECN brokers. Wait for news to pass or the day to change and spreads to settle then lay the trade out with confidence. CJRe: The Captains Chest - Naked Trading & Other Stuff by Captain Jack » Thu Mar 07, 2013 1:14 am Here's chart with some examples of the "railroad tracks" and the "pins" formed at the top and bottom. If i can get entry in the pins, I'll set a SL of 10-20 pips above or below the high or low of the pin. If I'm a little late on entry, I'll set SL at the the pin level. This is one of the few times I set the stop. If you look back in the chart history, you probably find many "areas of interest' in the past that relate to these reversal areas. Remember, the fox like to pull the bulls and bears together so he looks for common ground. CJ

Re: The Captains Chest - Naked Trading & Other Stuff by Captain Jack » Thu Mar 07, 2013 1:14 am

Here's chart with some examples of the "railroad tracks" and the "pins" formed at the top and bottom. If i can get entry in the pins, I'll set a SL of 10-20 pips above or below the high or low of the pin. If I'm a little late on entry, I'll set SL at the the pin level. This is one of the few times I set the stop.

If you look back in the chart history, you probably find many "areas of interest' in the past that relate to these reversal areas. Remember, the fox like to pull the bulls and bears together so he looks for common ground.

CJ

f451 wrote:

Hi Captain!

Reading the thread is provoking a few thoughts... Signs on the chart - pin bars, double bars (key reversals), especially if they're poking out beyond some obvious support or resistance level... or price moves that induce retail traders looking at standard sets of indicators to yell - yippee - breakout trade - or yippee moving average crossover trade, or.... (the contrast between how those smart money foxes see the market and how the retail traders with the asian range breakout and moving average crossovers templates often is enough to induce just enough volume to sell when then the foxes want to buy... I've definitely heard experienced bank traders talk about need to push price up or down past certain level to attract enough liquidity to dump or establish a position...) trouble for me is I've never really been able to apply these ideas to actual trading... so keen to be here, CJ, and to see if I can learn to see the deeper levels of the markets! Let's see what I can do here. I once read something that I think came from Steve Mauro, that said it takes 10,000 full lots to move price one pip. That's a lot of trades to make minimal price impact. For the most part, none of us will be doing this or have to worry about who takes the other side of the trade we put on. This is another reason why people say EA's and systems quit working after so many people start using them are full of beans. If the above statement is true, and I don't know if it is, it would take 1,000,000 traders placing .01 trades in the same direction, at the same time to move price 1 pip. 100,000 traders placing .1 trades or 10,000 traders placing full size lot trades. This only moves price 1 pip. EA's and systems quit working because the conditions they are programed for are not taking place. Period. It's the trap that's set that will only trip when those conditions are met. The falsehood that the market makers change the way they trade is another part of trader paranoia. That's how the rationalize it and that's what they believe. Consider this - what is price? Price is nothing more than a reflection of the number of transactions put forth and the price paid or these transactions. You can see this so easy on the charts I've posted with tick volume on them. The largest price swings are usually during the highest volume of price ticks, reflecting increased transactions. This is why the fox wants both bulls and bears present. It creates more transactions and the fox can move price with his intent. You can take all the retail traders in the world and the orders they place are sucked up by the market. Some are offset, against other traders, with the broker taking the chop, some are offset by the broker's in house traders, some are passed through where they are but a spec, offset by large institutions. Look at the numbers above. It takes and enormous number of "transactions" to move price. Hedge funds, bankers, large institutions, and perhaps some whales and sharks have that ability. We do not. The bulk of retail traders orders are to large institutions. It is the large institutions that direct price and it to their intent it moves. Our goal is to trade with the fox, not against. This is why it is so important to understand why price is moving as it does instead of just looking at the cross of price and a line. When we trade the cross of the line, we trade against the fox. He is the one who created the cross. When you understand this, then you begin to travel with the fox. One way to learn this is by learning the habits and the patterns of the fox. This is what I try to put forth here. Pattern recognition and what it means. The tracks of the fox. Price is not random. Price is moved deliberately, and is manipulated by logical decisions. It is the fox who makes these decisions and we, as retail traders react to their decisions. Let me say that again, we react to their decisions. The conditions we trade in are created and presented to us and we react to them. Most times, we react emotionally and not rationally. This emotion is what the fox preys on. Most traders are on the edge of their seats when trading. Trading should be stress free and devoid of emotion. I'm so devoid

of emotion any more, I find my self waking up with my laptop on my lap and drool dripping down my chin, or that could be old age creeping up. Trading to me is mechanical process anymore, boring at times. This is why the fox drags the bulls and bears together, punishes their emotions and creates transactions to manipulate price. When you hear that the bulls and bears are fighting it out now, you'll know it's the fox behind it all. This is how a large institution offloads or builds a position. By drawing as many traders to common ground and then manipulating them to make as many transactions as possible, so that the institution can drive or push price to their intent. Again, look at the chart with tick volume of it and take not of the price swings and volume. There are large transactions taking place and price is moving a great deal, causing a lot of emotional distress. There is also a large number of price ticks and price in NOT MOVING. This is the institution accumulating for the next phase. You may not have been able to apply this to your trading because you are on the wrong side of the glass. You think and reason and rely on what's been put forth to you, up to this point. Perhaps you might be able see things in a different light now and just maybe make changes to your trading accordingly. Any questions, refer back to your post where the traders "yell yippee!"

John

Jason wrote: When you see the railroad tracks, it has already happened. How do you enter near the top and risk only 15 pips? Is it by looking for railroad tracks on the m15? I've spent enough time in the charts that it's almost automatic for me. You can always drop down and check the lower time frames if it helps you. There are repetitive patterns in the lower time frames that occur when the tracks form. You will see the track pattern on all time frames. On a 4H chart, the first pin bar forms.... while watching the 2nd 4H candle, as soon as I see a pin, and I'm looking for a trade entry, I place the trade. Pins form fairly quickly since it's a reversal, price pull back from the extreme to stick the stops that were probably triggered there. A pin high, on top usually triggers buy stops and when price pulls back, those who hold those trades are stuck. When it pins low, or the bottom of a candle, its usually trigger sell stops and stick the shorts. Nobody can tell you when to do it. You have to spend time watching them form and practice trading it on a demo account. Once they form, price very seldom breaches them and you are in a high value R:R trade. When trading these on the D1 you have a lot of time to consider the trade. Here's a past example of an old live trade I posted on another site. The anchor trade is in the pins and the pyramid trades are below. The SL for the anchor trade was the top of the red box around the pins. The only way to learn is to practice.

Jason wrote: When you see the railroad tracks, it has already happened. How do you enter near the top and risk only 15 pips? Is it by looking for railroad tracks on the m15? Here ya go Jason - this would be a counter trend scalp on the H4...entry right in the pins with SL set right on top of the high pin. You can see my entry and SL at the bottom set of pins. Live setup!

CJ

garyfritz wrote: Jason wrote: When you see the railroad tracks, it has already happened. How do you enter near the top and risk only 15 pips? Is it by looking for railroad tracks on the m15? That's what I wondered too! By the time you see the RRtrax, the opportunity to enter "in the pins" is long gone. If you enter up "in the pins" of the first bar, it could just as easily keep moving in that direction and never FORM the RRtrax. f451 wrote: Here's where it gets interesting - if you have buy or sell a LOT.... how exactly to do you that without pushing the price against your trades? This is where the foxes and the stop hunts come back in to the picture... you have to induce someone else to take the other side of your position, so you need to make it look like taking that other side is an attractive deal... say when price pushes down below an established support, or the low of the day - just long enough to induce enough traders to sell - where you as the fox with the big position to establish are busy buy, buy buying, in full knowledge that price is gonna be coming back up once those desperate retail sellers are exhausted. I understand the idea behind this, but I never understood how you could do it. So you push the price down to induce people to sell -- well pushing the price down there TAKES a lot of selling. So you have to get pretty short in order to push the price to where you want to buy. Then I would expect buying would push it UP just as fast as the selling pushed it down, so at the end don't you end up buying back the shorts you used to push it down, you're about flat, and the price ends up back where you started?

Take a look at this chart Gary, this is how they form...it's a counter trend scalp on the H4 time frame. The thing about this is that when price is pushed to a point, enticing people in, they get stuck with the trade when price turns quickly and goes against them They will not close for a small loss and as price moves away, their loss increases. Same when it reaches the other end. What ends up happening is a group of trades in locked into a position. Price will not go above the longs nor go below the shorts. neither can get out without a loss. There will be a period of accumulation, where price stays in a small range, but not exceeding the previous high. This is the Asian session, when the high and low of the day are established. There will be a point where the spread between the high and low widens. A lot of people set these new H and L's as the Asian breakout. After this, the market maker will begin the stop hunt, price moves a lot more and quicker, by now, all the earlier buyers and sellers are out, most with losses. Price will move high and trigger buy stops, locking people into positions, quickly reverse to new lows, forcing the buyers hand to dump or enter DD and triggering sell stops....price will retreat again locking the new shorts in as price runs away from them.... price will not go above or below the points the stops were taken. This is the stop hunt. Price tends to form a wedge or triangle as it whips back and forth, each time, staying between the H and L's, but not breeching the. Longs and shorts are either stuck or out, while the institution accumulates it's position. Take a look at the chart. John

I enter trades with confidence that I will profit from that trade. I fully expect to win every trade I place. If I felt differently, I wouldn't place the trade. If you only scan the higher time frames, look for the "railroad track" pattern to form...it starts with one long candle and a pin on top or bottom. You have hours in the next candle to make a decision about the trade. Watch it happen. This is the first thing I look for when seeking turning points. It's all I need. The chest is open, it's hp to you to take the treasure my friend. CJ

garyfritz wrote: Captain Jack wrote: Take a look at this chart Gary, this is how they form...it's a counter trend scalp on the H4 time frame. What about the places I circled in red? The pins formed there, and price didn't reverse. (OK on the first one it reversed a little for one candle, but it didn't reverse like your examples. Would you have entered there? Would you have tightened up stops and gotten out early when it didn't work like you expected?) It seems to me that you must already KNOW **where** you expect it to reverse. Then you use the pins as a confirmation that "yes, it's going to reverse NOW." The pins by themselves aren't a reliable indicator. So how do you know **where** to look for them? Good questions Gary. You have to remember in this situation, I "know" what the whole move, from one end to the other is. When I look for the pins, I look for major turning points. It's why I look at every chart on my brokers platform. They don't come along every 30 minutes. I look for something that will provide a nice move, say 100-200 pips or more. That's why at FXAW, I always looked for the signals with the highest pip values. I'm not really interested in scalping the smaller inter trend or counter trend moves, but will take the larger retraces on the major moves. Each of those areas you circled could provide a scalper a profit. Options if you take something like that is to move your SL to BE+2 as soon as you are in profit. Look at the D1 time frame...you will see some nice trades across the board on setups like those. You can drop to the 15M, 1H or any other time frame and see them as well if you like those periods. Where do you look for them? Look on one of your 10.4 templates. They are full of them. Most would put you into a 10.4 trade a full level or more before you would normally enter. By taking the smaller SL at the pin level, instead of the MA240, your entry lot would be much larger for the same risk. You made a picture perfect trade there, look at that trade again. The pins will form at the major turning points. Use whatever tool you want to help you locate them. I don't post this in Bob's thread as he teaches his method and I don't want to impose a different set of rules, to confuse people. I've done this enough, I just trust the pins. FXAW is filled with my charts showing the 1st trade in the pins. Even if you are a bit late, you can still take entry lower in the candle and still use the pin extremes for SL. Your risk remains the same, but your R:R value will be a bit lower. When you look at the 10.4 temp, remember the pins are designed to trip buy or sell stops. Check where they appear on the pivot levels we all use. Fire a demo account up and toss trades up when you see them...watch the magic! Oh, one more point on the red circles...the longer the 1st candle that pins, the better the chance of getting profit on the second if you are scalping. Not worth it on the shorter candles, unless it happens at major area of interest. John

USDCHF is "pinning" on the D1, in a major area of interest. I would have liked to have seen a taller pin on the first candle and I'm going to hold my stop until the 2nd candle takes form. It is very possible here, that the 2nd will pin higher, and if it does, I will take a 2nd entry there, and then use the high of the 2nd pin for the SL. Early and plenty of time.... In this situation, I'll use the past major high as a mental stop.

CJ You running a trade sim or something....lol Here's a current pic.... actually 2 of them. 4H and the same info compressed to the weekly chart.... CJ

Could be pinning....

CJ

Looks like a 3 push high....sell it here as it's pinning CJ

Another look....

spotdespot wrote: Does this the kind of thing you are looking for CJ? D1 early potential railroad at an area of interest with H4 confirming? Cheers, Dave.

Yeah...that's what I would be looking for. Pay attention to how the pins form on top and bottom. Some pairs have their own quirks, which pin tends to be the long, which is the short, are they even....things like that. I think you will see differences across the pairs. Some pairs with high spread have crappy pins. You can always look at the chart on different time frames, longer compresses the data, shorter expands it. Sometimes what you don't see on 1 time frame, will show on a different one. Note the time of day.…

John

It happens at different times on each time frame. Look at the lower time frames and 2-D1 candles hold 96-15M candles....look at the action on the H1, H4...the patterns are the same across all time frames and the lower one may give you a clue as to where you are in the pattern. CJ Gertje wrote: When to close your 'anchor-trade'? Reversed RR-track? Where do you add trades?

Specific distance between?

[Mid]Pivots like 10.4?

I have no hard rules Gertje....it depends on each trade, how much profit is involved, what type of retrace is coming up, location in a pattern....lots of different variables. Sometimes I go the distance with them like this EURNZD trade..... Adding trades are the same. Sometimes I will close a trade in profit and enter a new one at the current price if I'm building equity or short on margin. I will post some old charts of live trades I have taken as I used to post a lot of them as I made them. You could adapt this to the 10.4 system and the pins would work well there, giving you early entry instead waiting a level or so. With a larger entry order at the same risk, using a smaller SL, your 1st level trade R:R ratios will sky rocket. Many trades only go one level or so and this can make a big difference in profit attained. John

The patterns remain the same across all time frames.....EURGBP M1

Not good idea to enter trades in the gap between NY and Asian session or during the Asian session. They use the Asian session to establish the new High and Low of the day - HOD/LOD... Price is kept in a narrow range, 25-50 pips most of the time. It varies with each pair. Spreads widen and if you enter a trade here, you already stuck. Towards the end of the session, price will move 25-50 pips above or below the HOD/LOD during the stop hunt. This stop hunt forms certain patterns, like "M" an "W"'s or "Railroad tracks" - RRT. RRT's are actually compressed "M" and "W" candle patterns and should be entered on the 2nd leg or second candle of the RRT. That's why I lifted my stop as the HOD hasn't been established yet. Best thing to do is watch price on the 15M time frame...like what's happening on EURGBP now.... heating up a bit.... If you can, demo trade the EURGBP on the 5M time frame over the next few hours...watch what they do and how you trade based on their actions....good practice cause you're gonna see these moves across all time frames. CJ My bad on the early entry but I did say the 2nd D1 bar would pin higher during the stop hunt... Lesson's being given on the 5M EURGBP right now...worth a watch...learn it and you can scalp hell here! LOL CJ EURJPY just broke lower.....watch it on the 5M for a lesson! CJ

eltax100 wrote: Hi Mike 3 legs? Looks like this. Though a bit muddled here. 3 legs happens a lot. Often they are pretty. But there is a chance the fox is starting to hit the brakes throw up a Pin or an M and start hunting bulls. Not elliot based, just straight up manipulation by market makers. Mike pips400 wrote: I post again in danger of being a nuisance, but please be patient with me, the questions I'm raising aren't because I want to be difficult but 1) because others may be thinking the same as I am and 2) I really do want to learn what's being taught here. So on that disclaimer my next question is about Railroad Tracks. I know what they are in the normal meaning of the word, basically an opposite and roughly similar pair of candles next to each other. But what I find difficult is for a RRT to be identified as the second candle is forming. Surely it can't be a RRT until after the candle close? What would be really helpful is a bit more of a breakdown on this aspect as it seems central to the whole strategy. Thanks to CJ and Mike for your efforts on this. There's no problem with 1 or a hundred questions...they are never a nuisance. RRT's and delayed RRT's are nothing more than an "M" or "W" formation on a lower time frame. If you trade the 4H time frame, look at past RRT formations on the 4H chart, then drop down a level or 2 in time frames and look at what the RRT candle pattern contains. The pin area will always form first because this is where the fox wants to stick the order holders. In the pin, going the wrong way. The 2nd candle forms when the 2nd leg of the "M" or "W" pattern forms on the lower time frame. This is where you get the clue to enter. At the extreme of the 2nd leg. More later.…

CJ

Some things never go out of style! CJ

Jason wrote: I actually made pips on 4/5 EUR pairs, but I didn't have a SL. If we just traded RRTs, is it possible to be highly profitable without an initial SL? Won't the price always reverse at certain points (although it may go further like the EURJPY before the NFP)? Yes, BUT depends on your discipline, account size, trading habits, emotional state, greed level, fear level, pain level and your "Plan B".... You should research "M" and "W" patterns so you understand what comprises a RRT or delayed RRT (DRRT), and the methods to trade them. Nice going on the trades. CJ

eltax100 wrote: Hi Mike 3 legs?

Did you see the "M" and "W"'s? This is a H4 chart....look at it on a D1 or weekly

CJ

I'm loving this! Like that song you can't get out of your head..... If it goes down like this, an "M" will form if they didn't trap enough longs.... If they got what they wanted at the top, the the "W" brings them down....where they will collect shorts at the bottom and run another leg up.... I can see this walking down the line to the 112.50 113.50 area, then a run to higher highs...140's at some time maybe....months away or years maybe for those 140's

mjws00 wrote: EURJPY has played out a little more. Here is a pretty picture. This is a good example of the beginning of a "stop hunt". The 1st box represents the Asian session and the is when the HOD/LOD is reset. The intent of price here is to drift in a small range, trapping traders. Price spread will begin to widen and possibly trigger breakout stops. Note the "bump" in price at the end of the previous NY session. This is designed to trick people into adding to trades, going with current sentiment (LONG). Price is dropped, trapping those traders. As the Asian session ends, price begins to move with "false intent", usually in the direction with largest sentiment - trend biased traders. Once price has moved 25-50 pips beyond the Asian range, the "stop hunt" begins where both bulls and bears are slaughtered. At the end of the "stop hunt", price will move with intent, in the "true trend" direction, at the direction of the fox. I use the term "fox" because it is an animal of intelligence and cunning. It is not the bulls, the bears or even your brokers who create these manipulated price moves. They are the work of the "market maker" or "dealer", who work for the banks. It is their job to take money from your pockets. This industry has no regulation, If this type of activity occurred in Las Vegas, Wall Street or Nasdaq, they would go to prison\ for doing it. Any person who does not recognize these facts is a fool soon to be parted from their money. Your task is not to profit by trading as you know it, it is to learn their methods and piggy back their trades. Only by trading in the direction of price, with the intent of the fox will you make consistent and substantial gains. You learn by watching these professionals ply their trade, you watch their actions, their every move. You do not watch all the things that cover their tracks, that is what then want you to do. If you are dedicated enough to learn these ways, you will be able to trade larger lot sizes, with confidence and make more in profit from a 20 pip move than a 300 pip move. Your goal is to make money, not pips. I can generate as much money from 50 pips as 20,000 pips. I have done it to prove the fact. By being selective and taking these types of trades, your accuracy will skyrocket. Using these methods, I have scalped 127 winners from 132 trades, in a live, verified account. I have taken 237 winning trades out of 266, on medium duration time spans on another live account. Do I take large risks in doing so? Some people think so but they compare what I do to their trading style. This is my style and my risk of ruin is almost non existent. Can you trade like me and achieve the same results - no. Don't even try it. Can I teach you to trade like me - no again. You are not me. What you can do is apply what I do to your trading and improve on your methods. Make sure you trade with the fox. Place your trades with him and not against him. He always wins. CJ

mjws00 wrote: LOL. I'll just sit in the corner with green tea and charts. And a wall full of monitors for those foxy bastards to stare at me through. Thanks for the laugh. In time I hope to fall asleep, drooling on my laptop. Right now I just want to snap on the scope and kill these critters. I gotta say I'm not really sure I love the aggression this brings out. I'm mellow, but watching these sly suckers kill everything that moves... jacks me right up. Seriously stupid perma-grin. Just need my balls to drop now so I can trade like the king. Mike Stir up some old emotions Mike? Especially now that you know what's been going on all this time? Your hate will turn to love as you see the move coming and add your order to theirs, knowing there is nothing they can do about it. When you do start tagging along, understand that you will never get in at the top or bottom of one of those price spikes. When they spike price they also widen the bid ask spread. A spike high will trigger sell stops, but not TP targets or SL. A spike low will trigger buy stops, but not TP or SL stops. get the point? You never see your order at the top of those spikes. During the EURGBP stop hunt, I'm trading for 2-7 pips while the spread is eating 5 at times. If the spreads were not manipulated as they were, my "demo" account would be up over 500% instead if 350%. Part of the game though and nothing more than the cost of doing business with them. John Stop hunting is just part of it. It's how they build a position, exit a position, get traders out of their positions and change direction at times. Price is always moving, up and down. It has to for them to take profits. Price must step back to go forward as well as step forward to go back. Getting a heads on when they change the trend, and they can change it at anytime is key to improving trading as well. The candle patterns help to identify these tracks when they leave them. They can try to hide them with deception, but they can't eliminate them. They are right in front of us but it's up to us to "see" them. Most people don't because they are looking elsewhere. CJ

Seeing this? CJ

I really like Snagit for the screen caps and editing. So easy to use, works for me! Here's a roof top for ya! CJ

I'm not familiar with WMD's work, you are welcome to discuss his ideas here if he gives different reasoning than I do. I'd actually like to hear it. The concepts I bring forth require you to toss a lot of what you know about forex out the window, or more so, what you have been told about forex. To grasp what I am saying, you need an open mind. You need to be able to accept something that goes against the masses, perhaps against logical reasoning. I read that you put a lot of faith in trend lines. They seem to work well. You are supposed to rely on trend lines, S&D areas and a lot of other things. You KNOW price is drawn to these areas. Where we differ is that I know that price is not drawn to them, but that a market maker drives price to certain points, to create trend lines where large numbers of traders will gather. Where price interacts with a trend line could be considered a point where the market makers make a lot of money Market makers. One for each session, per time zone, per bank. There are "dealers" at various levels below them but the central banks guide price. Let the speculators get out of hand and you will see a crushing intervention. They interact with each other. They know where every line is because they are the one who create the points that comprise the lines. They are the artist that paints everything you see on your price screen. But most important of all, they are the candle makers. A trend line to me is one of the lesser evils. They are visual aids and I will throw one on a chart now and then for reference when plotting price. No matter how easy it looks using trend lines, many traders get butchered at the points that create them. That's why price returns. Those trend lines are also indicating a "range" area. This range area is the same you see in the Asian session each day. Price has been consolidating in this range for months. What you have just seen, this past week, is the widening of this range, on the 4H charts. You are seeing the resetting of the 4H high and 4H lows the same as you would the resetting of the intra day high and lows. This process will takes weeks, maybe a month or two. There will be a break above or below this new range and a massive stop hunt will take place, out of which a new trend will emerge. This is where I expect the lows to be near 112-113.00 areas. Crazy stuff huh? If you thinks it's crazy, compare the price forecast chart for EURGBP that I posted last week. Look at the shape of the pattern I posted, compare it to the shape of the move that just occurred. Look at the low point on the last "W" that printed on Friday and compare it to the forecast chart. Crazy stuff, but we all know price can't be predicted don't we. Lines and indicators tell us where price has been, but if you listen, price will tell you where it's going. CJ

BritShrtHair wrote: CJ, what to say about USDCHF Daily? There has been a pin over the last resistance. I'm tempted to go short with SL above that last pin. Or is there something that tells you to hold on? (I'm also thinking: isn't this too obvious ?) Thank you! My feeling is that if you go short here, you've taken the bait. Your SL at pin high will be taken during the stop hunt, if not before. A 2nd H4 candle will print and it will probably pin higher. Shorts and longs are trapped now, as they always are at the end of the day, week, month, etc. When the market opens, there will be a gap, taking out stops before those trapped even have a chance to do anything. During the Asian session, price will drift up and down in a narrow range, resetting the initial HOD/LOD. Near the London open, price will exceed the range, both higher and lower. This is the clue that the stop hunt is about to start. Price will begin to move a lot, both ways, enticing traders into incorrect positions, stops will be taken out and positions closed at losses. Once this process completes, the next move takes place. I look for price to end lower going into NY session or reverse lower during the NY session. This is based on the 15M chart. What takes place on the lower time frame will also take place on the higher, but over a longer period of time, so the 15M move will give clue to the longer, more drawn out 4H move to come. So if you are looking to short, wait for a higher price. Just an old man's opinion so don't bet the house on it. CJ

Hi CJ, What do the M's and W's tell you? "M" and "W"'s are the expanded view of a RRT formation. When you see a RRT formation of a higher time frame, drop to a lower and you will see the "M" or "W" formation on the lower time frame. They are reversal patterns and can be traded profitably. Entry points are taken on the 2nd leg of each. When looking at these on the charts, they tend to flow from "M" into "W" or "W" into "M", it's how the work the trends and extract their profits. Straight line moves, which occur give little time for profit taking. The "M" and "W" patterns are the pull backs and re-traces in the market. "W" indicates a rise in price, "M" indicates a drop in price. CJ

pips400 wrote: Hi CJ and Mike, we're looking at the EURJPY pair for a BARF entry, I just have a couple of questions. I'm also running with Bob's 10.4 system here so this would be counter trend, (which I have no problem with in the right setup). My questions are regarding stop loss and entries. The attached pic shows two possible places for SL, which one (if any) would you take, either 1 at the previous swing high, or 2 at the most recent, and secondly, with the 10.4 system we would wait for entry at the WP, but it would be a much higher RR if entry was taken sooner. So if entering sooner, what would be your signal to do so? Many thanks, Pips400 The attachment barf-eurjpy.jpg is no longer available The early entry here is according to the Railroad track pattern at the highest high. It is the reversal signal. When entry is taken there, set SL 10-15 pips above the HH. BARF has set rules for entry per this chart. If you look at a longer time frame, D1, you will see that there is a larger BARF pattern there, which would have provided hundreds of pips in return. Price is currently back at the original entry point of the D1 BARF, confluence with the H4 BARF. CJ

Usually after 2 days movement in the same direction, there is a 3rd day of consolidation or chop which leads to the next move. CJ nanningbob wrote: Thought I would have some fun with this. My pure naked screen price action only nothing else. You can see things if you get the clutter out.

As you look at the patterns and candle formations of the chart, switch to the other time frames, both higher and lower and notice information that appears on the other time frames. Two D1 candles, which form the RRT pattern, hold 48 - H1 candles. Smaller time frames bring more detail, but also more noise. Larger time frames smooth the noise but become less detailed. The patterns you see of the lower time frame will appear on the hgher time frame and the candles are formed. The lower time frame candles "build" the higher time frame candles. CJ mjws00 wrote: CJ, you should brag about how you hit the subtle gbpusd short coming out of asia, flipped it at the bottom and then rode it back to consolidation here. Too subtle for this baby fox, I thought they'd rattle the cages harder. But I'm hoping we'll see it later in the weekly cycle. Thanks for popping your head up around here. There is a quantum leap available for those that can grasp this. Seriously guys. READ this guys stuff and look at the pictures 1000 times if you have to. Then go run a year or more of charts per pair. Pure gold is an understatement. Mike

You learn to take what you are given and not push it when there isn't anywhere to push it to. When they open the door to a run, I'll stack order after order and pin them right to the fox's ass. The faster he runs, the farther he carries my orders. Like I said, you can make as much from a 5 pip trades as a 50 pip trade or a 500 pip trade. It's how you put it on and what you expect from the trade. You can't get married to a trade nor a set trading style, at least I can't. The fox changes it up and I'm learning to do it better every day. It's having the confidence to put the trade on and expecting to profit from every single one that helps. If I don't, I move to the next, where I will. YEN pairs are picking up a bit.... CJ

nanningbob wrote: Now look at those pin bars and see what they did. Interesting. Hope I am catching on. If I am getting this right I see a 2nd visit to an area is a nice place to go with it. One thing I want to be sure that everybody understands about these pins. Most times, when they print, they are the result of spread widening. They increase the distance between the bid and ask by 5-8 pips or more. The effect of this is to trip stop loss and buy or sell stops, putting people into bad trades, or causing a loss. When they do this, your TP or SL orders will not be hit as a result of the wide spread. This is important here because so many people use pending orders and stop loss or trailing orders. This is the same thing that happens at the end of the day. If you want to see it in action, load up a broker who is offering an ECN feed, open an order box near right before 5PM est and watch the bid ask price as the day ends. These are the market makers hitting the stops. I have seen 60 pip spreads when they do this. Since I place and manage all of my orders, I use market order for entry and exit and very seldom set a stop. I actively manage my trades and do not give them a chance to take an order from me or put me into an order going the wrong way. CJ You're right Bob. The only competition we face is from those who seek to liberate us from our hard earned money. I'm not talking just about the brokers, dealers and the lot of them. This market is filled with people who can't trade themselves, but will toss out one system and EA after another, prying the money from our hands, to satisfy their own greed. There is no "perfect" system, EA or manual way to trade. We all need to find what works for us, on an individual basis. That is where the sharing of ideas and info plays a big role. We can take ideas and concepts from each other, apply it to our own trading methods and style and hopefully improve them as we go. I've already stated that nobody can trade as I do. There is so much that goes through my mind when considering a trade, it would be impossible to put the process to paper. To say, "this is what you need to do, and only this will work for you" is out of the question. But to say, "hey, take a look at this and see how you can use and apply it to your system" may make a huge difference in a traders development. When we take profit from the market, it is such a small piece that it amounts to nothing. A drop in the ocean compared to the size of the market. There is plenty of profit for all in this business. We just need to learn to take it out and not provide it to others. Set realistic goals and use the power of compounding to build your account. Trade within your means so you can trade another day if today did not go your way. Not all of them go my way nor will they yours. There is always another trade to be taken right after the one that just finished and they can be placed at any time of the day. I have a feeling Bob, that your CT skills are going to improve in a short time. I'm all about swing trading. Read the sign of the fox and you'll be swinging soon! CJ

Spread widening at close today. This is how they hit stops in those pins and why some of your orders never close or seem to close before you intend them to. Tricks, tricks and more tricks....

CJ

Aus67 wrote: CJ When looking for trade setups, do you usually start in the bigger time frames? ie Weekly, Daily? and then move down to smaller to look for entry into those larger patterns? I can see the stop hunts, M's W's, traps, etc...but am still thinking 'where do I get in on this??' I am guessing it is fine to stick with a 15m chart and trade that, but keep an eye on the bigger for any traps that you may be walking into? I feel this is an ambiguous question and a little imbisilic as well...but just want to get my methodology sorted. I guess being in Australia doesn't help as i would have be nocturnal to be able to trade NewYork... like most trading, it takes place in the wee hours. Cheers Daryl

I look across all time frames. In the past, I stayed mostly with H4 and D1 trades, of long duration. Lately, I've find I take trades of much shorter duration, with larger lot sizes. My market exposure time is reduced and I take profits off the table sooner. It all depends on what and how you want to trade. Long term trades like D1 and above, medium term trades, day trades, swing trades, or scalps. You take the trades where they give them to you. The smaller time frame trades end sooner. When you see an "M" or "W" on the 15M, it's probably a RRT pattern on the 1H or 4H. Same on the higher. When you see RRT of D1, it's an "M" or "W" on the 1H or 4H. They are the same and thy all present reversal trades, each way. If you have little time to manage trades, take them on the D1. Trade them to the next RRT and swing it back the other way. This type trade is usually smaller lot size to deal with retrace draw down issues. When I traded D1, I would ride the trend to a reversal on the H1 or H4 then swing it that way, back and forth. You don't need to trade 28 pair to get 28 trades. Things happen faster on the lower time frame. Things happen the same way on the higher time frames, only slower. It all depends on you. London hits us at 3am so you will find me up at night as well and if the hunting is good, sometimes for days! CJ

f451 wrote: Saw this comment over on the NB 10.4 thread and a lightbulb went phzzzing! in head. "Those are "buyers" but not the type you think. They bought the story that price was going to drop further and entered SHORT orders. Those SHORTS were stuck there or closed out by now. If there is a change in trend direction planed, you will see wicks like these on the next few daily candles, each presenting a higher low than the last. They will almost be following the yellow line you drew on the chart. This is called "trapping volume" and it sticks a bunch of SHORT orders at the bottom before a rise in price. You can watch to see if this develops and it offers numerous trades on the D1. Never really knew what to make of those grindy up or down trends with long wicks. Now i do. "Trapping volume" and forcing the weak holders out at their stops to fuel the move in the direction the foxes want to go! The HH LH or LL, HL are still the key to the direction, but the wicks show you lots of aborted attempts to go the other way... and just who is benefiting... Another way to look at is that those "SHORTS" reached the end of their rope! They also do it to validate the S/R and fibo levels, pivots and mid points. It gives the illusion of support there at that level, when actually there is no support. It wasn't buyers who brought price up, it was the fox and he validated the level and left "false support" in his wake. CJ mjws00 wrote: Took that quickie out of EJ. Junior Foxy glasses were fine. Looking for another entry when London shows its hand. Didn't feel like letting profit ride. My trigger finger works nicely should it break down. 50+40... got a nice tight add, tiny stop. Junior fox is happy. On to the next one. She made a much larger prettier M, but I took the first one off the pin.

Nothing wrong with booking the green pips, that's how they stay green. This one may drop straight away.....CJ

GBPUSD

Levels and "pushes"

CJ

What I saw to make me want to put a trade on here....

CJ

erikskenne wrote: Hi CJ Does this qualified me as a minor fox, not with out help of course, Been out for a bit...just got back. I was getting worried on the Yen crosses for a bit as it looked like the previous high was going to be taken. As long as the previous high holds, your trade is good as are a lot of mine. They "spread" a pin up above the old pin high, but this does not invalidate the trade. What is important here is how long they held the level at the high and didn't pass it. This "normally" indicates buying the dip and going long....it's "dipping" now....but a dip and rise could lead to a nice reverse and drop into the NY session. A new high invalidates this trade and we should exit. CJ

elvis wrote: CJ, how do you know what the "true direction" will be?

The true direction is the one the fox takes price after a consolidation and stop hunt. Normally, you wait for it to show.

CJ

pips400 wrote: Okay time for the opticians, and have my vision checked. CJ asks "What do you see?" Here is my answer: So that's what I see. I wonder if I need a new set of glasses?

You will soon be able to throw away your glasses as you vision is getting much better! Chasing the sly fox wears this old man out...taking a rest....now where's that 'shine? CJ

Hi CJ If you have a second could you briefly explain what is meant by the terms 'trapping volume'? and 'continuation' cheers Daryl I'll go back and check on the continuation....but "trapping volume" is sticking the largest amount of contracts or positions. When they spike it low and get a lot of people looking to short, they pull price back above them. Then they will drop it again, only not as low as before, enticing more shorts, but not letting the others out of their positions. Price is still above then. They will do this and trap a large volume of shorts, then move price away from them....forcing them to sell at a loss. Draw a descending trend line and you will see that after a short rise, they dropped price quickly one candle. If you draw the descending trend line, you will see it was near the point of drop. They were trying to say the down trend was still in effect. Continuation of the down trend so they could get some more shorts before moving price away from them again. CJ

Just a quick note folks. taking care of some stuff on the home front so I'll be tied up for a bit. I'll get back to posting some charts as soon as I can.... Things to note....Asian is to set the range, reset the HOD and LOD.... London usually brings the moves... and NY is good for reversals....saw that with a bunch of them this morning....moves usually begin 25-50 pips above or below the Asian range.... The cycles are different across the pairs. They are spread so that they all don't coincide....they are staggered across the pairs..... you can use this info and find "lead pair" and "trailing pair".... who leads and who follows? What happens on the lower time frames, repeats on the higher, at a later date....you saw some nice price swings on the 15M last night, these will be larger when the patterns hit the 1H, 4H and D1.... more on this later... Do not try to micro focus to close on this stuff...keep a broad view on the charts, across the time frames... For those having "indicator with-drawl", put some of your indi's on the screen and watch how price reacts around them.... you have a better understanding of how the fox uses these indicators and how he moves price to or beyond to entice action.... Start looking for quality trade setups....don't take everything you see....you will get better at this... CJ

Pueo wrote: Am I on the right track here? looking for a W.. Not sure you are going to get that "W"...you just had a 3 push low...RRT reversal up, price will pull back into the range for Asian...look for stop hunt later. This is a Level 1 drop of a possible 3 day down cycle...you could have 2 more drops... I would watch for a drop in the London again tonight and see if it plays out.... The "W" would have come at the very low and if you look at that on the 5M tf, you will probably see a "W" where the RRT's are located. Don't get confused on the time frames...."W" and "M"'s presented on the higher time frames offer better trades out of those patterns. They will appear on the lower, but unless you are an experienced scalper, it's tough to make consistent profits due to the price range involved and the way they spread price on the bid/ask. CJ

Pueo wrote: Thanks! Why are you expecting a possible 3 day down cycle?

Not sure it will, but I'm "SHORT" biased in this pair and if may be having an effect on what I "want" price to do. Price is consolidating here, and could go either way. I look for EURJPY to fall so I'm also looking for this pair to go south. 3 day cycles are just that...3 days of price action in the same direction, followed by a consolidation level and a change.

There has been 3 days of price drifting higher off the last peak low, before this drop. Price does not always follow 3 day cycle, but it is mid-week as well and price tends to reverse midweek...which would give us a new peak low on Friday, where US session could reverse it back into the range for the weekend....

CJ

Aus67 wrote: Hi CJ For me, a difficult aspect of learning to trade naked (not literally) is the lack of sexy indicators that fill my brain with price expectations. Even though you have taught this expectation 'will be wrong' and my account, like many, will prove that is is wrong, the indicator is something for us to visually grab on to. Naked trading as you teach it, does resonate with me and I know that if I, in time, can learn to trade this way it will be profitable. I know it is early days for me trading this way but I am still sensing a 'void' of information on the screen. I have attached the AUDJPY 15min chart with what I think will happen to price in the next day or so. My projection is only based on my level of knowledge of 'the fox' and her tactics, so will most likely be way off the mark. If so, I hope you can say no it wont do that because of this!! I find myself looking at a chart and thinking 'what now'?? What will the fox do now and where will I jump in?? and not really having a clue. Is this the normal 'learning curve' for naked trading? or am I just unwittingly dim! Thanks again for an amazing thread! Daryl Do not try to project price....you are a trader, not a mind reader. Your job is to identify the tracks of the fox and follow....otherwise you are just another trapper, trying to guess where he's going to show next.... And the key to which one they choose is whether or not they have the volume already. Wonder if CJ has a way of knowing that, if it just comes down to experience and intuition. No, I don't have any special way of determining where the trapped volume lies. Only the fox knows for sure...we know when he moves price away from the largest amount of trapped contracts.... Do not try to anticipate his moves... you are back to trapping. Identify his tracks and follow...you can't lead the fox, he leads you. Just follow along....

Your job is to identify the patterns they use to trap traders in positions and move price away from them. learn their cycles, identify where you are in their cycle and follow them. If you want to try and guess, just flip a coin, it saves a lot of time and thought...you stand as good a chance. CJ

Some people say they talk to the dead and the dead talk to them....I talk to the charts and sometimes they talk back.... It's something that I don't think people can grasp. It starts at the 'tick" level. Watch a tick chart and see what you make of it. It's completely different from what we are discussing at present. Do you believe the market is random and that price location can not be predicted at any given point in the future? Do you believe that "news" drives price? Do you believe in market or price manipulation or free market action? Do you believe the worlds currencies are 'economically" linked? I believe price has a rhythm and beat, much like a piece of music. Listen to the music long enough and you memorize it. I also believe price follows a map if you will, and it's journey is already planned. Locate the map, follow it and you will do what nobody else has done. To actually know where price will be in the future. Imagine that! Now allow me to pull myself back from the razors edge of sanity and get back to the "fox hunt".

CJ

mjws00 wrote: Nice to see you posting, John. It's fun watching the lights go on for some. I'd love a camera to watch the utter confusion spark into understanding. I enjoy seeing how many, once they get the content, will put in the time and energy to turn it into knowledge and wisdom. Hey. Here is one on a slightly different path. Are you picking pairs based on how fast they are moving? Or pure setups? Or just favorites? My relentless pursuit of the fox has me continuously searching for where they are most active. I like them fast foxes best. But perhaps I am missing something. Thanks for your time. Feel free to correct my ramblings. I'm all about seeing how I could look at it differently. I try and preface them with a disclaimer of just beginner foxy glasses and defer to the master. But I enjoy the discussions, and use it to hone my skills. Hope you're having a great one.

Mike

If you ever look at my trades, I have traded every pair possible, including metals. USDSEEK or EURHUF is no different than EURUSD and GBPAUD. Price is driven the same way, by the same "pilots", across all the pair. They do not move as a synchronized dance team would, they all dance to their own beat. Some will slow while others speed up. Some will stand still when price is manipulated in the crosses. They all follow their own cycles. My recent trades were not perfect entry and exit. I took maximum number of trades across pairs to show what's out there. When serious money is on the line, I will reduce the trades, concentrate on a few pair, like I did with EURGBP and hammer the hell out of them. For what we are doing, looking for moves on the 15M, the 1H charts give a good indication of what and where in the weekly cycles the pair are located, at any given time. Again, you have to pull the old nose back out of the charts a bit and take a look around. There will be setups every day, but they will not be in the same pair every day. Sometimes a pair will range longer, until an imbalance in position is established. Anytime there is major news due, count on a violent stop hunt. Before the news event, count on extended ranging to build positions, both ways so the stop hunt can eat them all. Point is, take time to scan the charts. There is no need to constantly be in a trade. The range is always set during Asian, the break almost always comes during London and the reverse is NY, back to the range. They work with each other, across all three shifts. They are limited in resource, and must take profit off the table. When price moves out of range then back, profit is booked and the next cycle begins. Look at the 1st chart posted in this thread. Price started at a point, moved above and below the range and ended at the same point it began....this is the larger version of the pattern, that took place over a month or more. The same process that appears on the 15M WILL appear on the higher time frames, hitting the 30M first then working it's way all the way up to the monthly. Locate the pattern on ANY time frame and follow it. We're hitting it hard on the 15M because it plays out here quickly. Take longer term trades based on the same pattern, on the higher time frames. They are there. CJ

Angat wrote: It seems the best time to trade would be from early morning like 4am to 18pm GMT. Then after the 18pm GMT the second reversal has happened and the market should go into range mode for the asian session with limited setups. Then you wake up at 4am, identify the asian session range, wait for the stop hunt if it hasnt already happened and hopefully it will show u the true trend of the day. Round about 13:00 GMT after the true trend has reach a new low/high, be on the lookout for a reversal. Finally close out your positions by 18:00. All whilst looking for additional quick scalping opportunities on the small timeframes using the "M" and "W" patterns. Would you say this is about right CJ?

Look for the break out of the range at the end of Asian, the beginning of the move at London into London about 1/2 way...and the reverse in NY....whatever times those match up with in your locale zones. CJ xrismak wrote: Peeps, Oh Dear, my Hunch was Right but I fell asleep and missed taking loads of Profit but ehhhh I'll Live with what I could take, next time I'll Stay awake take the Profits first and then fall Asleep CJ, I am outfoxing em, I am loving this now. Now I am going to move along and find something else for my next set of trades. Happy Trading Y'all, xrismak. Look for 50-60 pips on the 15M tf before a reversal. Take the trade the other way, back into the consolidation/range phase. Exit it when they peak price before bringing it into the range at the end of the day since this is NY session. CJ

lhDT wrote: My H4 closes in 3 minutes. A couple of Pin alerts. For a learning process, which one are the good ones ?

The USDCHF probably won't hit the limit order....they already stuck SHORTS there.... EURNZD is extended consolidation after the large down move....trapping a ton of volume here.....while holding the LOW....

EURUSD as well as the others..."W" and "M"'s all over....all trade possibilities....

C

allisonmagic wrote: what is the most common TF you guys are watching ?

15M for trade entry and exit and 1H for scans to see the weekly cycle.... CJ

Hi Mon Capitaine, All the best..

What do you mean by resetting the High of The Day / Low of the Day?

Asian reset the initial high of the day and low of the day....it's usually around 40-50 pip range....this gives all the "breakout traders" their targets....when they extend the range later, they trip the breakout stops and the stop hunt later clears them out, before they run price.... CJ Angat wrote: So my next question is what happens if there is an accumulation phase after accumulation phase in one direction but no stop run to indicate how we trade the profit release? I think what the MMs might be doing here is setting the NY reversal up so the reversal itself is quick and sharp...CJ - would this make sense or am I totally wrong? Consolidation and accumulation will take place until they have an imbalance in orders....then they take the largest amount they can.... Extended consolidation is seen before the "news" events. They build the crap out of positions, then use the news as cover to clean out both sides... CJ Angat wrote: does the second high in the M formation need to be lower or equal to the previous high? Or can it be higher and the pattern still hold? Valid higher highs or lower lows, one not caused by spreading the price above the old one, could invalidate the setup. This applies to the moves we are watching on the 15M time frame. On the higher time frames, you will see "W" and "M" patterns that are following the trend up or down and their 2nd legs will differ then. Angat wrote: I see on the daily for GBPCHF a W formation. Probably be a good time to go long for 300 points if I had the patience to hold it for that long I'm not sure. What else do you see? How about a head and should pattern? What were we just talking about several posts back...on why GBPCHF didn't pull back and ran straight up instead? Patterns repeat from the smallest to the highest....same pattern you looked at earlier.... The spiked price down once, formed 1st leg of the "W"....the did not spike the 2nd leg down because they have enough SHORT volume trapped now and do not want to release it. It's a straight away trade that's designed to bust out the SHORTS in margin trouble.... When you see this, you BUY. They can still spike a bar down, so your SL is 10 pips past the lowest low, but they have to move a ton of contracts to do this.... As price moves away, pull your stop up.

More detail on how you spot that rare straightaway, would, for us slow learners, be *most* illuminating Price spikes down once to the low, but fails to form the "W"...price spikes once high but fails to form the "M"....this is after the Asian session when the range has been set.....NO STOP HUNT Failed "W" - straight away up.....failed "M" - straight away down..... Sometimes they will blow the range box out to cover this....and what looks like a stop hunt but it's not..... The fox is sly and deception is his nature... CJ

Does risk management determine 70% of your own trading success CJ? Having a good idea of where price is going and in what time frame determines success. Risk is either reduced or increased based on this fact. My risk is minimal and I trade without stops so how would you determine my risk? According to this, I would have to lose 171 consecutive trades to lose 40% of my account....my risk is minimal.

I should be doing my homework instead of getting caught up on posting....late on this a bit but still made $$$.... What am I looking for on the BUYS? A quick pull back into the Asian range and out... nothing more.....at least that's what I hope for. Where's my risk...just below the lowest pin... CJ

Angat wrote: So what's your homework consist of ? What are you looking for? Which TFs do you scan, which pairs do you look at? which ones do you avoid? I know your looking for potential W and M formations, but it be good to know your thought process on this. thanks again.

I scan the D1, H4, H1 and M15's.....won't go any lower most of the time....all pairs on my broker... I look for everything I talk about here. I manage trades that are ongoing....look for spot trades.... Doesn't take long....should have checked the news calendar, missed some good AUD stuff tonight.... CJ The fox isn't always active....he tends to set out the 2nd level of a rise or fall....he is very active in step 1 and step 3. How can you tell? Tick volume! Take a look at the chart, where is the fox doing his deeds? The 2nd level is usually in the control of traders who are reacting the what the fox has done in the previous step or level. Level's 1 and 3 belong to the fox....level 2 is the traders....the tick volume shows this with increased volume in level or step 1 and 3. Levels 1 and 3 are usually larger in movement than level 2. CJ

Jason wrote: When you want to enter the top of a stop hunt with an M top forming and there is some possibility that it might push higher, where is your usual recommended jumping in point? Thanks

I trade as close to the top (edge) as I can enter....it's a 3 level drop, exit on 3....if you miss it, you get a 2nd chance on the 2nd leg of the "W".... CJ

I missed the drop in USDJPY while I was posting earlier but I still caught the straight away move back up off the bottom for a few....anybody else see it? No stop hunt, spike down and no 2nd leg to for a "W".... easy pips.... CJ

How do you know when it's going to go up with no W, or does it just turn out that way?

The pins and 1st leg for a "W" are there...I'm taking the trade at that point....I don't wait...the 2nd spike down stops short...it doesn't continue as the next bar is up.... I got here late....tool the trade when saw it...I might have picked up another 5-10 pips but I'm happy with what I got... To answer your question though, you don't "know"....your risk is 5-10 pips below the pins +the spread CJ

lhDT wrote:

Maybe it is a too big shortcut but it make sense saying that :

- you wait the asian range is broken (up or down, whatever) - Once broken, you wait for a RRT or a pin - Then you enter at the opposite direction of the breakout ? When you look at the RRT patterns on the higher time frame, you will get the better moves. They tend to be longer in nature, offering up more in return. They hold the smaller moves that are seen on the 15M time frame within. If you have a hard time seeing them on the 15M look to the 1H and 4H and find the tracks.

CJ monty wrote: There seems to be a W forming on E/G,on 15m as well as 1h tf. Am I wright that one could take it long. I'll refer you back to this chart that I posted back a week ago... It looks like EURGBP is about ready to move higher.... It made a nice pin to the low here so I look for it to return to the previous high, retrace a bit then move to new highs.... This is on the 4H chart so it's an extended move.... CJ

Unfortunately both got stopped at be. What is your sl & profit level for setup like this ? One of my bad habits is sometime targeting too big tp's and so stopped at be. On the 15M time frame, 50 pips is a good target. It all depends on the weekly cycle and the 3 day cycle. When you locate the pairs position in the cycle, you have the possibility of taking a 2-3 day trade which could be 100's of pips. SL is always about 10 pips above or below the pin + your spread. I don't set. If you do, wait for price to pull away from the pin a few candles otherwise the broker could spread the bid/ask and trip it. I had one stop out last night when the broker blew the spread out to 18 pips and hit it. It was a very small account on a new broker so I don't think anymore will be going there. CJ I just shorted the cable pin on h1. Got two nice bearish M15 candles with almost no wick confirming sellers are back on track after a strong push up. Comments welcome. PS : Hope it is good, I've just read that in the Al Brooks book

lhDT wrote: I just shorted the cable pin on h1. Got two nice bearish M15 candles with almost no wick confirming sellers are back on track after a strong push up. Comments welcome. PS : Hope it is good, I've just read that in the Al Brooks book You could get a little more to the top again, but not much....take a look at it on the H4...nice long stick and wick....also on the D1....they are in confluence....this leads to stronger moves... This is where the cycle comes in....GBPUSD has had several days of rising price....this could be the start of a new 3 day cycle, maybe a weekly reversal....if it is, then there could be an extended drop, over several days.... Notice how the patterns repeat on the higher time frames....this is where you take the longer term moves from.... I'll be stacking orders on this one for weeks! Nice catch Lio!

The only thing you are going to find on the 5M time frame is pain and suffering....stay on the 15M... CJ

Great !! You teach us now how you stack your orders ? I saw on some of your charts tons of orders near each others and I wonder why/how you do it. Lio I really don't have any hard rules Lio. When I catch an order up on top of those pins and it starts moving the right way, I will add or pyramid orders as price moves my way. I will have a preset "watch" area, where I think there may be a pause or retrace of price. Many times, I will close all the stacked orders there, wait for the retrace and start stacking again. You have seen me do this on D1 charts mostly, where I my orders are surfing the trend, up or down. I like short's better, as they tend to more violent with a quicker drop than the rise. There are times when I will close an older order, and reopen another...this helps to build my equity and tend to margin concerns when I'm pushing my limit. There have been times in the past, when I have no orders in draw down, that I will push margin right to the very limit....any retrace in price will close orders that are well in profit, or act as an "emergency stop" and close all open orders.... I do this when I'm swimming in the green pips and approaching an area where I think price will back track a bit....when it does, all my orders are closed in profit and I reload them when price finishes the retrace and starts moving again. It is "normal" for me to be using 95% and more of my margin when I'm stacking... Most people would think this crazy but most people won't have 20-30 orders open, and all in profit.... This works for me and the way I trade. I would not say it would work for anybody else. That's why 'm not putting forth my trading style, just knowledge that I have acquired in my forex journey, that may be of benefit to others. This stuff is generally not for novice traders. I would consider it advanced to say the least. I suggest everybody who is trying to learn this, do it on a demo account. It's like Steve says in his EA disclaimers.....YOU WILL LOSE YOUR MONEY, so lose demo money until you are nailing the trades. CJ

What's on my plate..... love me some 4H and D1.... CJ

Pueo wrote: CJ, I didn't close my eurnzd short as I was aiming for the adr low and gap close. Do you think the trade is still good? Thanks for sharing your lunch menu. Consider and then you decide.... CJ

Here's a good one to consider from both sides of the glass.... Notice how they keep validating the fibo levels but the bar for price itself is always moving lower. This is creating a "false" S/R level. Longs will set buy stops above the false level. The next time up, those orders will be sitting in an artificially created zone, ABOVE the true price zone. It will be easy for them to trigger stops at that level again, putting LONGS in a very disadvantaged area. SHORTS are no better as their stops are inflated as well and the return will see price spread beyond them and stop them out for increased losses as the pins are used for stops... Thoughts? CJ

I expect price to climb higher, printing pins the same way it did before. The last pin may breech the highest, center pin in the "M" formation. This presents the breakout to a new high....I would enter SHORT here....and hold my SL till price moved away.... I would use the high of the first set of RRT's, to the left....add 5-10 pips + your spread above the highest pin of the RRT..if they break and hold this level, price goes higher....if price moves lower, away from the pins, set the SL at the top of the last, highest pin... I keep a mental stop when they are "dancing" price around the high..... if I plan to leave, I'll set the hard stop, otherwise I manage the trades without stops when I'm at my computer. CJ Pueo wrote: So, I'm hearing that the risk to reward ratio for this trade doesn't put it in the most desirable categories.. Not sure where your entry was again ..... one thing you can do is to add an order at the top...this gives you a new trade with a very good R:R ratio....if you are in DD now, it brings you out of negative float with both orders, sooner. If you are going to hold and expect price to return to your entry, why would you not add an entry at the top? you can place an order of larger lot size, with the same risk of smaller sized order that has a larger stop loss. CJ

Consider this....it's not our job to "predict" price....we follow price, BUT we can take a close look at price and consider the possibilities.... Can I say that I'm 100% sure this will happen? No, but it has the potential to happen. No harm in being prepared in case it does.... You should have a plan for every trade. An entry target, an exit target, stop loss if you use them and to be able to adapt to what happens along the way. There is no EA or utility out there that can think like the box on your shoulders. CJ

Quick little trade targeting 40pips..... Added a SELL limit above the 40 pip TP....SL is noted....lets see how this plays to the London.... CJ

f451 wrote: Mike, thanks for that - seeing the (almost) mistakes can often be as valuable or more so than the perfect trades CJ - not only weren't you kidding on your quip about not using all of your available margin, I am super impressed that you actually invite margin calls to bump up your equity. Nice work, sir! And a question - do you use limit orders to get a good entry on the second leg of a M or W, and if not, why not? The only time I use limit orders is when I'm looking for that "M" or "W" top...I'll put an order in going with price to the top or bottom, a TP level at the top or bottom , and then a limit buy or sell where I think the leg will pin. I just did that on the EURNZD pair that we were expecting to pin on top of the "M" 2nd leg....my TP was just hit....but I don't know if they will pin the price high to hit my sell limit...if not, I fire an order out.... Most of the time I trade, it's market orders that I place...

Hi Captain, what do you think.. could it work like that ?

If that's EURGBP then yes, it's the pattern I have it following....the High is a level 3 Peak....we have had steps lower so we should be at Level 3 drop which is peak low, which now becomes the new level 1.... If my "guess" is right, we will trade back up to the previous peak high, retrace a bit then set new highs....

Things look better on the 15M....use the 1H to find where you are in the cycle. Peak high or peak low tend to be level 3 and you could see a lot of choppy, irregular price action here....not the pretty pic you have there....

CJ

Kruspe wrote: Yep, it´s EG.. I see what you wrote.. it does make sense ... I know, it would be choppy now and not so pretty as I draw.. I just wanted to know you agree it will rise then ... what price would be the best to enter the trade ? .86 or some buy stops at lower levels ? Thx CJ They may throw another low pin later during the stop hunt to pull some shorts in.. I've got 3 orders in now, as low as could get them.... You won't get all of the pin low because they will spread price.... Like I said, level 3 is usually not normal action, but expect a pin high above range, then a pin low...maybe a "W" or a straight run if no stop hunt.… CJ

Stop hunts take place every day on every time frame....it's just that on the 15M time frame and with this method....you look for them to occur 25-50 pips above or below the Asian range.... A news spike is nothing more than a stop hunt.... CJ

Pueo wrote: So, I'm hearing that the risk to reward ratio for this trade doesn't put it in the most desirable categories.. Trades are there for the taking....should have got in earlier and for more but there's beer money for the weekend! CJ

Stops hit high and low on USDJPY - might be a mover tonight.... CJ

Set of RRT to the low but not a lower low....

CJ

Hit the stops high on USDJPY again....range extension should begin.... CJ

Range being extended on EURGBP....scalped out of my earlier trades....hope to get in lower again.... CJ

Hi CJ, this one is a great setup and also bouncing off WS1. Quick Q: Do you look at pivots at all or do you only trade naked (no pics please ) Hi Jeremy, I'm aware that most turns in price will hit some type of S/R line. However, I do not believe that price is drawn to the level, line or pivot, I believe that the line is drawn by price. When I trade the 4H and D1, which I've made my home on, I can pretty much see the lines trends would make as well as S/R areas. I'll throw a line on a chart for reference now and then, as a reminder of something I may want to do when price gets there, but it's more of a visual aid. I tend to plot patterns that I feel price will follow as well. There are several posted in the thread and EURGBP is one of them.... When trading the 15M, I'll follow the "Fox" CJ

Pueo wrote: CJ, I notice that you often cover a lot of hours in the trading day. I'm wondering if you check the charts every 15 minutes, or when price level alerts go off, or if you're watching the charts almost all the time?

I've got a high powered laptop near me all the time. Being retired, I have a lot of time on my hands. As my wife's caregiver, I'll disappear for awhile when needed. Right now, she is in good health, thank the Lord, and I have a lot of hours to look at charts if I choose. I'll pick up the laptop and scan the 1H, 4H and D1's most of the time...they don't change often. When I'm actively trading the 15M's, I'm always here. I'll let the longer term trades run when I put those on as the lot size tends to be smaller and the trades need less babysitting.... The setup on the 15M are taking place now. My local time is GMT -5 so I could sleep a few hours and get up around 1-2am if I wanted to check the charts before London. Having worked shift work for 36 years, working nights is nothing new to me and I enjoy it. Us old, retired folk can fall asleep just about anytime so snoozing during the daylight hours is no problem. Spending hours in the charts is how I taught myself to trade as I do. It does take time to stay up on the charts, but once your get the "rhythm" of the charts, but t comes almost 2nd nature anymore. CJ Added at the close and locked just in case. CJ, do u lock your profit once you stack in or something ?

Careful Lio, there hasn't been a stop hunt as of yet.... usually have range expansion, stop hunt then the move .. CJ Added at the close and locked just in case. CJ, do u lock your profit once you stack in or something ?

On this time frame, I take care of it myself....I don't set stops.... If it's a D1 or H4 trade I'm looking to carry for days, yes, I'll lock profit and take "free" trades.... CJ

Unless I'm mistaken, this was the stop hunt..... CJ

Take a look at EURCHF....

CJ

More upside ?

Angat wrote: Hey Captain, so I know you trade with the 3 push move which usually takes 3 days form. My question is whats next, is there an ABC push in the opposite direction and then another 3 day cycle. OR is it a 3 push cycle followed by another 3 push cycle? thank you sorry if that was poorly worded. Don't confuse levels, which the 3 day cycle runs on....3 days or rise or 3 days of fall.... The 3 levels or price rise or fall occur within the sessions....the 3 push high or low also occur out of the Asian range.... There is usually a direction change after the 3 day cycle....hence mid-week reversals.... CJ Pueo wrote: CJ, I can see how we can save a lot of money by not using fixed stop losses. The challenge is what to do when you get caught the wrong way on a move that quickly goes outside your comfort zone. I figure that the answer is to hedge and then wait for a turning point. As one gets better at nailing high probability turning points then you can save on these losses. Is that what you do? If you can hedge that's good. I try not to let them get away from me...I'd rather take a loss than take a bigger loss cause there's always another trade.… CJ lhDT wrote: CJ I got a couple of question, not for setups but for the rest. Hope you will find a couple of minutes to answer. Targets, stops & MM : I know you don't set a true SL but use a mental stop, like if the price goes higher than that I close or if that bar looks hell bearish I close my long with a small loss. So, how you setup your risk ? Based on a hard stop ? How you can calculate your lot size. I saw in your statement you took 5 or 10 lots trades. I calculated my lot size based on my entry & SL but without SL it's a bit hard. Also for TP levels, you close when you think the move is over. What kind of profit you got on M15 ? Size of the previous swing ? Fixed TP ? I'm a bit 100% lost on that part. (and about 50% ok on setup )

Thanks !

I may not be able to give you a good answer Lio .... on the 15M time frame, 50 pips for TP1 s reasonable, with more probable. If you look at the AUDCAD trade I just closed, I took around 60 pips and got it from the "M" top to support....that's almost all from the day hi to the day lo.... I handle risk totally different than everybody. To me, risk comes into play when your trade is a loser, going to SL. You have to have so many winners to losers at a certain risk to make money. I have been able to hit 80% and higher on my trades.... When I take large lot trades like that, it's usually scalping 10 pips or less....at $10.00/pip, 10 pips and 20 lots is a nice trade.... When I'm pyramiding orders, the lots add up as well. I may have 10-20 orders on the same pair, totaling 10 lots or more.... I don't really think about it and I don't worry about it. When I enter a trade, I expect it to be a winner. Again, you can figure your risk the standard way....it's how you trade. Nothing wrong at all with it. It's what works for a lot of people. You can do it the same way if you don't set the hard stop.... use 50 pips for target, your mental stop, which should be 10-15 pips if your get good entry, this includes your spread, and figure it the way you always do. You still need the discipline to close the trade if it hits negative float....but you have the option not to do so if it's just the dealer spreading price and printing a pin bar that goes a little past.... I'll scare the crap out of you if you see what I do...calculate my lot size? It's more like, how much margin is left and where can I lay it out....

If you ride price one way as I did with AUDCAD, you can usually count on 50% of the move on the retrace back and into range again.... that way the fibo levels are validated.... The 3 levels or rise or drop will also create the support resistance areas that people are familiar with.... CJ Thank for taking time answer. A 50 tp for M15 is already a good clue. In fact If I understand this well, we need to threat this (at least for m15) as pure scalp. Higher risk, locking or exiting at the first sign of weakness ? The TP areas and turning points are relative to the level of the rise or fall....you also have the 3 push rise or fall in price on a daily basis to use as clues....the other things we talk about, reversal RRT's, "W" and "M"'s which give 2 chances for exit....lots of different clues.... The 50 pips is a conservative TP.....consider the ADR range for the pair as well....are you in at the high or low ADR or the HOD/LOD....things like that will make a difference. CJ

Grrr nice I got spiked on E/N ended with SL hit then it reversed. This with some others losses ruined my weekly profits (using 10.4). Need to learn avoiding sl with your method. We need to remember that when a new session starts, they hit the stops, high and low....to lock traders in positions for the oncoming session. Take a look at the pin high and pin low on a lot of the charts....it happens on every session change.... CJ

Long list is open orders...short list are booked trades..... I hope you guys and gals got some of them....it's hard to post every chart when trading.... The 4H charts I posted are also open.... Need a nap before the close… CJ

Stacked and Jacked, Lio! I see 2 legs down with the 3rd started...looking for pins to close out before the pull back into the close...

I dont think it was a textbook M, the second high was higher than the first so I passed. Nap what a good idea, I could use a good sleep, making pips is hard work. They didn't get what they wanted in the area of the old pins....so they took it higher and sold the breakout....then they got what they needed and back to the original plan..... They will vary the patterns and change them up....they've actually become quiet dirty, with the long wicks, pins, "holding" the pair in a range....lot's of new tricks that they've added... If you really look, that first leg up WAS the range expansion out of the narrow Asian, and the 2nd move up was the stop hunt.... CJ

Let them off easy today as I only went over half my margin when I had those AUDCAD scalps open.... I'd like to get me some of that 1000:1 from overseas....you guys are lucky! CJ

lhDT wrote: Finally, cable is doing something ! Nice Lio. I see several orders there....looks like you are getting the idea of stacking them when price moves in desired direction!. If this is the start of a new 3 day cycle, we could see 2 more days of downward pressure... you have the option of holding to the the next peak low, closing on reversal candles or closing each day as price pulls back into the ranging session and taking new entry when the pattern presents again.... When stacking, I look to the pause in each leg down, as places to add or close positions....many times after a level 3 high or low, there will be 3 legs of price drop or climb... the "M" or "W" may present itself as a reversal pattern when the series is complete. Nice catch! John

Take note of the "W" that was forming here...sign of pullback into the range near the end of the session (day), and week....look for price to bump up during the "gap" on Sunday/Monday. The gap is really not a gap, just a period of time where most don't have access to the market and price is manipulated. This sets up the Asian ranging session, where I will look to take further SHORT entry. Price may rise during London, present the "M" pattern then reverse into the NY session.... CJ

When you move to the higher time frame, you lose all the "noise" of the lower ones. I don't always trade the 15M and have been using it to demonstrate the patterns. My favorite TF's are the H4 and the D1.... but I will use the lower for trades as well as entry and exit... The idea is to trade from the edges...the "M" to the "W", the "W" to the "M".... there's trades in between but when you get it on the edge, it's all good.. CJ

mjws00 wrote: I'm sitting 31/38 for the last 3 weeks, and a few of the misses were misclicks and messing around. R:R still over 3. I screwed up my pips this week though, closed a few large runners against me when the net position was in profit from larger trades above. Doesn't feel like "easy" market conditions or luck. So I have been upping size steadily. I have been well versed in 0.5% style risk. Always always keep a big stack of chips available to play with. But I have never had a problem pushing hard with house money. That is where CJ shines to perfection. Mike Sounds great Mike. It's always better to offset a loss this way instead of letting it go and "wishing" for it to return to the positive side. Why leave it in negative float when you can apply the tied up equity to an new order, with better chance for profit. While taking losses are a bad thing....not taking them is even worse. When you see a "straight" away move, you can be sure that there are many negative float positions at that point and the quick, straight move away by price hammers those holders with instant, magnified loss as well as pressing their margin to the limit and beyond. While I don't use the indicators, you all are welcome to post what you use, along with the knowledge you gain here, if you think it can be of benefit to others. CJ

How about this on a higher time frame? Would these be possible outcomes at the top? A possible "M" pattern, or just back into a range with choppy action? That's a level 3 high....basically 3 days or rising prices..... we could have a reversal this coming week...all possibilities that should be considered when you look at this pair... We can watch this going forward....and trade it accordingly. CJ

Let me try to summarize a bit. This is a mix between CJ method & Steve Mauro. Used on M15. 1. Grab the asian range. Generally between 15 to 50 pips. This is the accumulation phase on low volumes. 2. Around London open, mark the asian hi/low range. 3. Wait for the asian breakout, no matter if it is to the upside or downside, you don't care 4. After 30 to 90min, mark the LOD/HOD (low of the day, high of the day). 5. Price will retrace a bit, now look for "M" or "W" patterns. 6. Enter short at the top, long at the bottom at the second retest. Look also for patterns like pin's, rrt, hanging man, etc in the M & W zones. 7. If all is ok you should be in profit. 8. Breakout traders are trapped in their breakout thing. They are now hoping the price will go at least at their entry price to exit at BE ... but price is now ranging, they are stuck ... 9. One hour after, the trend will resume and the price will be begin to drift in your direction forcing breakout trader to close their order, this will also accelerate the move. Be careful between London & NY close, there should be a pullback if the range was big. This keeps a bit a the volume and money for the next day. So, take your short position from the HOD and long position from the LOD after a M or W pattern. Stoploss should be above the highs or lows (give enough room to avoid getting trapped by broker spread widening) If the price sky rocket to the upside or downside & you don't see a pullback nor a M or W after the breakout, too bad for that one. Go hunting on another pair =)

How about this Lio? Looking familiar? Will they "dirty" it up a bit on the "LH" side like the did the front side with the sideways movement?? Keep an open mind and look at what they are telling us. CJ

llhDT wrote: Quickly run trough a couple of charts. Here is what I find. Comments welcome. Captain Jack wrote: You need to consider where in the levels price is located on each time frame....I would not count on all those going higher....what if the "W" that is presented is only the pause between the next level? Could it not rise to consolidation, then continue the current direction? Take a look at the daily chart....how many levels of drop from the high? Is it currently in a previous consolidation zone, or is there nothing but air to the left? "W"'s on a drop could indicate an area to close shorts and then reload on the pull back and consolidation phase. Short orders can then be place if the drop continues. Moves on the 15M can go either way, within a larger trend. Knowing where you are on each time frame is very important. CJ hDT wrote: Alternative scenario is indeed a drop, this should be 2nd drop cycle to around 94.40 which is the next support level. To complete the 3 legs, it then should drop around 93~92.80. But within M15, I would love to see a bull/reversal candle within a strong uptrend. You will get 8-1H candles just in the Asian session....that's 32-15M candles....keep your eye on the picture that fox is painting and make your move when the time is right....

This is the "homework" we should be doing on each pair, over the weekend, between sessions when trading is slow, etc. Keep a notebook and write it all down. Another good idea is to use the text and label tools within MT4 and place level, step indicators on your charts. It's a good visual reminder. When I'm stacking trades, I'll place lines on the charts at times. These are break or take lines. Places I look for a retrace or break. On a break, I'll add more orders. On a retrace, I'll take my profits and look to place new orders.

A lot of "W"'s were printing Friday, so I went into "take" mode and booked profits. I'll look to re-enter or take new positions Sunday night.

When the fox turns tail, go with him, don't run the wrong way with the rest of the hounds....

Well done Lio. Your write up might make it easier for others to see this on the 15M time frame. I'll add a couple things. Ideal Asian session is 40-50 pips. This is usually dependent on the volatility of the pair. Some may range 25-30...but look for around 40 pip range. After the range is set, the next thing they do is expand the range. This is what trips the breakout trades. After this range expansion, price should move 2550 pips above or below the Asian range, this is where the stop hunt occurs. The stop hunt takes out the breakout traders. This move to the stop hunt may happen over 3 candles or 3 "pushes". This is where some confusion comes in. The 3 push move to the stop hunt is different than the 3 pushes of the actual move itself. Once the stop hunt is complete, look for the "W", "M" or straight away moves. These moves may have 3 levels up or down. Trades over...look for another. You can have a 3 day cycle of either rising or falling price. After this 3 day cycle completes, you may have a reversal into another 3 day cycle. Many times, price will reverse in or near the NY session. This is the last session of the day and week. When price is rising, it must reverse and drop for them to take their profit. When price is falling, it must reverse and rise for them to take their profit. These observations apply to the 15M time frame. HOWEVER, these same patterns apply to higher time frames. Learn them and use them as a guide for price direction as well as longer term trades. You might not want to set in front of the computer and wait for these trades to hit on the 15M time frame. That's fine. Look for them on the 1H, 4H and D1 time frames. They are there and you can take low maintenance, long term trades based on these patterns. Take a look at the chart Lio used as an example....it's a 15M chart. Compare it to the one I add here. A light should have just come on for you! CJ

Angat wrote: Seems like I missed some action, good call in nipping it in the bud. This is an awesome thread thus far, dont want it ruined. Couldn't sleep kept thinking about charts, and asian expansions. Anyone know if there is a way if the asian range is tight to measure/predict the amount of expansion perhaps based on the ADR or I have seen that it might be possible to use fibs? Can it be done? Take a look at some of the Asian ranges that formed on Friday. There was some really low, tight ranges.... so what's that mean? It means that the spring is compressed tight and something will probably "pop" in one direction or the other. The session indicator that Mike posted can help you see this "range box" if you are having trouble. These compressed ranges tend to form more towards the end of the week, Thursdays and Fridays. Even Bob mentions in his thread that the larger moves tend to be towards the end of the week. Reason being is that the fox needs to take profit and tends to make larger and more volatile moves near the weekend. They will do it in time, with size, to make their money and bring price back into a "ranging" area for the weekend. Next week, starts out slower with wider Asian ranges as they have more time to work the zones and build positions....end of week rolls around again, look for the compressed range and the larger moves. Since they can only move price so much in any given day or week, ADR plays it's part. Find a pair with a compressed Asian range, price near the HOD or LOD and it should be gold. They would have the entire range to push price, then bring it as far back into the range as 50%...validating the fib and S&R values....trade both ways.... CJ Pueo wrote: It's so great to finally get my head straight on so many parts of trading all at once!! I've been learning from Steve Mauro as well and the lightbulbs are really coming on. Finally, after 5 years of struggling, now its time to have some fun. I like his song, "the world's your candy shop, don't trade until they hit the stops". I'm really happy with how I've got my template & I thought I'd share it with anyone who's interested. The time zones are all arranged for IBFX. For simplicity I recommend just get a ibfx demo and then you don't have to change anything. Thanks to Mike for the Auto Sessions! You'll notice the dark green consolidation boxes, this is set for "euro sized" pairs, you would need to change it from 28 to around 50-60 for big movers like g/j. I find those boxes helpful to identify the asian consolidation zone. Sometimes the time box does the job, other times the cz box is great. Credits to fxhard at ff for his cz indicator. Looking good Pueo and thanks for sharing your setup with us. I've got a veritable library of hardback, softback, ebooks, dvd's and training materials here, that I have accumulated over the years. My iPad is full of reading material...too bad those didn't come out earlier, would have saved some space! Some of the better stuff is by Martin Cole, Steve Nisson, and Tom Bulkowski. David Elliot, of WallStreet Teachers, who passed recently was of great help when I traded equities. Steve Mauro's stuff was always out of my price range while I was 'educating" myself. I've always wondered if it was worth it. Have you attended his seminars Pueo? I believe he also has a monthly service you sign up for. Perhaps one day, I'll get a chance to attend one of his presentations. I'd be interested in hearing what his thoughts are as I have seen some of his promotional material. Looks interesting but I believe he stays to the 15M time frame only. I'm glad the "lights" are starting to shine for you, maybe we can get a few more bulbs turned on here at Steve's place. CJ

by pips400 I've been quiet for a while, getting my head around all of this, and then last night I found myself on the other side of the screen, and wow, makes me wonder why I never saw it before, it all seems so clear and obvious now, I don't think I'll ever look at a price chart the same way ever again. I've come too far now, there's no turning back. When you're doing a large jigsaw you get a piece and it looks like it's supposed to fit in a particular place, and so you make the fit, only to find out later that actually it fits somewhere else. And then, sometimes when you get one correct piece in place, it leads to many others fitting into place because you just needed that key piece. In a former career, I was an accountant with my own business, and if there's a core accounting principle it's that for every debit there's a credit and vice versa otherwise the books don't balance. Well the same principle applies here in Forex. For every transaction there's always another side, so if someone's buying, someone's selling, and if someone's selling then someone's buying. Nothing new here, and we've read it all before, but then it clicked into place. If the fox want to sell, then he need buyers, and if the fox wants to buy he need sellers. So how does he do this - he manipulates the market to create "bias" or pressure for retail traders to take the opposite direction direction, it's as simple as that. So this is in accummulation phase, and then the stop hunt. There are two things that need to happen here. First if fox has been going long, when he's accummulated enough "unrealised" profit, he needs to bank that profit, by offloading his positions and sell what he has. So on one side of the equation, fox is selling, that means he's going to create buying pressure/bias in the market for retail traders to buy. During this phase you'll get the false breaks above, pinbars etc anything to entice buyers into the market, so that the fox can close out his position, so fox just need to trap enough traders going long. Secondly, when foxy wants to play again, he'll manipulated the markets once more, go through the stop hunt to entice traders into the opposite of where he is going to take price. That was a huge piece of the jigsaw that just fell into place for me last night. And then another piece fitted immediately after - market cycles go in threes (a generalisation, but enough of an edge here). So we're looking for the accummulation/manipulation/stop hunt phase first. Then there will typically be three moves either up or down with pullbacks/rallies in between. On a larger time frame, this will typically happen over a week, with three or possibly four days movement, and a day or two days back into the range, as fox offloads his position and setsup for the next run. To validate a move, there should be enough pips approximating the ADR, otherwise it may not be a valid move. This gives us the heads up on which way the fox is going to go next. After the three moves, we're expecting accummulation again so beware at this stage and wait. All of this happens on an intra day cycle as well, which is where we'll drop down to the 15min (or even 5min charts). Where as a generalisation we're expecting 3 moves. Typically the asian session will be accummulation, setting the high and low so far, but then fox is going to want to play, and so will begin to break out during London session, which is where we're looking for his tracks, the Ms and Ws, double tops/bottoms etc. But remember fox purpose here is to create selling/buying bias the opposite way he wants to go because the balance equation must hold, even the fox can't change basic mathematics. So once we know which way fox is going to go, we can tag along and follow his lead. On the intra day, we can also look at the higher/weekly cycle to give us a clue as to which way this is going to go. For instance, if we've only had the first leg on the daily run, then after the asian session we're expecting the second leg in the same direction as the first. So if that was long, I'd expect to see stop hunting going short around the franky/london open, before heading long again. And the final piece for me was reversals. If during any session, we've already had the three phases for the entire run, and ADR is reached (approximate), then I could be looking for a reverse. For instance, if during London, all three phases complete say going long, I'm looking for a definate reversal around the NY open, although it can happen later (or sooner). So CJ/Mike how does that sound? I new to this, so hope I'm not too far off the scent here. It feels right to me, and I think I'm ready to strip my charts naked. What do you think? EDIT: I forgot to mention. During the stop hunt and say there's a large pinbar dropping south, this will do two things. One - it will trigger sellers, playing breakout strategies, ema strategies etc, and two (which is the missing bit I needed), when a long position is stopped out, at that point he is forced to sell to close out his buy. So either way whether it's new shorts or stopped out longs, the overall effect for the fox is the same - more sellers so he can go long. - He's a crafty devil Put it another way, when your new long gets stopped out you've been robbed by the fox at that price. Youre position is sold to close you out, and he's buying, exactly the way he wants, on his terms, at his price. No wonder CJ doesn't use a SL, why give the fox anything unless you have to

Pips400 - I couldn't have said all that any better....as a matter of fact, it's probably better than I could have said it. Welcome to the fox hunters club! I believe you've "seen" the light! CJ mobthehop wrote: CJ, for us / me being "blind bats" as yet and trying to "see" what you see would you advise to demo on M15 with eyes on H1 for bigger picture view or is H1 / H4 or H4 / D1 the better selection for initial demo trades? Cheers The patterns are visible on all time frames. I've started with the 15M as they complete their process in a rather quick manner....during each day. The time frame you choose to demo is up to you. Choose the one you are most comfortable with. The 15M is good for trades lasting a few hours, or entry and exit points into the patterns on the longer time frame. It also provides you with precise exit points from any time frame. The H1 helps you "see" the cycle....as you go higher, into the H4 and D1, the daily trades are less apparent and the longer term trades come into play. CJ Angat wrote: Hey All, CJ, just so i'm clear, you have probably said before, sorry, do not trade in the asian range + expansion at all? Wait till a certain time e.g. 8gmt or 9gmt and then take opportunities? Thats best way right? Just sit out completely and watch. Or can we confirm lets say the asian expansion took place already say at 7gmt for that day and we're firmly into the trend of the session and we can get in earlier? Couldnt the expansion actually be part of an M/W pattern? There's just not enough movement during Asian session. Towards the end is when they start positioning price to make a move. If you happen to find a large range, you might be able to scalp a few trades but for most it's hard to do. I've taken trades here in the past and may do so going forward, but they tend to be in the 5-15pip range with large lot sizes. Most people should not do this.... Tonight, I would look for the "gap" to complete the "W" and "M" patterns that are showing in a lot of the pair and then for price to range into London....3:30-5:30am may see nice movement.... CJ

Angat wrote: Also whats the deal with gaps and the patterns? Do you ignore the gap and continue the patterns from old positions or use the new location or as price fills in the gap do you have to take that into consideration and your originally forecasted patterns may change, 3 level cycles may appear completely different than you have drawn or how does it work? I believe you would treat it as a cycle reset as they have just booked profits high and low across many pair... what just happened was that they took one or two cycles out of the public's hands. They used the news out of Europe as a way to do this...you can bet that the news that broke over the weekend was known to the banks well ahead of time... Taking a break for a few hours.... CJ Giving EURJPY a SHORT look here off the "M" 2nd leg....should have probably held off for a higher pin..... CJ monkeh wrote: lhDT wrote: Would love to get your insights on that AU long trade. I got a M & a W Monkeh, the 3 leg moves usually start with an "M" at the top and end with a "W" at the bottom.... You will see them transitions from one to another, BUT the ones we need to look for are on level 3, up or down....these provide the better moves. A lot of trades taken on Monday here were not very good patterns. I took a couple based on a few pins that were piss poor. The best trades were off the pins low, on the gap drops. A lot of the pairs have recovered most if not all the loss during the gap. Several gaps have been filled already as well.... When they run price like this, and use "news" as an excuse, price tends to return to the prevailing trend as it was before the "news" event. I've attached one of Kruspe's charts as it illustrates the "M" and "W"...Kruspe is dead on. We need to look for a "W" to form, below the Asian range in this case, to trigger short stops and pick up orders before it goes higher. If we were looking for a level 3 rise, we would look for a well defined "M" at the top, which trips the BUY stops.... these patterns will have some long pins as this is how they spread the price out, triggers stops, but not triggering TP levels... Nice work on the charts Kruspe, it shows good level recognition...just look for the level 3 formations and trade them...you will make money. CJ

lhDT wrote: Would love to get your insights on that AU long trade. I got a M & a W Lio, take a look at the higher time frames....looks good for a scalp...AUDUSD has been on a steady rise, but H4 is showing some clues.... there's a lot of pins up top there....plus there is previous structure to the left... I'd look for some consolidation here, and look for a bigger "M" to possibly form. CJ

Monkeh, here's one of those "M"'s that transition into a "W"....higher time frame.... CJ

Looks like Level 3 on GBPCAD....look for the topping patterns..... CJ

EURAUD looks to be trapping volume low.... CJ

when you are staring at the lower level time frames, you will begin to "imagine" patterns instead of seeing patterns. That's why it's better not to trade the Asian where moves tend to be smaller. You want the volatility in range that you get near the top and bottoms, where they are spreading price, creating long pins and tripping stops to load their bag for the return trip. CJ

Looks like a Level 3 may be forming on NZDUSD.... Note how they added a stop hunt in the "W" at the bottom to "dirty" the pattern a bit... I can would almost bet that some mistook the "W" as an "M" with the added stop hunt to bugger it up... CJ taggie11 wrote: CJ You mentioned higher TF's... Just walking up to my screen and this jumped out at me - WOW. Daily chart of Gold... Doc The patterns are ALL the same.... Scan the charts....you'll be surprised at what you will be able to see Doc... Looks like we can ride the gold bug for a ways doesn't it? Let the "pins" and RRT's be your guide! Enjoy the ride! CJ

Need some sleep....back in a few hours.... CJ

It's always a good idea to look at the other time frames....higher give the big picture, lower the details...looking good here for lower prices ahead.... CJ

Angat wrote: I managed to get a break even day. Not sure where my head is at. Most of the yen pairs gave some setups, they might not have been perfect Ms and Ws but they were there. Could have made 70 pips shorting and another 30 pips long in the end of day reversal, per pair! Perhaps 500 pips just on the yen pairs. Even if you took 50 pips total on 4 pairs thats 200 pips which is not bad at all. I need to focus more and not get in early. I need to wait for the second leg ideally to start moving in the direction i want it to go before jumping on board. It all comes down to money management and keep risk to a minimum. Nothing beats experience to fall back on when everything is going tits up. I hope tomorrow's a good day, I need one of those to get my confidence back. You need to develop patience and wait for good set-ups. You won't always get "M" and "W"'s on all stages on a move...The best place for them are at the 3rd level.... You will get RRT and "pns" which you can use as clues to possible price reversals.... You need to watch for stop hunts.....don't trade the Asian range....wait for price to move 25-50 pips above or below Asian for a set-up.... A 3 push, 50 pip move out of Asian isn't something you want to trade....it's a set-up that draws in breakout traders.... you want to watch for price reversals after these "false moves" happen. Look for quality and not quantity....28 pair or more out there...pick the best ones... CJ Move to a higher time frame....easier to see the "major" turns....also helps to determine the level of the current cycle.

Mescalitofx wrote: I got stopped out at BE + 2 for the small up move on GBPJPY. the juice was out, end of day, ... up to the next. Good evening. Gerry CJ: Question1 The 3 rises , does mean we see 3 push levels from the bottom. i was confused with the GAP on monday so maybe that was a special case. just wanted to be sure. Question2 what pair(s) do u refer to that 30-90 min after asian session after jumping 25-50 up or down reverse. I mostly see it continue straight away. going the same direction. I personally prefer to trade GBPJPY due votality. Question3 I tend to jump in to early for the way down. i keep adding small lots to average a better position. Is that what you mean by pyramiding. i think i expose myself to much this way. but i think it is almost the same what u do with pyramiding up. except i think u only add when u are in profit already. maybe I need to work on that. let me explain by showing my entries on the GBPJPY(see pic) Question4 Any way to stay longer in the trade. i want to increase my R:R ratio.(counting 3 drops when u know the 3rises?) i chicken out too soon. #1. There are multiple 3 level rise or drops....On the weekly cycle, there is a 3 day cycle that corresponds to 3 days of rise or fall... reversal may come after the 3rd level....when it does, the 3rd level becomes the 1st level in the new 3 day cycle... You will find more quality "M" and "W" pattersn on this 3rd level if it is the reversal level...straight away trades tends to occur from this level as well if they already have adequate volume trapped there already. You can also have levels of rise on one or more of the daily cycles....this may come at the 3rd level or after the 3rd level.... When price leaves the Asian session, many times it will rise or fall for 3 candles or steps on the 15M time frame....to give the 25-50 pips of separation from the range... #2. You will see it on all pairs....the more volatile the pair, the bigger the range and moves tend to be. You do not see this on all levels of rise as the fox is most active on the 1st and 3rd levels....ths is where he trades the edges...level 2 is usually the retail traders reaction to the fox at level 1 and 3. #3. Pretty much the same thing...see the AUDUSD trade I posted a few pages back... #4. Refer to the higher time frame charts....you can also use these to determine current level and direction. Enter on the 15M and follow the higher time frame to the next reversal....you can also take profits or establish new positions along the way. You can get some nice daily moves, that have 3 pushes up or down, when price is leaving level 3 or level 1, which it becomes....these are the peak highs and peak lows...on the 3 day cycle. CJ

Mescalitofx wrote: I got stopped out at BE + 2 for the small up move on GBPJPY. Question4 Any way to stay longer in the trade. i want to increase my R:R ratio.(counting 3 drops when u know the 3rises?) i chicken out too soon. This goes a little deeper on holding positions Gerry....Using GBPJPY as an example, it has an ADR of 176.5. Lets say you determine that GBPJPY has formed a peak high and is beginning a new 3 day cycle, so you take a short position and set your stop loss.... Using ADR of 176.5 x 3, for the 3 day cycle, you have the possibility of this pair moving 529.5 pips on a 3 day drop....There are many options on how to do it, but lets say you have added orders and price is dropping. At the 1st retrace level, you can close your positions and take new ones at the end of the retrace or you can wait for the retrace to end and add orders higher, after the retrace. Bring your SL down to the peak of the retrace. If price drops, you can add orders to the next retrace, close or hold. Move stops down again and begin adding more orders....at some point , you will get a nice reversal signal where you close them all out. I tend to close my orders at the retrace point, book the profit and add new orders when the retrace is over. Helps to keep my equity rising and margin levels a bit safer. This is one way of building those positions into a big payday. Each pair will have it's own ADR to use in computations. Some small, other larger... This is an example over several days on the higher time frame, but you can use it on the 15M time frame using daily ADR on the same manner. This is based on entry at the LOD or HOD, where you have the full ADR to work with. CJ

Dumbe question on the way!! What time frame are you referring to? Daily??...I left my glasses home and I cant put my fingers on the 3 pushes!!

Levels refer to the weekly cycle and the 3 day cycle. Level 3 is where new peak highs or peak lows form and reversals occur. You can view them on whichever time frame you can see them best. The count starts from the last peak high or peak low.... CJ Lara wrote: Hi CJ, I'm REALLY enjoying trading this way! Apologies if you have already answered this question but how do you handle the crosses? For example lets say GBP is strengthening and you have identified a strong long move on the 15m. Do you then take long positions on the GBP crosses or wait awhile for the crosses to show the same long bias? If the latter, how long typically do the crosses take to react? Thanks,

Lara

You need to watch for the signals and patterns on each pair...they can hold currency in a major or a cross....look across the GBP pairs now...you trade the patterns when they appear. I haven't really paid any attention to how long they will hold a currency as I'm looking for other patterns when they do... Angat wrote: Similar question to Lara, you going to short all the JPY pairs as they are providing similar setups or will you take just the best quality ones which have a clear M pattern and milk those?

I take a lot of trades. Sometimes one pair will be ahead or behind another. You may get better entry this way. For MOST people, you would want to take the quality setups... These are at the LOH/HOD, level 3's, with "M" and "W"'s.... If you are trading the 15M time frame, 50 pips is a good target. If you get the LOD/HOD, level 3 trade, expect 3 rises or falls in that daily cycle...hold longer for more pips.... That's 3 days of rise or fall, from a peak high or low, with 3 pushes in price, up or down on the 3rd day or level 3. That's why you need to find the weekly cycle. CJ

No need to find 20 trades on 29 pair, find the one pair with a great signal and take 20 trades off of it...the idea is to trade to make money, not to just make trades. Most gaps have filled....and the hold has been lifted off the Pound....a little news does wonders to get the fox out of his hole and running.... Each time you have one of those "face palm" moments, your bank account is going to thank you! CJ

I hope you guys and gals are getting some of this.... CJ

Thanks Capn. A WHOLE new way of looking at the news - closed at 50 pips long on GBP/USD. Could have gone for a 100+ but as you say "next trade". Lara They've been holding price for days now....today is the "excuse" to do what they are doing....swinging it all over the place...this is the stop hunt, got a few hours of action to go....and I'mma gonna blow some minds here when it's done.... CJ

Might not get the full 50 on these sets'....will be watching for the bottom turn.... CJ

Angat wrote: The way I made the 350 pips in one morning was I placed many trades using the 5m/15m/1h TFs looking for M and W patterns with potential profits of 20+ pips. I dont think I can develop the patience to look for 3 day setups using CJ's proper method. I want to but I'm pretty sure my trading style is small quick in and out trades. Use the 3 day cycle to determine which direction to be looking for trades on the 15M....don't trade against the cycle... mjws00 wrote: That is such a nice picture of sticking with the plan and punching out, CJ. I did manage to stack em up on EG on the way down. So it's coming. Probably should have let some ride so they could test lower down. But I need a nap and hate retraces. I think I like staying a bit more focused and just hitting a couple pairs hard vs. watching 20+. No reason why I can't just stack em up on the nicer setups. Finally a night worth stayin up for. Ciao. Have a good rest...this is going to drag out for hours and it's a goldmine when you know what they are doing, It's almost like "seeing" the notes of a song as it plays.... this is going to be a great picture when it's done and will give everybody a great "pattern" with which to go forward with.... CJ

Lara wrote: This is incredible stuff................. I feel like the proverbial kid in the candy store but instead I'm riding up the hill with foxy and now riding down again. And to think I use to spend hours reading what the great talking heads were expecting from a news release........ And they think what they have to say actually makes a difference! What to expect from "news" is deceit and deception from the fox.... it's his clue to start raiding the hen houses around the world.... just follow along and let the others watch TV and the analysts....they're all lost in the fog.... CJ Caught a lot of the "meat" for this move...a few pending orders still set....heading for a nap....this is going to move back and forth for a some time yet.... I lied...still baggin' em!

CJ

Any questions on price manipulation during "news" events? Who caught these? Anybody? You all know I did as I posted several pages of trades on GBP pairs...I can post several more pages showing that many more trades, but you get the point. The fox trades 10's of thousands of contracts at every pip in moves like this...when he's done and books his profits...he leaves price right where he started.... I stacked my orders right along with his, all day today. It was a good day! AUD had a nice spike...anybody short it? I did! When you understand what the fox is doing during these spikes, they quit being "scary" things and turn into opportunities for large profits....wait for the pins and travel with the fox...

I had fun with these yesterday. I developed a trap door EA which enters beyond the BB bands but doesnt enter until price cuts back in? I call it my trap door EA. Price spikes beyond the bands and if it runs I am not in but when it comes back in bingo. I love it I like to punish brokers who like to spike my account by putting trades on those extremes. I'm glad you are able to take advantage of them Bob. They sure take advantage of the rest of us all too often. I don't use EA's or auto-traders. I always placed my orders manually, but lately, I've been playing around with some scale in scripts, close scripts and pending order scripts to make my life easier. I would post them, but they are not in the public domain. I'll fire the scale in script at the extremes, they are set for a flat 50 pip TP. I'll monitor the trades and scale in multiple times, until another reversal. I then close the orders not yet in at full TP, close the pending orders and fire off a new set going the other way. I'll continue to do this until price returns to center... CJ AUDCAD...talked about this one heading towards the Level 3 high....nice "M" with pins up high.... CJ

NZDJPY...."W" to an "M"...pins up high.... CJ

Look for the mid week reversals with the payoffs for the fox on Thursday and Friday.... CJ EURGBP....new peak low.... CJ

Looks like it's gonna be another one of those days....yesterday was a Pound kinda of day...today, it's starting out like a EUR day... GBP "news" due as well in 30min.... CJ

Keep an eye on EURCHF and EURCAD...if price returns to the lower level, forms the 2nd leg of the "W", the trade should run for a couple days...I'll be LONG both pair.... CJ

Ordering those shoes here...LONG EURUSD, EURCHF, EURCAD and "W"'s appear to be printing on several other EUR pair.... Looking for more than 50 pips on these trades.... CJ

johnsund wrote: Hi CJ - here is a snap of the H4 NZDJPY. Have 5 pins to the high, which would indicate a down move is coming. But, only 3 levels of rise. So we would anticipate another level of rise, correct? Also, if the current 5 candles were after a 3rd leg is formed, where would you enter? At the break of the lowest wick in the group or some other point. Took some time off today....yes, the pins indicate downward pressure....here's an update... There was a stop hunt that took place and a long downward pin formed. This indicates another up leg, possibly to test the previous high....it the 3 level completes, a large "M" is forming....this could be the sign for a nice break lower off the peak high.....we need to watch for the old highs to hold or break. If the old high is held, then price should drop. If a new high is established, price may continue upwards... CJ

Kruspe wrote: Hi guys, how did you manage your trades today ? I made only 25 pips (3 trades).. Today´s market was unreadable for me...probably because of many sideways moves etc. Btw I can´t open trade and stay looking at chart... This way of trading ruins my profits because I always close my positions sooner than they reach TP. ... When I want to get better results I have to set TP/SL and go somewhere else - proved Tomorrow is the new day I didn't take as many trades today as I took some time off. Set some this morning and left them to their own accord. Had a couple stop out as well as several hitting the 50 pip TP targets after some early morning success... I should have left the 50 pip target for the EUR pair and they would have closed at that level. However, when I placed those trades, I removed the TP levels as I expected stronger moves into Friday. The trades are still open as placed. There was a very large put option for 900million Euro in the London session.... it has a 2 week expiration date....???? CJ

lhDT wrote: lhDT wrote: Yop CJ, What about that ? I'm short and when I see all those "long" trades I'm becoming a bit confused Closed my shorts for +27 & +6 and opened a long. That's a "W" Saw your earlier post on the "W" Lio....you are doing it right. Many times, I'll take early entry on the 1st legs and cash out at times in the middle, but this morning, I set my longs and left them to their own...could have had an easy 50 pips on all of them, but they are still open.... Nice work! I think you are getting the hang of it! CJ

There's no race here Gerry. Goal is to add profit to account and knowledge to person. I think you are moving in the right direction. Don't get locked into one time frame. There is a bigger picture out there that helps with all trades taken. Level count is key is finding the best setups. When you do find one, hammer it hard, from one end to the other. The smoke lightens each day until one day, all you have left is the clear blue sky! CJ

Taking a position on USDJPY off the low pin.... it may test it later.... CJ

GBPAUD looks like it has completed 3 levels of drop on the D1...H4 setting up nice for a run higher... CJ Lara wrote: Hi CJ, Managed to read the GBP USD moves correctly on Wednesday and made some good trades following Foxy up and down. I was looking for the stop hunts right after the Asian session and they played out as you have often shown on this thread. What I am still battling with, however, is the "straight away" moves after the Asian session. If you look at GBP USD yesterday, there seemed to be no stop-hunt for shorts and there was a 98 pip climb which lasted into the middle of London. Of course I could have waited and traded the shorts from the middle of London, but my question are there any clues that Foxy gives for the "straight away" moves? Thanks again for all your insight. Lara Be sure to look at the higher time frames for the level counts....it was in consolidation after a level 1 rise, off the peak low. This is where straight away trades will occur most often... Price rose from the low, fell into consolidation and did have a stop hunt....on the 1H it's clearly visible... On the 15M, they gave subtle clues when during they brought price off the low of the range and held it high...it did not go back to the low once it shifted high. Price left the box high, and volume picked up at the same time.... Don't get locked into one time frame.

I don't think the indicator is going to work too well with the number of trades that I place....and I really don't want to look at all of that.... CJ

Let's say the first 5 pending orders have been converted to buys, then the UJ reverses... Sorry I do not mean to pour oil on the flames, just saw the UJ drop!!! 1. Do you set your open orders to BE when the next pending is converted? 2. Do you close all on reversal, if yes, when? or 3. Do you let them go into DD till your initial SL (first order minus 10-15 pips?) is hit... Would you pls consider to attach the following indicator to your "training charts": - it places an arrow for every order entry - it shows where all orders were closed - shows pips profit / loss per order (might not work correctly on all Metals, etc as I have not added the proper PipFactor conversion yet) - it shows breakeven line (if some orders in loss, others in profit) - after close of orders it prints total pip profit / loss at bottom of screen This was coded by blubb over at kreslik a long time ago.... Cheers & thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.. When I'm trading this scale in script, it has a set 50 TP and 50SL....there is also a recovery trade, of larger size, set at a lower limit...the SL is a hard stop on these trades... When trading larger lot size and smaller number or orders, I will manage the trade and price action will dictate when I close it once put on. It could be a 20 lot trade where I am looking for 5-10 pips...it all depends on the trade, the time frame and what I expect from it. When trading larger lots on higher time frames, I will set a hard stop and take free trades to protect my capital. Is there a set of rules I can provide you for each trade....no. I'm a trader and it's how I trade. What I do as far as money management isn't going to work for others. Learning the patterns and the meaning behind them is what's important. Once you do, you can modify your trading, use larger orders with the same risk as before and increase your R:R value for the trades. CJ

On this time frame, 50 pips is a great target. I was trading the big swings in the GBP pairs the other day and hitting them up and down. There will come a time, when the full fifty isn't going to happen. When it does, I will close the order manually. When does that happen? According to the price action. There is no set point. I look for the same things we discuss here. The reversal patterns. On the higher time frames, I look to areas where I expect price to pause or retrace, then decide to either close the trades and reload after the retrace or just wait and add trades after the retrace. It all depends on the situation at the time. With the scale in script. All orders close at TP or BE... the backup order has a different SL and TP...and it's triggers are different than the scale in orders. CJ

I hope Snowman doesn't mind, I stole a chart he posted in Bob's thread: Perfect example of the fox at work and the reaction of the retail trader. Multiply this 10's of thousands of times and you start to understand....stuck in the pins and going the wrong way.....notice the entry on the 3rd push lower out of the range...convinced this trader to go short.... The lights should be getting brighter.... C

So far, so good....EUR pairs are coming home...still holding those orders from yesterday.... You don't have to or need to trade this way....I've said it before that you the idea is to make money. You can make the same amount of money by trading a smaller number of currency pairs, but trading a larger lot size. Too many people get hung up on pips. I can earn as much on 10 pips as I can 10000 pips. It is far easier to trade a couple pair, get familiar with them and trade larger lot sizes. Less to worry about, less to tend to and take care of. I do this to make a point and don't always trade this way. As a matter of fact, I very seldom trade this way. The patterns are the same. It doesn't matter what pair, or what time frame. The patterns are what is important. Once you learn those, all the hard work is done. Find one pair at the right level, right cycle and right pattern and hammer the hell out of it. I won't be doing this next week. Gonna slow it down and size it up. CJ

lhDT wrote: CJ,I still don't understand how to put all those limits/stops at 5 or 6 pip from each others. You don't have to Lio....just use one or 2 with larger lot sizes....I'm using a script that does it for me... I'll get away from that next week... trading this way generate pips out the a$$...you don't need to do that....I'll show you next week... There was also a scale in script added to the thread here that would let you scale in orders by pip distance. This one works well for 50 pips on the 15M TF. The one I use is copyright so I can't post it. Sorry. John

stevelacoste wrote: Hi Captain can you tell me your reasons for going long on EUR NZD Thanks Steve It has everything we have been talking about in the thread... 3 level drop to a new peak low..."W" formation at the low...pins to the low...RRT formations....correct pattern formation on the 15M, drop out of the range, form a "W", pin to the low that doesn't take out the old low....all the signs are there....we just have to read them. Look at the chart I posted of EURCAD with the "nice pattern"...it's the same.... CJ

I'm tired n I have decided to go flat for the rest of the day. Take my winnings and run I made 270 pips this morning. My report is attached. Together with 350 on Monday morning, thats like 620 pips for two mornings work. However I still need alot of practice, and I'm not sure if I can goto mini lots if cant I control my trading inbetween days like this, I need to figure out how to be patient more or find alternate setups. I also nearly redid what I did on Monday afternoon, I got excited and went big again and nearly got margin called luckily I didnt this time. I think I'm going to continue to follow your advice and stick to 2-3 pairs instead of like 8-10. Switching between all those charts is exhausting. Thanks CJ for this thread, you rock! Nice days work. Yes, now that you are catching some of the moves, work on choosing the best setups and concentrate on those. It's a pain in the butt trying to keep track of 10-15 different pairs. It's easier to find a couple good setups and use a larger lot size, keeping the tight stops. If you are wrong, it cost you a little, when you are right, you get paid off nicely and it doesn't take 1000 pips to do it. CJ Angat wrote: So I have caught the moves this morning, will post results later. I'm now out of all my trades. However I am seeing reversal patterns on some of the pairs I traded. CJ you think it will mess around for a couple of hours and then reverse? Those were the stop hunts that happen at session change over, and between the 2nd and 3 pushes during a 3 leg move.... I look for the 3rd leg and then a pullback into the end of the session...to center price, lock traders back into the range and give the Asian fox something to snack on come Monday. CJ erikskenne wrote: Commander you have certainly light up round about 1000 bulbs in my way of looking at this forex, I have been away at work and have to return on monday so I have to read through a lot on this weekend, so whilst you other enjoy yr BBq I shall study And most of all clean out my computer for approx 600+ indicators courses and other stuff which I have spent quite a lot of cash on. Thanks and thanks a gain, I you ever decide to take a trip to sweden drop me hint I shall happily buy you the best beer ever. God bless and a nice weekend to all Thanks for the kind words. Travel safe and don't hurt your back tossing out all those indicators! Perhaps one day, I'll take you up on the beer. CJ

The wolf eats well today!

CJ

these kind of level 3 pushes are normal on a Friday? Have a great weekend. Beginning of the week, end of the week, beginning of the session, end of the session....depends on where the money is. They have to move price to book their profits, then return it to center and lock it in a range. Fridays tend to be more active for that reason...besides, they want to lock traders in so they can gap price on them. Remember last week? CJ

Back from my own bbq... Those trades had tight Stops so no Big Deal. I didn't have much Time to trade so I'm quite happy with the Results. Have a nice Weekend. Edi Wipe your chin off... You were correct in choosing a short when you did and could have taken some pips out of the trade. Be a taker and take what a trade gives you. I enter early and will take some draw down when I do, as long as I'm confident the trade decision is still correct. I will also add to my orders at times to speed up recovery from DD. Two people can be SHORT or LONG between them and still be right. Price will always change course, from rising to falling and from falling to rising. The key is in the timing. I took my 50 long and then some and then I took UJ, along with a few others, short, back into the Friday pullback for another 50 while I slept today. pips400 wrote: Thanks again to CJ, and all the contributors on this brilliant thread. I've not been able to trade this week because I've had other work commitments, which is really frustrating because I can't wait to get my share. I have managed however to keep up with the posts and looks like a lot of light bulbs have been going on, and as a band of traders giving the fox a bit of come back, not least of all CJ who just seems to be playing and killing it at the same time - that's the future, when trading becomes routine, and the guesswork is minimized. Time on charts equals more kills Have a great weekend everyone, Monday will come soon enough. Thanks for the kind words. It's good to see that some of the people here are beginning to "see" the light and hopefully, profit from doing so. It does get easier as you go and get the chart time in. Once you realize you don't need the EA's or the systems or the indicators, you will be surprised at how much more chart time you will have. Your gain comes from the time you save in the constant hunt for things that just don't work like they should. Do yourselves a favor and quit looking. No EA or system will ever be able to trade for me like I trade for me. It does not exist nor will it ever. Funny how you start looking for that Monday open, eh? Angat wrote: Im very glad I didnt trade in the afternoon, after my nap I checked the charts and they werent that pretty at all. Congratz on the pipage guys. Tomorrow I'll post some charts of my potentials for Monday. Feel free to do the same, researching in advance is so helpful especially to a nooby trader like me. Directional bias needs to change as price direction changes with the sessions. There is always a pullback into the range session. Friday's pull back leads to Mondays Asian range session. Stop hunts tend to occur when the session market makers change over from one session to the next. It's how they lock traders in a range while a different fox takes lead in the chase. Look at when the stop hunts took place Friday. Between 9-9:30am....when London turns over to NY....check the charts and remember this....it's a good thing to know. Dead time is the best time for looking at charts. We don't get distracted by price movement when doing so. Each chart is a record of what price did...a story if you will. Like any book, if you flip through the pages quickly, the details of the story are lost. Each page has to be read in order to understand not only the story but the characters that comprise the story. Post some charts if you find any interesting stories as I'm sure those here would enjoy reading along! CJ

There's already been some good explanations and I can tell that this stuff is making sense to a lot of people here. That's good to see. I'll add a couple charts and my comments as well. We were looking at this and I had it on my watch list as well. First of all, we did not get a well formed "M"....the 2nd leg did not reach the high of the first leg and there were no long pins, where the fox is trying to stick the longs up high. This is the area where spread widens in the bid ask as this occurs but we can't see that on the chart either. It's the spread widening that helps create the long pins. As pointed out, we only had 2 pushes higher from the last peak low. It helps to look on the higher time frame charts to see the levels. On the 1H chart, you can clearly see the majority of the pins are to the low side...as well as the "W" formation...had the "M" formed, it should look more like the blue dashed lines....where the 2nd leg tests the high of the 1st leg, with longer pins on top.... On the 15M chart, you can see the range, an extension above the range, but no extension lower...by not extending lower, the fox keeps the shorts trapped from the range, not giving them a chance to get out at a lower price than their entrance. He already has what he needs and doesn't pin it low...the small "W" also forms indicating higher price.... Level 3 could go higher, but it is forming....we need to keep this pair on the watch list, look for the peak high to form and give reversal patterns. After the peak high forms, a period of consolidation will follow....this is where the next move will originate. C

fire580 wrote: Thank You to everyone who has been contributing here and of course especially CJ .....You Guys Rock. Could someone tell me if on a "M" the second swing needs to go above the first or not? And on a "W" if if the second swing goes below the first or not? Thank You Sometimes they do...they need to sell trend continuation to trap traders so it "may" pin higher. Sometimes it doesn't if they have already trapped a bunch of contracts on the 1st legs, especially if the 1st leg has a large, quick price swing... Each pattern has to be assessed on it's own merits. Many times, you will get a second "M" or "W", that will form after consolidation. These should not form above the last "M" high or last "W" low... Somebody got raped by the broker, not the fox on the chart below. Note the 40 pip difference in the low prices here. My guess is that somebody had a nice LONG position established and set their hard stop just below the pins...the broker spread the bid ask and took the stops before the rise in price. Instead of a nice gain, this trader took a loss on his order. This is the primary reason I don't use stops, especially with an ECN broker. I've been using some stops with the scripts I've used this past week, because I can't manage the shear number of orders manually, but when I'm trading large lot sizes, I won't use a stop. CJ

xrismak wrote: El Capitaine CJ, So this means we can watch or rather veiw a 3 Day Cycle unfold on the H1 timeframe as opposed to going to view this on a D1 time frame or am I missing something out here . Cheers, xrismak. It means you watch and view it on "any" time frame that it is most visible to you. 3 day cycles are nothing more than 3 day of rising price or 3 days of falling price. There tends to be a reversal after either one but that does not mean a reversal is 100% sure to occur. Strong trending pair may only consolidate or have a small pullback for a few days...but the fox has to retrace his steps, sooner or later, in order to book his profit. I can see these as well on a 15M time frame as any but for some, eliminating the extra noise of the lesser time frames helps to clear the fog. As I've said many times, these patterns repeat themselves on all time frames. The 3 day cycle and the 15M time frame tend to coincide. The pattern of 3 rising legs or 3 falling legs will be greater than 3 days on the higher time frames. Nonetheless, the patterns remain the same and what you see on the15M you will eventually see on the 1H, 4H, D1 and higher... look for them. CJ If you are having trouble seeing the levels, try switching your charts to "line" from candle. You will need the candles to see the pins, but switching to a line chart can sometimes help locate the levels. CJ

Don't get stuck in one time frame....take a look at the bigger picture.... CJ

lvdfx888 wrote: Hi CJ On H4, AUDUSD may form an M. But I see 4 levels instead of 3. Please comment on the chart what I have done wrong here. Thank you Ron. Sometimes it helps to look at the picture from a different perspective...consider the following charts... You have assigned a level to a stop hunt at the 3 position....stop hunts don't count as levels... Notice how the levels form...expect a peak in price on level 3 and then consolidation.....price tends to "chop" at the top or bottom.... CJ

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. When looking for levels or counting levels, I am not talking about the color of a candle. I have stated that the 3 day cycle is 3 days of rising or falling price, that begins from a peak LOW or a peak HIGH. Nowhere do I say to check the color of a daily candle or any other candles to determine the levels or counts. What can be more simple than drawing a line from the low to the close of the day to see if price rose that day? What can be more simple than drawing a line from the peak high to the close of the day to see if price fell? In the NZDUSD example, did price rise from the PEAK low on the 20th? YES! It is the PEAK low and that is level 1. Don't try to add a bunch of stuff like GMT and candle color to something as simple as 3 days of rising or falling price, from the peak high or peak low. When it comes down to it, as stated, I prefer a broker whose D1 candle closes at 5PM est to coincide with NY close and who doesn't use a Sunday candle. BUT, it doesn't matter in the counts because you begin from the peak low or peak high. Does it rise from the LOW, or does it fall from the HIGH. Nowhere in this thread is broker time mentioned. Asian, London and NY all operate the same, every day. Nowhere in this thread is candle color mentioned. How do you determine peak low or peak high? Seems pretty simple...if price goes lower, then it's not the peak low now is it? If price goes higher, then it's not the peak high is it? The candles can all be peppermint sticks and you can still determine if price rose or fell from it's PEAK LOW or PEAK HIGH. If somebody does not understand this, I'm sorry, I can't "make" you see this. Open your minds up and forget all the BS that you've been told about this market.

Jason wrote: Is there a way to make the direction clearer when looking at the early London session? It seems easier to trade the NY session because you can see the path that led to the current price, and if there are obvious pins or Ms/Ws you just leap in. But with the early London session, it's like you're trying to walk a path that no one has made yet. Or maybe my understanding is very poor, which is quite possible. An ideal Asian range is 40-50 pips. You look for price to widen outside this range as London approaches, then you look for price to rise or fall, 25-50 pips outside the Asian range. This move may happen over 3 candle or 3 pushes. You look for stop hunts, where they are triggering the sell or buy orders to trap traders. That's what you look for going into London. NY tends to be the reversal session... You can trade "M", "W", RRT's or pins at any time. CJ Amit wrote: HI Captain. Thanks for the thread . Read thru all of it today. Could you clarify GCAD on which level it is cos it has such wide variations that I cant figure it out. My chart posted. GBPCAD is full of stop hunts....they can't be counted as levels....they use them to keep traders from riding the trend higher...shaking them out along the way.... CJ nicoacademia wrote: Hi Captain Jack really must say thank you for putting in all your effort into posting n updating and clarifying for us all. i'm greatly appreciative of all your work. i love how you sling out all your orders. "if i'm right i'm right all the way" style. i've done my homework. learn by doing. and just want to clarify just one thing that bugs me. i know the 3 pushes will not always be perfect. but the fox will always have to push his book. 1)how would you handle the missing count in the middle of last week on the EJ 1H pair? it did do a nice W. with a small stop hunt after the pins cluster. 2)looking at the way the EJ ended the week. is that counted as 1 push up(although they pinned it both ways=stop hunt). meaning the peak low(and also cracked week low) was made? thanks for teaching us to tag the foxes trail Your chart looks good....and you will not always get 3 levels up or down. How to handle it is to trade the "W" and the 2 pins to the low give you the clues. The 2 pins down are where the shorts are trapped and you want to be long there.... Yes, EJ should be at level 1 consolidation and you should not trade short out of this formation....do not trade back towards the peak low if the fox heads that way...wait for his turn and pin your order to his a$$! Think of this every time you see those pins. CJ

lvdfx888 wrote: Hi CJ, Sorry to bother you again. I would like to draw some lessons on my GJ trade on Friday, please kindly give me some guidance: GJ chart below shows 2 long wicks (red) which looked like a good setup for level 3 push, then a pull back in NY session. But after trade was entered but price went south. Luckily the trade was recovered after the long RRT was formed later and price come back. 1. Did I read the chart correctly ? 2. Price went below L2 low, would the 3 level push is still valid as price seems heading to L3 ? 3. Is there situations where 3 level push cannot complete and reset ? Thank you for your patient. Ron Your level and count appear right, but you are trading on the 1H time frame. The patterns are still the same. Price was in a range....the a 3 candle push dropped below the range into a stop hunt, this is the pattern. You just got in early. I entered my UJ trade at the same point on the 15M time frame, price continued lower on it as well and I took additional entry at the bottom of the stop hunt, closed it at the top of the stop hunt and rode price back down into the range with another set of orders. You need to work on identifying the stop hunts, when they hit the stops low then high in this case. Sometimes they hit them high then low. Depends on the pair and the trend. Some pair tend to have more pins than others and are harder to trade. NZDUSD is another one with lots of pins... CJ Taking a shot on double top, 2 sets of pins high and possible 2nd leg of the "M".... CJ

You folks are more than welcome to do your level counts any way you want. By my count, day one of the price rise from the peak low began on the 20th...it's what I base my trades on. You guys are more than welcome to base yours on your observations of candle color based on any given brokers time shift. Don't ask me to validate your choices based on your rules. I don't trade based on your rules and you will find that I will break most of them. You have asked me why I chose the levels I did and you have received the answer. It is rules of this very type that the market makers use against you and other traders. You are also welcome to continue to trade by those rules should you choose to do so. It's your account, you are responsible for it. I don't offer trade signals nor trade recommendations. I offer an alternative way of looking at this market and my ideas for trading it. Those are not open for change and there are no rigid absolutes in my methods. I am a trader, not an analyst, and least of all not a "cookie cutter purist" or I would still be doing the same old BS that still doesn't work. If I sound pissed, it's because I am. I'm trying to tell you that you are trading in a rigged market. It's rigged against you from the start. You don't stand a chance! Everything you know is a lie, yet you seek to perpetrate that lie by insisting on what you know to be correct. Tell a lie enough and it becomes the truth. People of this planet would still believe the earth was flat if they had the mindset of forex traders. I captain my own ship. If you are afraid to sail your ship to the ends of the flat forex world and look into the abyss, then stay at home with your flat beliefs. There's no place here for them. CJ Took a small position on EURJPY based on ADR range, near the top and 155 pip move in the Asian ....looking for some pullback.... CJ

f451 wrote: CJ, Would you mind running through what steps you take in doing your chart homework to create your daily watchlist? cheers Simon It's fairly easy...I start with the D1, H4 and H1 time frames, looking for level 1 or level 3's in the bigger cycles. I do this for every pair. Then I'll drop down into the 15M and look for the correct setup to enter. Look for pairs that are at the Hi or Lo of yesterday/today, near the extremes of the ADR. You want to trade the "edges" in on each setup, not the centers out. I'm a lazy and sloppy trader at times and when I'm confident of of a pairs direction, I'll take an early entry during and not wait for the optimum setup. Too many people try for the "perfect" setup. as long as I can grad a nice piece of a move, I'm happy. It's about making money and it works for me. Here's one that looks good for a possible drop so I'll keep my stops just above the high and may allow it to move 25 pips or so past...if they don't get the orders they want, they will bump it a bit further to add to their positions...sometimes you see that "M" at the top but then it pops up 25 pips or so past it... GBPCHF...looking for the pullback....if it "pops" I'll add on... CJ

Here's another one that's had a large move off the news yesterday....looking for them to bring it back to book some profit, perhaps a 50% retrace....Looking to add on a drop near the indicated location.... CJ

Another one I'll be watching..."X" marks the spot.... CJ

GBPJPY.....looks like a candidate.....

CJLooks like the stop hunt is over on this pair....AUDUSD..... CJ

Not too shabby if I do say so myself.... CJ Here's a couple other ways to take entry into the "M" formation. Look for the RRT pattern on top of the 2nd leg....entry as marked on the large "M" as well as the smaller... Another way I'll look to enter is by drawing a line from the low of the 1st leg, to the bottom of the "V" section of the "M"...when price breaks this line, on the 2nd leg, take entry.... These will get you in a little higher than the "technical" entry point.... CJ

VSA has it's own terminology and theory but I don't follow it's teachings.... The volume indicator is somewhat misleading in forex. In equities, it is the number of shares trading hands. In forex, it represents price ticks. What's a price tick? Nothing more than an upward or downward movement in price. Transactions. It takes transactions to create price ticks. When "tick volume" is low, there are few transactions taking place and price is relatively stable. In order for price to move large distances, it takes a large amount of transactions taking place, causing large numbers of price ticks. When the fox wants to play, increasing tick volume indicates he's in the hen house. The larger the number of price ticks, the more he can move price. When this tick volume dries up, the fox has left the building and price will settle and consolidate. It is said that the fox steps up and controls the 1st and 3rd pushes in the 3 day cycles. It is said he is absent during the 2nd push, leaving the retail traders and hedge funds to move price in this leg. Tick volume is useful in the sense it allows us to see when price is hitting that point of exhaustion, where the tick volume can no longer support further movement. Use it wisely. CJ

Edi? I missed the pins...but got enough of the move.... CJ

Foxology 101 CJ

Not really....As I've stated many times over, I tend to enter my trades early when I'm trading multiple pair. As for the GBPCHF trades, there is no increase or decrease in size of each order. Each is of the same size. While I don't have unlimited capital, I do not trade "under capitalized". I will also build trades based on higher time frames, which will require more breathing room. If you notice the earlier posted trades, as well as the EURAUD trades today, I will trade the turns and ride them to the next, as I have done with other trades in the thread. There is little or no draw down with these trades. Some of my trades will involve draw down while many won't. You profit in a short sale by being able to buy the currency back at a lower price than you sold it. Mission accomplished. It's what a market maker does all day every day. CJ lhDT wrote: CJ, could you please explain your EURAUD trade on the chart ? Did you bought at support then added at new high & every bullish close above the high ? I don't really get it, don't see a W or a M or a candle pattern ... Thx a gazillion I see a "W" that went right into an "M"...I also saw a level 3 low here and was looking for a rise...I see a Low, a Lower Low and then a Higher low...the higher low is tested and held.... I bought off the "W" and sold the 2nd leg of the "M" down, then bought the rise after the low was held... CJ

Trapping volume??? Yes...pins to the low...that don't go below the previous lows.... CJ Hey CJ.. Your comment makes me more happy than pips I earned today Hahaha! People tend to get too technical about all this stuff, and try to over analyze it..you can clearly see the consolidation zone, "the box" and the breaks from the box. The breaks are the targets to trade, however there are patterns inside the box when you wish to trade those. You will see me trade these all the times, but the main target is the move out of the consolidation zone. If your trading platform supports it, you can go back 3-5 days on the weekends and mark up charts in the manner that you so. Once you have the boxes and breaks defined, zoom in a bit and start looking at the inner box workings. CJ

Kruspe wrote: Yop, you´re absolutely right. This consolidation zones are still "black boxes" for me and I try to learn, how to recognize some sign which could tell me what´s in the box and how I could profit from it. What is breakout, what is false breakout etc.. I believe it´s only matter of time. Thanks again CJ

Finding those boxes is finding the levels. Once you locate the levels, you have good idea as to where price is going to go, once it leaves the level. That's the key.... CJ Yes, the consolidation phase or box is where they are accumulating orders for the next phase....does that pattern from over a year ago look familiar?? CJ bluedog23 wrote: Hello CJ, At times I find it difficult to identify "pushes". In the attached chart is the drop down into the large consolidation zone considered push 1? Or is push 1 the drop out of the consolidation zone. I am a relatively new trader to FX and only trading live for a few weeks. I am happy to say that I am up substantially since going live and following your thread. I appreciate the knowledge you are sharing. I have quickly arrived at the point that it drives me nuts if a chart has indicators posted on it. Thought you might get a laugh out of that. Thanks, Ray I would think that you have to go back to the last highest high before you begin your count. If that's the case, we should be at level 3 low. If we are, you can expect to see a test of the low, but the previous low should hold and price could rise from that point, to give us a level 1 rise off the peak low. Take a look on the D1 as well, you see that they have held price at this level for a day to pick up contracts. Look for the next D1 candle to pin low, but not lower than the previous D1 candle. A break and close below the previous low indicates another level down. The 3rd level down was hit when the the Low formed...the orange circle indicates the day that price was held at this level to allow accumulation to take place, during the extra day. Glad to here you are starting out on the right foot and doing well as a new trader. CJ

SteveHopwood wrote: CJ, what can I say? How 'bout "the check's in the mail'? Thanks for the kind words Steve. The thread has grown quickly here and is full of useful info. If you have any questions, feel free to post them and they'll get answered. Knowing the patterns that are used and being able to recognize them as they are formed is the key to all of this. You have to understand that they use the same ones, over and over, but will mix or dirty them up a bit to make recognition harder. The RRT's, "W", "M"'s and stop hunts are the easier ones to see. Once you pick up on these, then it's the combinations and how they are put together. Lot's of places to make a wrong move and they give us the opportunity to do so all the time. Thanks for splitting the thread out to a sub-forum. Some of the members can post their trading journals or trade setups in separate threads if they choose. BARF is actually being used within this thread and some recognize it for what it is. I may get into a separate thread for it or may just bring it more to the forefront in this thread. I would be concerned about getting "too many irons in the fire" and don't want the quality of the subject matter to suffer. As it is now, I have the time to share these thoughts with the good people here, but a day may come where other tasks take the forefront. Until then, we move forward. John

Re: The Captains Chest - Naked Trading & Other Stuff by SteveHopwood » I was not sure I could spot the M's and W's, so I pulled my charts out so I could see the passage of a lot of time. The shapes leap out at you when you do that. I placed some vertical lines at the start of the second leg of a few so I could find them again when I went close again to see the detail. Sure enough, there is a pinbar or rrt there every time. Look at the charts across the higher time frames as well...you will see ample trading opportunities for taking longer term trades off the patterns... This is also a great way to determine price direction and staying on the right side of it during trades taken on the smaller time frames... CJ

eltax100 wrote: WOW look at the spread can anyone beat this ?????

There's a lot more going on here on this chart that we haven't gotten into yet. We've touched on the spread widening but mostly in relation to the pins and hitting stops. Look at the current status of your short trades here. Even though the candle is well below your entry, your trades show you are in the red (-36 and -34 pips). If you are "candle watching", see this and close out your orders, then you've just given your money away. This is how people in margin trouble are forced into closeouts..... This is how stops are triggered, putting people into bad trades but not allowing TP orders to close.... If you saw this candle in real time and decided to place an order....look at where a BUY and a SELL order would have been filled here.... What you see isn't always what you get....that's why I talk about spread widening. It happens on all brokers, but not to this extent. It is has less of an effect on fixed spread brokers than on ECN type brokers. So what else is going on here? Fox tracks everywhere when you know what to look for. So much so, you might even find some fox droppings here...maybe a big old pile of them.... I talk about not using indicators because they don't work in the manner most think they do. 3 of the big ones are moving averages, pivot levels and fibo levels. Who hasn't used, or still uses moving averages? Same questions for the fibo and pivot levels. If you use them, as intended, know they will work when the fox allows them to work. Don't feel bad as you have a lot of company, like the 95% of other traders who lose money in these markets. It's designed that way. If you use them in the way the fox does, congratulations...you are probably in the 5% of the people who make money in this market. Everybody understands that price creates these levels and that price has tendencies to return to these levels. We all know this. What we all don't know and understand is that it is the fox who controls price to create and validate these same levels and lines. I've touched on this before. Support and demand areas, pivot levels, fibo levels are created as "meeting places" for the bulls and bears to gather, in order to generate the transactions that are required to move price and generate profits for the fox. That is the sole purpose price returns to these levels. Back to the chart....I've not done this ahead of time, but if you were to throw some common moving averages, S/R levels, pivots or fibos on the chart, you will begin to see what is happening. When price is brought to a specific area, such as happens during Asian range, support and demand levels are being created or validated. It happens right in front of our eyes yet people seem to be amazed that price returns to these levels. They trade these levels based on their perceptions of them and not the reality of them. It's like the black dot illusion. Even though there is nothing but white dots in front of our eyes, we still "see" the black ones, therefore they have to be there. This chart is a 15M chart....look at the last 4 candles...can you tell what just happened? Go ahead and toss some MA's on, you know you want to. Use some common ones, 5, 14, 21, 34, 50, 100, 200...or any from the hot systems out there....what do you see?? Switch to the 1H chart and look again....what do you see? You have to understand that a picture is being painted right in front of you and that this same picture is spread over all the time frames. We will stick to the 15M and 1H for now....what do you see? Notice also that price has dropped to and possibly just exceeded the last lowest candle....something we have covered many times here....pinning to the same low or high....but this isn't a pin...but may end up as a long set of RRT's, possibly with a star formation thrown in.... CJ

Bob is a wise man and his words of wisdom on the market hold true. Market makers are called market makers because it is their job to make the market. When you or I choose to buy, they are the ones REQUIRED to sell. When we choose to sell, they are the ones REQUIRED to buy. Getting back to Bob's remarks. When price is moving up and everybody is buying, the market maker is the one who is selling to us. In order for him to profit, he must bring price down below an average price for all his aggregate sells, in order to make a profit....therefore, what goes up, MUST come down.... When the market is dropping and we are all selling, it is the market maker who is buying on the other side. In order for him to profit, he must bring price back up, above his average price for all of his aggregate buys. What goes down, MUST come up.... In short, this is how the market works and Bob's words hold true. Brokers and bookies have a lot in common. In theory, they live for the spread. Their risk free business model is to have a balanced book, and make their money on the spread. However, both brokers and bookies are human, and are ruled by the same human traits we all have. Greed being one of them. A bookie or a broker who has a "whale" as a customer, the one who loses every week, but keeps depositing fresh capital back into his account, is handled "in house". His trades or bets are not going to be offset with the others. In general if a either a bookie or broker has a large imbalance, on one side, they will offset that with another broker, bank or bookie and not accept the risk of the imbalance. If it's the whale who is the imbalance, that will stay in house. As for GP as a broker, I have no reason to believe they are not a good broker. As long as your trades are executed without delay, your problems are handled quickly and your funds are sent to you when you request, there's little else to ask for. If you are a profitable trader and you find you are constantly being re-quoted or your orders are being delayed, then it's time to look for another broker. When I set an account up with a new broker, I will test them by sending a small deposit and trading it. What I have seen with some, is that over time, as the account grows larger, my trades are being delayed. Sometimes to the tune of 5 re-quotes or more. Each delay costs me money and it's the delay that is added by that broker. Time to pull the funds and find another broker before committing major funds to this account. If they do this for a small account, imagine what they could do for a larger one. Having Jeremy on the inside is an advantage to the members here who choose to use GP, but all brokers are in business to make money. There's been a lot of good brokers that have cost their traders much heartbreak and loss, through the actions of just one person. You folks outside of the US have it better than we do as the politicians here herd us into the US brokers where we have no safe guards or protections. Look at PFGBest. Supposedly on of the best....that still has nearly a six figure account of mine locked up in receivership, of which I will probably never see a penny of again. I believe the link to the broker info you referred to is this one: http://www.craigharrisforex.com/webinar ... a-oropeza/ While they discuss many things, I don't think they talk about the back office plugins that are used to manage the MT4 trader accounts. That's another cesspool full of crap right there in itself. A word of advice if you are using a broker who advertises themselves as a "STP" or "no dealing desk" broker....read the fine print because those phrases are just a series of words. Sometimes you will find "other words" in the fine print that have a different meaning...such as "we MAY" or "we CAN" take an offsetting position in your trades.... Read the agreements you all have signed in setting up your accounts. No matter what is advertised, it's what's in the find print that counts. I won't discuss specific's on any broker, but I will use brokers feeds to demonstrate the examples I use within this thread. With brokers, it comes down to , Caveat emptor, as always. As for the other things you've brought up Steve, I'd say you are starting to see this market for what is really is. When you do, it's like getting hit with that sledge hammer right between the eyes.... or snuffing up a whole can of Wilson's Extra Menthol! CJ

You won't always get 3 clean up or down legs. If they did it that way, we could all read it like a book...sometimes they throw in the stop hunts, sometimes it will rise of fall and extra level or 2. It may come up short a level or two. It all depends on where the money is for them. CJ nicoacademia wrote: thanks for replying Captain. understood. it's like trying to finesse a Formula 1 car through the corners. not everything will be the same(steering angle, tyre grip, track conditions, etc) and to deal with it in real time. i guess i have to keep on seeing n counting to get a grip with it. thanks for posting the levels n the way you see it/count it. training my eyes to see as you see. There's another stop hunt in the 1st level as well....see the RRT up into the RRT down, in the drop? That's a stop hunt on a lower time frame chart...so they added a stop hunt in each level.... CJ Hi CJ, can you clarify for me the fox strategy in during a stop hunt in the middle of a 3 phase run. If in this example there's a pin high this is allowing entries going long in the same direction as the fox which isn't what the fox wants, and I'm guessing it's not offloading because the fox hasnt finished yet, so the only thing I can think off is making some quick kills along the way because price also drops to the downside possibly enough to stop out the new bulls and pick up some bears along the way? Thanks Pips400 He does it to shake out weak longs and bait in short biased bears. The trend has been down for several days...confusion is used along with quick price changes in a series of false moves, to accomplish the task... CJ

Post some charts where the trades failed Lio, it will help to analyze what went wrong.... CJ Thanks CJ, here is one on cable. 1. I saw a "W" but my bias was to the downside on cable so I decided to go short at the "V" from the "W", my target was to lock at the bottom to see what is going on (honnestly I was expecting a break to the downside). 2. Doesn't do what it should do ... so I re-shorted at a new high. Trade was in profit and I could exit both for a BE but my bias was still fixed to the downside. 3.I saw a big spike late in the day, so I decide to short again around a new high retest. Was end of day so chances were to a retrace ... Unfortunately nope, nothing worked and I existed with a 1% loss overall. When reviewing bad trades after the week, the errors we made are always crystal clear ... unfortunately this isn't happening when you hit the button in a live market. I think my biggest mistake here was to enter on the "V" instead of waiting the complete W formation (which never happened btw). CJ, Please comment PS : Reviewing bad trades in "public" is a kind of a therapy Everyone should do that ! Yes, unfortunately, this isn't the way to trade the "W" and "M" formations.... You should have determined what level or step in the cycle the pair was currently trading in. This gives you an idea of where price will go, either up or down in the cycle. GBPUSD had just completed its drop and formed a peak low...this should tell you the pair bias is long, not short. All the pins are to the low and shorts are trapped there. You just happened to become a short who got trapped at a higher level because you will still thinking short... Price rose from the low and consolidated....it then broke higher, where the stop hunt began. Look at the 3 "momentum" candles that drove price to the bottom of what you label as the 1st leg of the "W"...these are the 3 pushes lower that convince you that price is going south. The pin here is the clue to go long.... When shorts are trapped, there is no reason to lower price again and give them a chance to exit... There is another stop hunt at the point you label 3...they hit the stops high and then low, this is a clue to add to your long...you buy the stop hunt on the way up and sell them on the way down... I think I mentioned that before in the thread. Look at past levels and notice how they use the stop hunts in between the levels...they are always there... Thanks for posting the chart and your trades Lio. It helps to see where we go wrong and why we go wrong at those places. We can all benefit from these trade reviews. CJ

I just wanted to add one thing here Lio that I didn't touch on in the earlier post. If you determine that the last low was the Peak Low or the start of the next 3 day cycle, remember that ADR is your friend. In a way, the ADR is a "speed limit" that is placed on a dealer. So if we are starting a new 3 day cycle and ADR is 103 for this pair, we would be looking to short at around 3 X ADR9103) = 309 pips from the low....our bias should be long until something changes in the cycle or we hit apprx. 309 pips of rise... Those are not exact or finite by any means but it is a way to determine trend bias for a pair. I know I made mention of using ADR for extending the holding period of a trade, but it can also be used to determine direction. We need to be able to turn on a dime as the fox does and not get locked into "one way" trading... CJ

There are no 3 pushes here on these charts, I've just taken a few trades of the "W" patterns and pins...I'll grab these all day long if I'm watching and they appear. 10-20 pip trades that add up. When you are looking for 3 push moves off the lows or high, you are looking for ADR in pips...No sense looking for something that's not there at the time, but nothing wrong with taking what is given... CJ

by f451 » Wed Apr 03, 2013 9:11 pm Fellow Naked Traders Lots of focus on the M and Ws at the moment - remember this is only part of the pattern. Tis important to look for a few other things as well 1/ where are we in the level count? This gives us a bias long or short. This is generally easiest to see on the 1hr chart. 2/ consolidation / accumulation. Where has foxy been building a position? Don't forget to look at the asian session range which sets the initial high of the day and low of the day. These are reference points for breakout traders. 3/ stop hunt. This is the most critical part of the setup. Once foxy has enough traders trapped in weak positions, he will hit the stops to shake them out of their trade, and take their opposite position to them, ready for the real move. Foxy needs those trapped traders exiting in order to get liquidity to buy or sell before the push up or push down. Stop hunts are often M or W patterns but they don't have to be. They must however have railroad tracks or pins, and those pins should move a bit beyond an obvious level - for example beyond the asian session high or low, peaking beyond a previous swing high or low, breaking an obvious trendline etc etc - this is to sucker traders into initiating positions on the wrong side of the move to come. Foxy often hits the stops high, and then hits the stops low, or the reverse, before starting the real move. 4/ the direction of the real move will be in the direction of the level count - if you've just seen a major peak low - the move is up, if you just seen a major peak high the move is down. don't trade M or W patterns against the move from the peak. That's a good post. A lot of people are focusing on one or two things and forgetting the rest. It all works together. Taking a trade on an "M" or "W" that not the high or low of the day or week is not a good trade. You might get away with a scalp, I do it at times, but the idea is to take them off the HOD or LOD, or HOW, LOW and ride them for a few days. by f451 » Thu Apr 04, 2013 10:56 pm Take a 4HR or 1HR chart and find the most recent higher high (if the chart is in a down trend), or most recent lower low (if the chart is in an uptrend). From that point the trend reversed. That swing point is the peak high or low. CJ calls this level 3, because this is where the level count resets (back to 1) as the trend changes. Once you've spotted this peak level, you can look for three pushes (over three days), with each major push being a level. When you're first learning to trade this way, it's safest to take M patterns short from a peak high, and W patterns long from peak low. I'll post a marked up chart later on.

My methods work with the trend as well as against the trend. That's why you need to be able to adapt and trade both ways. Don't get locked into a trend bias. It's the fox who sets the trend and changes it to fit his needs. You need to know the technical trend as well as the "fox trend", they are not always the same. Anybody can use what is put forth here. When I say not to trade as I do, I mean don't try to mimic my trades. I am a very aggressive trader and have been a gambler for a long time. I have no fear of losing money. For most, that would be catastrophic. I handle risk completely different than everybody else. That's why I say you can't trade as I do...you don't have the mindset for it. CJ

When I speak of 3 levels of rise over 3-5 days, it's on the 15M time frame, not the 4H. The levels pertain to the daily cycle. 3 levels over 3 days. There can be 3 pushes in price on any of the days. The 3 pushes happen over the 1 day cycle of Asian, London and NY session. That is the difference in a level and a push. Stick to the 15M time frame until you learn these basics. CJ I missed this one as I hadn't even looked at it....notice the rise above the range, hit the stops high, then the 3 main pushes lower....to sell the short...hit the stops low and go.... I did buy the stop hunt between the 1st and 2nd pushes higher....buy the stop hunts on the way up and sell them on the way down.... I'm still around though not as active.... a lot of the questions are starting to repeat...and most are answered by the group here.... As I said earlier, I don't trade like a madman everyday and some days I don't trade at all. I trade to make money. Sometimes I do it with a lot of orders, other times I do it with a few. I said before nobody needed to trade like I was trading earlier in the thread, to make money. It's not about the pips you make, it about making money. My trade numbers have dropped off as I have been spending less time in the charts.... that doesn't mean that profits have dropped with the number of trades....it's all in the lots...

So the 'accumulation' stage is to be considered as stage 1, is that correct? Or is this not a text book setup? A push slightly higher into the 1.3125 area seems to offer some decent R. Would I be missing out if I hung around for price to get there and then look for the M (assuming a different count). As you can probably tell, I'm only getting my feet wet here so appreciate the help. There's no such thing as a text book setup....some are better than others but they always throw shit into the game so it's not always the same. You can call it an accumulation phase if you like. You are looking at a H1 chart.... you need to account for the time difference when you move to higher time frames. However, the patterns remain the same. When price reaches the 3rd level, it becomes erratic and "chops" all over the place. You know you're there when it just doesn't look like normal price action. Look through your charts and you will see what I'm talking about. This erratic price action is drawing both bulls and bears into the pot again and the fox is taking orders. Look how long they accumulated orders here. Notice how they never went back to the lower levels once they left them....they didn't want to release any people who went short down there. Look how long they spent in level 1 and how short it took for them to close out the orders at a much higher price. News is not news to some people and they plan this stuff. They use the news to cover their ass and pocket gobs of your money. Same thing will happen at the tops...look for the "chop" in level 3. Then look for the "W" or "M" to enter your orders. Do it at the HIGH or the LOW, not in the middle... I've said most of this before...trade from the edges, the highs and the lows. You can't figure out every candle of every day and there is no 1-2-3 buy or sell indicator out there. This is all about you and your perception as well as you reading the price action. Nothing else. You can "wish" for price to go to a set point but that's not what this is about. It's about recognizing what the market maker is doing to make his cash. He usually does it by convincing you to give it to him. If you expect price to rise to 1.3125 then why not BUY it? CJ

Have you seen anything in the charts posted in this thread that looks like this chart? What triggers the trade is the drop out of the range after the stops were hit high.....the drop hits the stops low, the "W", not an "M" is formed and price begins its climb to the next level...I expect another level of rise after the 2nd.... Do you see the large stop hunt that is in the middle of the "range phase"? This is how they add variation to the same basic patterns. It's up to you to recognize this, there's nothing I can do but point it out to everybody. They use a "news" event to jack price up and down to clear people from there orders, stop them out, bust out accounts in margin trouble and place people in the wrong side of where they will take price.....thereby taking their money. I can only point this out and can't tell you how you will know something only you will know...if you ever do. ;) "M"'s don't appear at the LOWS, "W"'s do.... for those that are looking for trading shortcuts, this is a good example of how you can go wrong by taking a pattern shape when it's not where or in time with where it needs to be. CJ

kwanann » Wed Apr 24, 2013 8:08 pm Like what cj said, he doesn't expect anyone to trade like him, and I believe many of us who have posted the pictures have already integrated what we learnt into our own trading styles. Mine and edi(swisscheese) is similar in the sense that we look for pins to determine entry. However the exact position depends on when we are facing the charts and sometimes gut feel or experience which can never really be taught. Edi does stack trades to double or triple the profits when things go his way. Xrismak has adopted this into his trading, however his style is to open multiple lots with about the same price in the same period and let it rip, rather than cj way of stacking when price goes his way. Do note that whatever it is, you can never trade like cj simply because you are not him. Myself, after integrating cj way of trading, my hit rate has gone from hit and miss to 60% with nb 10.x to almost 100%. Problem is sometimes I put in stupid trades that ended up screwing me around. Also I.m not doing this naked, my charts does have indicators to tell me where to look out for potential setup and TP areas

The rabbit hole is deeper than you could imagine....but what lurks there is not a rabbit... Most people have trouble with some of what I consider some of the "simpler concepts" of my theories. It is for this reason, that I feel they don't "really believe" the market is as I say it is and that they are playing from a stacked deck. They cannot "see" because they cannot believe. Forecasting price? I've explained it to many before.... one or two's vision "began" to clear but about that time, they lost what they found, deep back down the "rabbit hole".... To get into the "mapping" of price, I rely of my beliefs of what the forex market is, how it's traded, that price it's not "random", that news it not news to everybody, and that price is driven by more than supply and demand, fundamentals or anything other than greed. ... Consider the data that the candles on your screen hold. From the smallest to the largest, they are comprised of price ticks... the tick chart is where it all begins.... Have you ever looked at that little "tick chart" window on MT4? Ever wonder why they made it so small and limited? Do you understand the scaling changes on it as it does the larger charts but not in the same way or for the same reasons? Something to watch on a slow day or night....that's for sure as you just might "see" something familiar there.... kwanann wrote: welcome back CJ Wow, looking at your lot size.. Fantastic! A don't look for perfect entry and exit.... I tend to take my money off the table before I should a lot of the time, but at that point, it IS my money...and I want to keep it when I'm comfortable with the trade profit. It also cuts down on my exposure to "the market". I will ask you Kwanann, but the same applies to all... Is it not harder to find 10 trades across 10 pairs with multiple entries and lots totaling 100 lots total, than it is to find 3-5 trades and push the same number of lots at the smaller number of trades?? My idea of trading is finding a setup with a high probability of success and pounding it. Much easier to do than spread 100 lots across 10 pairs with 10 lots of each! CJ Yes definately, i used to open many trades across goodness knows how many pairs. Nowadays i just find about 2 to 3 pairs with high probability and just leave them to run. This has greatly contributed to my success rate. Also the fact that the SL is so low, it becomes very manageable and i will be able to increase my lot size Would like to point out to all though, high probability doesnt come from just the pins and W and M, there are other factors to consider as well

Waiting for "only" the trades after a level 3 reset has taken place is the way to put all of this together. The best "M" and "W"'s usually occur there and the moves are the longest in length. If you trade on the 15M and are looking to "day-trade", 50pips is the target. If you are looking for the next move out of a level 3 reset, then the targets are 3xADR, with stops being moved up when a new level is reached and price moves away from that level, or a 20-30pip trailing stop. mrelectron wrote: Hi CJ. Nice to see you back, the thread was getting like a deserted western town circa 1850 - saloon doors banging in the wind, tumbleweeds rolling down the dusty main street. My question is about pivots (daily, weekly, monthly etc) ? What are your beliefs about pivots ? For example, * Do you believe they are widely used by market makers? * Do you pay attention to them yourself ? * Anything else you can add would be good. Thanks Mark

Hi Mark, I take notice of the levels of the pivots. The pivots are areas of interest for both buyers and sellers. Only the market maker knows which way price will leave a pivot area and it will always leave in the direction of the most money for the market makers. Pivots are like MA's, Fib lines and support/demand areas....they are used by the market maker to create areas of false support or demand. In order to make money, the marker maker needs transactions to take place in order to move price. I've never checked it but I could make a guess that more transactions take place near these areas of interest as more traders are involved. Price will rise until there are no more buyers....price will fall until there are no more sellers...and the market maker, taking the opposite side, needs price to fall back or rise to a certain level to unload his contracts and book his profits. Once this is done, the cycle repeats.... This is where the 3 day and weekly cycles come from. The chop takes place when the direction is being reset, and new orders are being stacked....you will see a lot of chop around pivots for this reason. The Asian session has a lot to do with "levels", pivots, MA's and S/D areas....this is how they are created. Price tends to move up or down during the US and London sessions, while it ranges during Asian session. This is also how levels or pivots are validated. Price will surpass these levels, create the pins and then validate the level by closing lower or higher...leaving the pin as evidence of what has occurred. Take a look at a pivot system such as 10.4 Note how the price reacts to the perceived levels. Notice also the formation of the pins, "W" or "M"'s that we look for. Understanding what is taking place can get you into a trade a level or 2 earlier than just the pivot system alone. Check how often levels are penetrated with a quick thrust above or below them, giving false indication of a break out. When you start putting it all together, it starts to make sense CJ

Like I said, questions are being repeated.... Levels occur over DAYS...pushes occur during the day.... Example.....price has risen for 3 days and forms a weekly peak HIGH, and forms an "M"....this is LEVEL 3 UP, which then becomes new LEVEL 1....next day comes 2 drops or pushes lower in price and a retrace, this creates LEVEL 2 down....price pushes lower, 3 more times next day, forms a "W" and the LEVEL 3 low...This is the new peak LOW and the LEVEL resets to 1.... As for the "M" and "W"'s, there are 2 you are looking for...Peak high "M" and peak low "W"....when trading this way on a 15M TF.... If you only want to look for these patterns, do it on a higher time frame....how many do you see on this video and which way are the wicks or pins pointing? What does that tell YOU to do as far as taking or not taking a trade? chosen.bless wrote: hi captain i have been observing the charts and i notice that sometimes the 3 day levels reverse will take place over 4 or 5 days. one or two days in between not having higher or lower price action(no higher or lower push in some days. if you are 2 day levels up and no push on the 3rd day should i look for the 3rd level on the 4th or 5th. Yes, 3-5 days, "normally 3".... You should look for signs of reversal, if none appear....then look for further rise....chop arrives at the 3rd level...may cover several days on the 3rd level, gathering new orders before next cycle begins... CJ

mrelectron wrote: man, you are a money making machine, you just have those pips on a string.

That's what it's all about.... making money on the trades... not about making "picture perfect" entry and exit trades that run for months... I take what is given... I don't worry about getting "all of it", just so I get some of it... I did get a few in the pins. Those trades require a lot of time in the seat at the pc to nail them. Anymore, I'll take em early or late, just so I get part of it. CJ

by f451 » Fri May 03, 2013 6:29 am Levels are a *guide*. Sometimes you get 2 pushes up or down then a reversal, sometimes 4 or 5 or 6. Generally it's three. So if it's just a guide, how to use the levels idea then? Well, if you've seen three days of rise or fall, then it's time to start looking for other key elements of a Foxy setup. 1/ is there an area of consolidation to the left, (mostly likely in the asian session)? 2/ does the range widen after this area (e.g. post the asian session?) 3/ on the lower timeframe (say 15M) is there a forcefully push outside of this consolidation range and into a potential area of manipulation (here you are looking for a few quick, strong candles into yesterdays high or low, week high or low, a previous swing point, pivot level or some other obvious point) 4/ does the spread widen to activate pending orders just beyond this level? 5/ after this quick push, does price rapidly retreat to close back below (above) the level, forming a pin or railroad tracks? 6/ has an M or W formed at this level, preferably with the high or low of one leg beyond the level, but closes back beneath (above it)? if you can tick the box on all or most of these then you have found a valid setup and you're ready to trade with the Fox. You'll need to watch this happening on a 15M chart to really get a feel for the price action and the way Foxy actually moves price to sucker in traders. Moving with *speed* into the manipulation area (setting up the reversal) is a key element of the pattern, (as is the widening of the spread) - that fast push really works on the psychology of traders - I still get all the emotions myself ("OMG it's really taking off maybe this IS the main move, maybe it'll breakout this time instead of reversing..." all that mental dross). Once you can spot this you'll find yourself trading this stuff with much greater confidence. Captain Jack » Thu May 09, 2013 4:49 am I'm not too sure people noticed it but I took several trades with so called "news" pending.... trading the "news" is something I like to do as it usually means a rapid and volatile move in price. I'll say again. my opinion of "news" is that it is just an excuse and cover for the Fox to fill his pockets full of our cash. Many of the trades I took involved NZD and AUD.... and all had the "footprints" of the Fox on them... the patterns we are looking for.... I would have liked to have seen AUDCHF drop a bit lower, but the Fox takes advantage when it suits him, not me.... I did get some BUYS in on that pair.... but that doesn't mean that AUDCHF can't go lower... before it heads higher...a lot higher.... So, do you think the "news" as released was the cause of the price moves or do you think the Fox used the news to do his deed and finish the pattern?? Pay attention to these setups... it's quick cash

CJ

pips400 wrote: Hi CJ I've been putting in many many many hours into naked trading particular your teaching and I feel like I'm really close to nailing this, but sometimes I get stuck as in the following example of the AUDUSD. I included the 4Hr and 1 Hr charts, which in my eye give opposite trade bias. For example on the 1 Hour, we've complete a 3 day push to the downside with a W formation over the previous two days, so I would definately be looking to go long, even having the first push up to date. So then I'm looking for the next push up by looking for manipulation to the downside. The problem for me arises when I look at the 4 hour chart, we've had two pushes down, and a possible bounce of the trendline, so I'd be looking to go short. That's the dilemma, my response would be to walk away, but then I thought I wonder what CJ sees, which could unlock something I'm missing. So if possible could you say what you see on this pair. As always my thanks. I can't tell you how to trade based on what you see on various time frames. You will always have opposing signals on one time frame or another otherwise your chart would look like a straight line. Are you trading on the 1H or the 4H time frame? What are "your" trade goals? What do you expect to gain from the trade? Do you have a target TP in mind? Could you take a trade one way based on the 1H and then another based on the 4H? Are you looking for confluence across multiple time frames before entering a trade? Do you always trade with the trend or do you make counter trend trades when they appear? Questions I can't answer because it's your trade..... I've said before, 50 pips is a good target for trading the "pushes" on the 15M time frame. Would the 1H trade have provided 50 pips? You could have as many spurts in price, or "pushes" over the 3 levels in 3 day cycles..... Take what is given and close the trade in profit. Your goal is to determine what direction price is moving and get a piece of that move. xrismak Dig This..... Speculating to Accumulate on a Live Account.....It took me 2 weeks to get there, the fox tried all sorts of Tricks to shake me down, but I kept my cool because I knew mentally where I wanted to Exit those trades, El Capitaine CJ :D , Thank You @ Verymuch.com. You are a GIGANTILUS. :) Happy Trading Y'all Congratulations! It almost seems too easy doesn't it?? Moving up from the 15M to the higher time frame trades are less stressful. As you have found, you have plenty of time, no need to rush a trade. Again, everybody needs to trade in a way that's comfortable to them and within their means. It's always good to see some great big numbers, unless they are going the wrong way! Well done and welcome to the Fox Hunters Club.

GBPUSD Levels and "pushes" CJ

GBPUSD No matter how hard the Fox tries, the tracks are the same and they are still there.... CJ

Kwannan D Babarian, Yes you might be Right :D but I use the H4 to Enter my Trades and Drop down to the M15 and Exit my Trades when I feel the Tide might Change, You know what I mean as in Retracements which you see on the H4 timeframe, you will always see them first on the M15 , I always take what the Fox gives me these days without hanging around too long, remember I am Trading a Live Account and I have to be Sharp, Smart and Fast with the Cruel Fox. Everyone has a Different WAY of Trading CJ's Strategy, but to be Honest I am Grateful to El Capitaine CJ for in my OWN OPINION, He is a Very Big GIGATILUS :D , I have Consistently Earned a bit of Coins Trading this Strategy. Happy Trading Y'all,

CCCGAMING, Okay, Please take a look at the Chart and maybe you will get the reason for that Trade, once you have enough Chart Time to yourself trades like this will be a Piece of Cake for your Good Self. I am not Exactly an Expert at this but Trading this kind of way Produces Positive Results :D and Modest Profits :D for me. Happy Trading Y'all. Xrismak ;) Peeps, One of Just the MANY Times I got it TOTALY Wrong and the FOX Got AWAY..... :? I will Come Back Later and Set my Trap Again for the Sly Fox. Happy Trading Y'all xrismak ;)

Let me make one thing clear. The information and concepts that I have put forth here are not a "system". It is my understanding of the Forex markets and how they work and who controls them. This is an unregulated market. Understand that. There are very few limits in this market, one being how far a market maker can move price, on average, every day. Talking heads, fundamentals, technical conditions, news events or economic news do not move the market. They are excuses for those who do, to push price great distances over short periods of time. News, be it economic, fundamental or otherwise in nature, is known to "somebody" before it is news to the public. Banks know the news before it is news. So to say, when a talking head provides what is already known, to the public, is what causes price to move is ridiculous. The public does not move price. It is nothing more that the trigger that is pulled to launch the bullet. These are known events to those that control price. I won't get into a pissing contest with anybody on this as these are my views. They are set in stone, my trades and my results are based on these. Others are more than welcome to disagree and their trades and results will show, based on their beliefs. If you are profitable, great. If not, perhaps it is time to consider another way of looking at the market. It seems there are a lot of people who confuse central banks with market makers. They are not the same and the rule of price movement does not apply to them. The currency of the worlds nations are nothing more than promises to pay, they are in truth worthless. After all, what true value does a piece of paper have when you can have your nations printers create them at will, out of ordinary ink and paper? When a central bank intervenes, which they love to do when things get too speculative with hedge funds, price can move 1000's of pips in minutes. They are the ultimate predators in this market and when the sharks, foxes and other predators get to out of hand, it is the banks who devour them. Understand clearly that the tools these "somebodies", who I refer to as the Fox, use to move price are also limited. They continue to use the same tools over and over again, because they work, over and over again. That is why patterns repeat over and over again. I have seen discussions in other threads about the predictive power of the Fox. The Fox doesn't predict price movements, the Fox creates price movements. HOWEVER, I do believe that price direction and movement can be predicted and I have done this in the past many times, showing direction, chart patterns and at times individual candles or concise shapes that the moves will take. I have done it early in this thread as well as numerous time in the BARF thread that was ported here from FXAW. There was much information deleted, by me, from the BARF thread that was directly related to price prediction. The reason being was that no matter how often I predicted price or a pattern, which came to fruition, people would say, "I saw it with my own eyes, but I don't understand how you did it." In essence, no matter how much time or effort I put forth in showing people how and why price can be predicted, their beliefs and closed minds prevented them from "seeing" what occurred right before their eyes. I have long since dropped those teachings as I have no time for dealing with people who cannot fathom such a change in their beliefs. People have asked about my absence here. What more can I say? What more can I show you that I have not shown already? I have been offered more money than you will ever know to trade funds, private accounts, PAMM accounts or for offering signals. I have no interest in taking responsibility for other peoples money. I have no need for the money offered as I can trade my own accounts and acquire what I need in this manner. I have no need to provide verified results as I don't sell anything. I have no need to sign up for a service that offers me capital to trade in exchange for partial profits. I don't endeavor to be a rich man. I have what I need and am comfortable in my life. There is a pic provided to one of my sweep accounts. I have 6 trading accounts including equity accounts. Anybody who trades this market should have goals for their trading. Why are you trading and what is your goal for trading? If you think you are going to open and account with $500 and retire in 6 months, save your $500 and buy a new tv. Most people who trade small accounts, end up making pennies on the hour IF they make a profit, were you to add up all the hours they spend looking for systems and ea's, trying this indicator and that indicator, reading, demo trading and all the other things that most, if not all of us have done. Everyone of you reading this should take a long look at the time you invest and what you receive for those hours. Seriously.

I have also seen a lot of people who's systems have taken a hit lately due to so called market volatility or seasonality. There is so such thing. There is only price and the actions and directions that price takes. So much has been made of the predictions the Fox makes. What do you think indicators do? They are the ultimate "Great White Hope" of price prediction. They can no more predict what price is going to do today, tomorrow or a week from now than your grandmothers can. ALL indicators are based on the movement of price and only react AFTER price has moved. The people that control the movement of price know this and it is price movement that creates the myth of volatility and seasonality. When you understand this, and start to trade price and only price, volatility and seasonality no longer exist. Price and only price exists, always has and always will. Price patters exist and always will and they will always exist and repeat themselves. Best wishes and good trading to all. JohnJemook wrote: John you have a brilliant way with words. I know you won't consider trading others money but would you consider writing a book? :) A book you say, Jeremy? I don't think so. I prefer to deflect attention away from what I do when I can and not draw it towards me. At this point in my life, taking care of my wife is my main priority. Her health is poor and it will not improve with time. It would be too much work for my proofreader anyway! ;) Later in life, when things here change, I think I'll explore the possibilities of travel and may even decide to become an ex-pat, taking up residence in a new location. If I find I have too much time on my hands, my thoughts as posted earlier may take on a new direction. I've had a lot of "toys" in my life and have no real need for any new ones. As I've grown older, material things seem to matter less, while people, relationships and needs of others have taken on a higher standing in what is important to me. Perhaps my journey will lead me down a path that allows me to make a difference in somebody's life. Thanks for the kind words though, they are appreciated. :) John

El Capitaine CJ, Well Said, When and If Ever you feel like the UK (London's) a cool place .. on the outskirts though, at least you won't have to wait up to 2.am to trade 'cause you will have the Real London time Advantage.... A Difference in somebody's Life ! Wish you knew what Difference you have already made to mine... I Trade with CONFIDENCE Now, I was about to Give up trading Forex for REAL, then the Naked Trading Thread Started and wow, it's been a Roller Coaster Financial Ride for me ever Since , Life Financiallly has Gotten Considerably Better for me, I cannot thank you Enough, I don't know about other folks here but I can speak for myself and I know what I am Talking About, the only Difference are my Trades are Small but I earn Consistently from doing this and I am Loving every Minute of it..… Happy Trading Y'all Xrismak ;) I think that once you start exploring some of the concepts in the thread, you will begin to see things that have always been there from the time you began trading, but you never really saw them, due to the distraction of indicators and window dressings. You've probably looked at a chart in the past and thought something looked familiar but then just moved past it, not realizing what you had just seen. I know I have. What I've tried to put forth here are things that I have picked up from many places and many people. Several "guru's" out there all trade similar strategies but, like me, they have their own "template" if you will that they follow. It is how they have learned to apply a lot of these principles, and it is unique to them. Some use "indicators" when teaching seminars with their methods, but I think it is more for the benefit of their students than themselves. Lance Beggs - Your Trading Coach has a nice free newsletter that deals with price action and patterns. Steve Mauro and Martin Cole have also been mentioned here and I have seen some of their work. I had a long history of trading equities, which move at a much slower pace, and learned a lot about chart patterns while doing so. Jim Bulkowski's Encylopedia of Chart Patterns is a great book. Al Brooks work is probably as detailed as it gets on price action itself, however his books tend to be a hard read. You have a great understanding of probably just about every indicator and system that is out there now, from past experience and your coding work with EA's. That's good because you understand the ratios, moving average and and all the numbers behind them. Once you realize that every indicator is controlled by price action and that price is not random, but piloted, then you will also realize that those who control price also control every indicator in use today. The indicator action you see is what they want you to see. That's why, indicators will work to a point and then fail just when they seem like they should work the best. Indicators always lag price, which means, you and everybody else place your orders, relying on a lagging indicator that is painted by a brush that they control. Price. Normal accepted forms of money management are part of the problem as well. You are taught to trade based on risk, which is an expectation of loss. What you are really doing is trading a small lot size, with a large SL. The larger or safer the SL, the smaller the gain when you are right. They will allow many small wins, knowing that when they lock you into a poor trade, human nature and greed will prevent most people from taking a small loss, leading to busted accounts and major losses. All because the trade was based on indicators and money management rules that they create and teach. Peoples greed keep them locked in, they know this worked before, many times, so they double up or triple up because their indicators say price should be going the other way. Think about it. You are also taught to spread your orders across multiple trades and currency pairs. What's better, to place 40-1 lot trades across 40 pair or multiple trades, totaling 40 lots on one pair that you have nailed price and direction on?

People use EA's that work for awhile...when they quit working, they blame it on overuse, broken ea's or blame the brokers, which is true to a point. But what really happens is that any ea or system will work as long as the conditions exist to make it profitable. Once those conditions change, the EA's bust the accounts because the conditions that they were programed for no longer exist. The best investment you can make is in chart time. Look back through the charts on your platform. switch between the different time frames and look at the patterns that present themselves. Do not put anything on the charts other than price. I use candle charts as it is easier for me to see what I look for. Spend the time you put in with indicators in the past, on chart time going forward. Look for some basic patterns like the "M" and "W"'s. the candle wicks or pins as I call them and "railroad tracks". Learn these, understand when, where and why they print and that alone will make you a lot of money. One indicator I feel has potential is the currency slope strength as it can be used to show the weak or strong currency in the pair. ADR can also be of use because market makers do have limits as to how far they can move price. Learn to adapt and trade both ways, taking what is given to you. I used to trade almost exclusively on the D1 and H4 time frames, but now I tend to trade the 15M, sometimes the 5M or 1H. I have learned to trade large lot sizes, with small stops, taking what is given and reducing my capital exposure to the market. Most of my trades are self managed. I very seldom rely on hard stops as once they turn price, they very seldom go back because they have locked people into bad trades and will not allow them to exit. As market makers, they must make the market, selling to buyers and buying from sellers. This means when the market is moving higher, they are selling. When the market is moving lower, they are the buyers. They book their profit when they turn price and reverse it back above or below their aggregate price, as a buyer or seller. This behavior results in the cycles and steps. On the 15M time frame, they like to change direction every 3-5 days. They will use "news" events to swing price much farther than they normally could and this is the profit booking. It takes a large amount of money to do what they do but they do have limited funds to work with. It has to be turned over at some point. Have you ever heard of "sell it up" and "buy it down"? It's what they do. The public buys it up and sells it down, and they lock them into those positions when they turn and run. Learn how candles form on the chart you are watching. How is the picture being created that you are watching? Think about it. Over time, you will develop a feel for the market. It's when that primal sixth sense kicks in, the one that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, the one that gives you the feeling that you are being watched. It's there and you will feel it. Your confidence and conviction in your trades will increase 10 fold or more. You will take a small loss because you know you are wrong and you also know the next trade is just minutes away. It's uncanny at times. When in doubt, trust your gut feel. It's usually right. If you were to go to a foreign land, where you did not understand the language, you wouldn't be able to read the street signs or find your way around. Once you begin to read the sign of the Fox, you will understand when and where his next move will be and you can tag along. You will also learn the methods they use to hide their signs or tracks. Try as they might, they can't hide them once printed. There are some good traders here in the thread and they can help. The chart examples are the best though. I can''t say enough about just looking through the charts and the patterns that form. They repeat over and over, sometimes with slight variations thrown in for distortion. In time, you will see past this distortion and recognize for what it is, noise to confuse traders. I've probably thrown a lot there to start but there is no shortcut to trading this way. If you have any questions, post them up and I'm sure a discussion will follow. Like I say, there are some great traders in the making here and they are willing to help when I go AWOL. So fire up a demo account and have at it. Welcome aboard, mate! CJ

Jem, Now you are talking to Me in the Language that we are both going to have Loads of Fun Understanding, take your time trying to Study the Charts and Patterns, ahh Yes those Patterns Repeat themselves, it took me a while to figure them out but the little trick that got me really Started was when I started earning bits and Pieces, I would save my Charts, I have loads of them saved, I usually spent my weekends going over them so if at any point in time if I saw a Chart Similar to anything that had Earned me a Bit of Coins in the Past Relpaying it self a few days or weeks later, I Knew instantly I had earned some Coins Again because I took the Trade and the Result was always the Same, more Money ! :D I Guarantee you in a little over 4 weeks from now, you will be looking at Trading Forex in a totally Different Way, sometimes you might get it Wrong ( I Still Do that most of the time too) because you are Impatient but it's Part of the Learning Process, you will learn to be Patient and not to make that Same Mistake Again especially if your Money (Live Account) is on the line. Jem it's EASY, But you are going to have to Earn that Precision by Starring at Charts many many times over, eventually you will Carve out your own Style and begin to get it Right Slowly and from then on :idea: :idea: :idea: ......... One Day very Shortly you will tell us that I was Right about Naked Trading.... Welcome Aboard the FANTASTIC NAKED TRADING VOYAGE, I am sure we will also Learn a few New Tricks from you as well..... Happy Trading Y'all Xrismak ;)

The sooner you become independent of external indicators the sooner this will take place. The advice given by Xrismak on saving charts should be taken to heart. I probably have every chart example I have posted some place, saved on one pc or another here. At times in the past, I have had as many as 10 platforms open, across several pc's, with every time frame of every currency open. Xrismak has also put forth some things that I was thinking about when I wrote the long post but left out.... in a short time, you will have that facepalm moment and this market will never look the same to you again. When it happens, don't dwell on all the past time that was spent on the "old ways" because that is what you were herded into. Every tool you have used was created by the very people you are trying to outwit. It's like going to war and buying your weapons from the enemy. It's just another step in learning how devious the powers in the FX market really are. CJ

pips400 wrote: Time I also took another look at this. I tried before but was in the unsuccessful group, however persistance may yet pay off. I'm trying out a few things on the go at the moment, as the trend is definately not your friend. I believe in everything so comprehensively explained here, it's getting past the hurdle from theory to reality, but I'm really encouraged with others who have mastered price action enough to be profitable consistently. That's a huge plus, because right now every other system I know is failing or breaking even. Thanks to CJ, Xrismak, Kwannan and every other contributor. Again, spend some time in the charts. Look at the patterns that persist across all pair and all time frames. Larger patterns as well as the basic "M", "W" and "RRT". Understand that when you see a "W" or "M" pattern on a smaller time frame, that this represents a "RRT" on a larger time frame. Easy to see, just switch to a higher time frame when you see them on the lower ones. Once a RRT pattern prints, how often does price go back and exceed the high or low set by the pins? Higher time frame signals present larger TP targets in pips and take longer to complete. Smaller time frame signals present lower TP targets in pips and complete much faster. Trade the ones you are comfortable with. Market makers trade both ways, they have to in order to clear their books, book their profit and begin a new cycle of trades. I can't say this enough - take what they give you. Become accustomed to 50 pip profit targets. get used to using a larger order size, with a smaller SL. Your risk is the same, but your reward is far greater. Layer on additional trades when price is moving in your direction. When you have found that one trade that is going in your direction, leverage it instead of looking at other pairs for additional trades. When you are confident of a trade setup, you can place a SL that is very close to your entry. Instead of setting a SL of 100 pips with a .01 lot size, you can place a SL of 10 pips and use a .1 lot size. Compare the difference in reward when price moves 50 pips with each. Each trade offers you the same risk, but the reward is much higher with the larger lot and tighter stop. Get used to trading to make money and grow your capital instead of trading to not lose money. Learn to adapt and change quickly. If you are looking for 50 pips but the trade conditions change, take what is given, be it 40-30-20 or 10. Any trade that provides green pips is better than one in the red. A winning trade of 50 pips with a .1 lot size provides the same profit as a .01 trade of 500 pips. Ho many times do you see 500 pips on a trade? Once you close a trade, win or lose, move to the next. It will come. They are on all time frames on every pair. Just look. CJ

pips400 wrote: Time I also took another look at this. I'm glad to see you all wanting to make a positive change and it's great to see people beginning to recognize what is actually transpiring in this market. Not a good trader you say? Well neither am I to tell you the truth. What I am good at is watching what is happening on my screen, on the hard right edge as they say and reacting to what a "good trader" is doing. That good trader is the market maker or the Fox as I call them. They know exactly what they are doing. This is their world, their business and this is how they make their living. My goal is to follow the Fox and make the same trades that he does. When price is moving his direction, he is laying on the orders, one after another. That is my goal. To do the same as he does, as he is doing it. I only need follow along, I do not have to lead. We have all been there, seeing profits that take time to build up taken back in short periods of time. But in saying that, we also KNOW what they are doing to us. Give a little and take a lot back. How do they do? Easy, by leading you to into a bad position and locking you into it. They do this with various tricks and most are easy to spot. Have you ever seen price linger in a range then explode out in a violent burst which lasts several candles? It gets our attention and we join the crowd who jump into a trade, because as humans, we are greedy and we want to make up for that last loss so we jump in, only to see the next candle reverse, taking away the all of the gains of the previous ones and leaving us in a bad way yet again as price moves away from us. We want to be the ones who watch price explode for 3 candles then enter when it turns and moves away from the trapped "traders". We want to follow the true trader, the Fox, as he leaves those stuck traders. When you trade with indicators and base your trades on those indicators, you are trading in the past. On events and prices that have already occurred. In essence, you can not trade today, using yesterdays prices. The areas of support that most trade are actually areas of false support that are created to draw both buyers and sellers to. In order for price to move, transactions must take place. The more buyers and sellers that can be brought together, the greater price can be moved because more transactions can take place. A deer hunter can wander through the woods, and if he gets lucky, he may find his prey. A smart deer hunter will lay out salt blocks and feed corn, maybe even some apples to draw his prey to him as he sits and waits and his success rate increases exponentially. Support areas are the "feed corn and salt blocks" that the Fox uses to draw his prey into a confined area. Somebody is going to get slaughtered there and we don't want it to be us. Recognition of the fact that you are allowing this to happen is a great start. The fact that 10's of thousands of people allow this to happen is why the price patterns repeat over and over. It works to make money for the Fox. Time and time again, so they repeat what they do. And people allow it to continue to work.

God bless each and every member here who have spent countless hours trying to program an EA, indicator or develop a system that works consistently. Try to imagine, possibly, the millions of hours that have been poured into these efforts here. To this date, I don't think anybody can show me one that works, day in and day out. Think about all of the great utilities that have been created here along with useful scripts. They work as intended. The people who create them are smart people, but with all that talent, we still don't have that system of EA that can grind out the profits. That's why we see so many systems and EA's being sold. People can't make money by using them, because they don't work but they can make tons of money selling them to people in search of a working solution. When you start trading in this manner, stay with small lot sizes and demo trade. In time, and as your success rate starts climbing, increase the lot size as well as adding the additional trades. Don't waste your capital as you learn, save it for when it can be put to good use. Nice to see some new faces here, welcome aboard. CJ I don't like Blowing my Trumpet and I Have Nothing to Prove to Anyone But MYSELF, but I proudly Beat my Chest TODAY and Say to YOU that I am one of El Capitaine CJ's Naked TRADING Success Stories. I Started Naked Trading Live Exactly 4 months and 2 days Now, Please Check for your Perusal and Tell me If I Don't Earn Money Trading this way, If you can Teach me Something as Regards Trading that will make me Replicate what I have Done in 4 Months and 2 Days, starting with less than 2 Thousand Dollars Float, please Educate us and we will Gladly Learn from you. You Have Not Offended me in any way shape or form, you have only made me show you and anyone else PROVE that NAKED Trading WORKS, :D hence the Reason why I have given you a sneak veiw of One of my Live Accounts, I suggest you Go Back to the Very Beginning of this thread that is START from Page (1) and Read, Study Very Well and Understand ... if you are Not sure of Anything please Ask Questions, somebody on this thread will Gladly give you Appropriate Answers. A WORD IS ENOUGH FOR THE WISE. Happy Trading Y'all xrismak ;)

We were looking at AUDNZD the other day and I took a position that was stopped out for around a $2.5k loss... on the post I mentioned that I was setting a tight stop due to the fact I thought price may push lower again. When it did, I was stopped out for a small loss. When price dropped, I took another position when the nice pin to the low appeared. We have spoken about the Fox "reselling" his story if he doesn't get enough takers the 1st time around. I think this has happened and I have taken what was given and closed out those trades for a $6k gain. Price gaped up today, trapping the traders below before they could even bat an eye. If you look at the chart, you will see a nice set of pins to the high, "RRT's", if you will and some orders in those pins...SL has been set tight again, just above the pins and the current candle should close lower... I will watch this pair through the Asian session, look to close on lower prices later and possibly a re-entry long during London.... Take what's given.… CJ Do these methods work consistently? I think they do. I know I'm happy with my results as are others who have dropped the "old school" way of trading these markets. While some post trades and results, some trade their accounts using these methods, but do not post. There is nothing wrong with that. I used to link live accounts all the time but it causes problems at times, especially with people who refuse to believe the results are real, consistent or sustainable. Some people don't post because they have difficulties doing so. Here's part of a PM I received today from Brian, and I hope he doesn't mind me posting it, but it relates his trading experience since he began reading the thread(s) back in March:

And that's on Alpari none the less! Not one of my favorite criminals... If Brian, Chris and I can do this, so can you. CJ

How candles combine to form different patterns on the various time frames...