the best success of forex trading - The Holy Grail Of Forex Trading Strategies
– Daily Chart Time frames
Let’s face it, 95% of you reading this are probably not
consistently successful traders, in fact, you’ve probably blown out a
trading account or three by now. You probably enter a trade and
then sit at your computer watching the market tick away or reading
economic news for the next two hours, unable to think about anything but
what “could” happen to your trade. Maybe you can’t even sleep at night
because you are so addicted to the 5 minute chart and to watching every
pip of price movement that all you can think about is the market. If any
of this sounds all too familiar to you, it’s obviously time for a
change;
it’s time to start concentrating your trading efforts on the daily chart time frame.
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| the best success of forex trading - The Holy Grail Of Forex Trading Strategies – Daily Chart Time frames |
You know how that old cliché goes about
‘getting what you’ve always gotten from doing what you’ve always done‘…well
now is the time to make the change…the one lesson that I learned early
on in my trading career that helped me the most, was that the noise and
false-signals of a 5 or 15 minute chart (lower time frames) were simply
not worth spending my time on or risking my money on.
I believe that daily chart trading can be your “Holy Grail” in the markets, here’s why…
Trading the 5 minute chart (and other lower time frames) decreases your chances of success and is widely considered gambling:
I am going to tell you guys something right now that you may not have
thought about before…you only need 1 big winning trade a month to be a
successful Forex trader. Yup, that’s correct, 1 big winning trade a
month.
How is that possible you might ask? Well, I’ll bet if you go look at
your trading account history right now you might just find the answer
yourself. You see, most of you are losing money because you are trading
too often, and you are trading too often because you are fixated on
over-analyzing the market,
Forex news variables, and lower time frame charts (I consider any chart under the 1 hour to be “lower time frame”).
Some of you probably even know that this over-involvement with the
market is why you are losing money regularly or struggling to keep your
head above water. Yet, even though you know it’s keeping you from
achieving success in the markets, you cannot break your addiction to
trading lower time frame charts and over-analyzing the markets. But, the
cold hard truth of the matter is that you will likely never be a
successful trader until you first break this addiction…
Now, here is why I firmly believe that trading lower time frame charts is a waste of time and money.
Trading a 5 minute chart stimulates the reward centers of your brain…it gives you instant gratification. Having patience and discipline to focus ONLY on the daily charts takes more effort from your more highly-evolved brain areas. So, what it really comes down to is that traders who are addicted to the lower time frames cannot break free from the instant stimulation they get when they enter a trade…even if it usually results in them losing money, because each time they enter the market, their brains are flooded with endorphins from the “thrill” of potentially making a lot of money really fast. So, the point here is that traders who are addicted to
trading a 15 minute chart are actually addicted to the feeling they get from entering the market,
and this means they are unable to use their more advanced planning and
long-term brain areas effectively. It does not mean they are incapable
of using them, it just means that they either don’t know they are
addicted to trading lower time frames, or they don’t know how to stop
it.
I have personally only met a few day-traders who make money
consistently, and they almost all seem really frazzled and strung-out,
like a junky who cannot stop thinking or talking about their drugs (the
market). Sure, it’s possible to make money from sitting in front of your
computer 8 hours a day staring at each tick, but why in the world would
you want to? Let’s face it, watching the market tick away is not really
that fun, NOR is it productive…at all.
Now, let’s get back to my main point that trading lower time frames
is decreasing your chances of winning and destroying your trading
account. To focus on daily chart trading you need patience and mental
fortitude, this takes intelligence and forward-thinking, it takes
checking your ego at the door, and it takes a realistic attitude. Anyone
can go to a casino and get lucky a few times at the poker table, but
why do you think it’s possible for some people to win at poker again and
again and again, to the point where they make a living from it? It’s
because they have taken a longer-term view and they realize that their
success is not defined by any one hand of cards, just like your trading
success is not defined by any one trade. So, if you want to turn your
trading around, it’s time to swallow your need to “control” the market
and for instant gratification, and begin taking a longer-term view of
the markets by focusing on the daily chart time frame.
Nial, I don’t have enough money to trade the daily charts…
I get this email almost every day: “Nial, how can I trade the daily
charts when I need to have wider stop losses and I don’t have a lot of
money in my account, I can only afford to trade the 15 minute chart for
now, then when I build up my account I will trade longer time frames”…
Many traders think this way, and it’s usually just because they don’t know enough about
Forex trading position sizing
or because they think by trading bigger position sizes on the lower
time frame charts they are going to somehow make money faster.
So let me set this straight for you guys right now: Through position
sizing, you can trade the daily charts just fine on a small trading
account…you just have to trade a smaller position size. But, let’s face
it, if you have a small trading account you should not be trading large
position sizes anyways! You need to get rid of this attitude of “getting
rich quick” and thinking that trading a 15 minute chart is somehow
going to provide you with more opportunities to profit.
Here’s the deal…Yes, there are MORE trades on a 15
minute chart, however, there are also more false-signals and there is
more random market noise, so you are just going to end up taking more
losing trades and stressing yourself out more. This all contributes to a
poor trading mindset and ultimately to you losing more and more money.
Look at this chart below of the daily spot Gold market. There was an
obvious pin bar strategy from February 16th that we discussed first in
the members’ forum and then in the free
commentary from February 17th,
as well as in the members’ commentary. This trade setup was clearly
with the existing up trend, it was well defined, and formed near two
areas of support….a ‘no-brainer’ for savvy price action traders like my
members. The point is this…if you wait patiently and hit one big winner
like this a month, you are doing very very well. My main trading
philosophy is to
trade Forex like a sniper, and this is a prime example of how that’s done:
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| the best success of forex trading - The Holy Grail Of Forex Trading Strategies |
Why you need to make the daily time frame your primary chart starting today…
• Daily charts provide more clarity
As I stated before, lower time frames are full of random market
“noise” and false-signals, you will eliminate most of this noise by
simply focusing on the daily charts. Focusing on the daily charts will
also give you a clearer view of the overall market picture and will
naturally improve your ability to read the market’s direction both near
and long term.
• Daily charts help you develop a more effective and accurate market bias
Understanding the overall daily time frame bias of the market is very
important for trading the daily charts and the 4hr or 1hr charts too. I
do teach 4hr and 1hr time frame trading, but it’s crucial to master
daily chart trading first so that you get a feeling of the underlying
market sentiment. This goes along with developing your discretionary
price action trading
skill; you have to learn to “read” the market and get in touch with its
ebbs and flows…it sounds a little cheesy maybe, but the market talks
via price action, and if you “listen” closely enough to what it is
saying you can understand where it is most likely to go next.
• Higher risk : reward
While the amount of money you risk per trade is a highly personal
decision that depends on your individual financial situation, trading
the daily charts can allow you to risk a bit more per trade than trading
the lower time frames. Take note: I am NOT saying you should risk more
per trade, I am saying that when you only
TRADE 3 TIMES A MONTH (or
thereabouts), you clearly can risk more money on one trade than if you
are trading 30 times a month. So, this is an answer to the question
“Nial, I can’t make as much money trading the daily charts as I can on
the lower time frames”…yes you can because when you trade like a sniper
you inherently enter far fewer trades each month than if you trade like a
machine gunner, so this allows you to trade more lots per trade.
However, keep in mind, this obviously only works if you can remain
disciplined enough to not jump back into the market on revenge after you
have a losing trade.
• Daily charts reduce the frequency with which you trade – slow and steady wins the race
One thing I firmly believe in is that
Forex trading success is largely a result of the quality of the trades you take…not the quantity of trades you take.
By simply reducing the frequency with which you trade, you will
simultaneously improve your odds of succeeding over the long-term. You
need to understand and accept the fact that 2 or 3 quality trades a
month is going to put you much further ahead than 20 or 30
emotion-fueled impulse trades a month…no matter how good it makes you
feel to take them. Remember, the tortoise won the fabled race because he
was slow and consistent, instead of fast and full of emotion like the
hare…
Shift your thinking (Take this stuff seriously)
Trading success is a direct result of the way you think about the
markets. So, if you view the markets as a game of chance that you just
like to “play around with” and you think you will make money by getting
lucky every now and then…your trading account will quickly shrink in
size.
Professional traders view the market as an arena to spot
high-probability setups, setups that virtually “jump” off the chart at
them; they then trade these setups and risk only an amount of money that
they are 100% comfortable with losing. They also view the markets as a
reflection of their own ability to control their emotions and actions in
an arena of constant temptation…most people cannot do this
consistently, and that’s why many people are bad at trading. It takes
consistent control of your emotions and actions in the market to produce
consistent trading results.
To shift the way you think about trading, you need to start getting
excited about patience and about NOT trading…understand that the way you
are thinking now is the way most traders think about the market…and
most traders lose money…so if you can learn to do what most traders
don’t do and think opposite from them…it goes to reason that you will
greatly improve your chances of making money…
Making the transition into ‘daily chart’ price action trading
Now
that you understand why trading a 5 minute or other lower time frame
chart is counter-productive to achieving long-term success in the
markets, it’s time to make the transition to daily time frame trading.
There is no sure-fire way to eliminate the temptation of the lower time
frame charts, but if you re-read this article and some of my other
Forex articles,
you will reinforce the reasons why taking a slower and longer-term view
on the market is the quickest way to making money as a trader.
The daily chart time frame is at the heart of how I trade and how I teach; my
price action trading strategies
and my overall trading philosophy revolve around taking a calm and
stress-free approach to the markets. I know what I am looking for on the
charts, if it shows up, I enter the trade, if not, I walk away from my
computer.
The underlying point that you should take away from today’s lesson is
that the more you push and “try” to make money in the markets by
burning your eyeballs out staring at lower time frame charts, the more
the money you so badly desire will elude you. Trading is an art, and
like any art, it takes practice to become good at, but trading is a
different beast because
to excel at trading you need to take a
largely “hands-off” approach, meaning you have to look at and study the
markets a lot while actually “doing” relatively little (meaning
not trading). Indeed, trading is the ultimate test of self-discipline
and will power, and the more you develop these abilities, the more you
will find that the profits you seek from the markets are not so elusive
after all. If you enjoyed today’s lesson and want to learn more about
developing a calm and stress-free approach to your Forex trading, check
out my
price action Forex trading course.