advanced price action course – 2nd Skies Trading

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Understanding Price Action Context

Want to Increase Your Profitability? Try this powerful approach

If you want to find high probability trades, and skip those with a low probability of working out, you’ll need to develop a core skill. Does this sound interesting? Then keep on reading. What is this skill you ask?

I am talking about trading with price action context.

Good Trading Decisions Are Based Upon Context

First, let’s define the word ‘context’. Context = understanding and approaching a situation based upon the ‘context’ (or environmental variables) around it.

In price action, the ‘context’ is a way of describing the overall environment, and using that to help you trade with the underlying order flow. We have 3 filters to understand the price action context in our Trading Masterclass Course. For the purposes of this article, we’ll talk about impulsive and corrective moves.

Impulsive and Corrective Moves

Now I’ve already done many videos and articles on impulsive and corrective moves. For a more in-depth study, you can watch this video on impulsive and corrective price action, or this article on impulsive and corrective moves. But to sum them up briefly:

Impulsive moves = large bars + majority of bars 1 color + closes towards the highs/lows

Corrective moves = smaller bars + mix of colors + closes towards the middle

An example of an impulsive move is below:

Impulsive move 2ndskiesforex

And an example of a corrective move is below:

Corrective move 2ndskiesforex

As a whole, impulsive and corrective moves communicate a lot about the price action context, such as the underlying order flow behind it.

During impulsive moves, the order flow is relatively ‘imbalanced’, meaning it’s dominant towards one side (buying/selling) which causes strong directional moves.

During corrective moves, the order flow is relatively ‘balanced’, meaning there is no strong winner between the buyers/sellers, hence the market goes mostly sideways.

Using Impulsive and Corrective Moves to Discover the Price Action Context

Now that we understand the basics of impulsive and corrective moves, we can use them to discover the price action context of the market.

As a general rule, an impulsive move (the majority of the time) is followed by a corrective move. If the impulsive move is with trend, then the next move after the corrective move will more often be an impulsive move in the same direction.

Two good examples of this are below:

Example 1: Impulsive and Corrective Moves

Impulsive & Corrective moves 2ndskiesforex

Example 2: Impulsive and Corrective Moves

Impulsive & Corrective moves 2ndskiesforex

Now what do impulsive and corrective moves teach us about price action context?

They give us an underlying sense of what the dominant order flow is. If you see a potential trend in place, along with a good series of impulsive and corrective moves, then you can feel confident the overall price action context is bullish, and thus you should be looking to buy more often than sell.

Now instead of waiting for a pin bar, fakey or some other 1-2 bar confirmation price action signal, look at the impulsive and corrective moves for trade opportunities as they will often offer you many.

You don’t need a 1-2 bar candlestick pattern to know if the market is bullish – just determine the overall ‘context’, and trade with the impulsive and corrective structure as much as possible.

NOTE: If you want to learn how to find high probability trade setups using impulsive and corrective moves, check out our Trading Masterclass course.

The bottom line is – many of those 1-2 bar candlestick patterns (pin bars, fakey’s, inside bars, etc) don’t form that often. Yet if there is a strong trend in place, why are you waiting for a pattern that may never materialize, when the overall order flow is already bullish?

Get into that trend and make some money. Just make sure the price action context is in your favor. A great way to determine this is to make sure you can read the impulsive and corrective moves.

The most favorable situation is when you are trading in the direction of the impulsive moves (not against them) because you’re trading with the dominant order flow in the market. It also means you can make money faster because impulsive moves travel farther and faster than corrective moves.

Hopefully you can now see how price action context, particularly spotting the impulsive and corrective moves, can give help you find better trade setups.

Want To Learn More About Price Action Context?

While impulsive and corrective moves are a crucial part to determining price action context, they are not the whole. We have two other key factors to determining price action context and what the dominant order flow is in the market.

To learn more about these two, check out our Trading Masterclass Course where we teach you higher, lower and multiple time frame context with clear rules to understanding them. In fact, our entire 1st section of lessons is dedicated specifically towards understanding price action context.

To get access to these lessons within minutes, click here. Inside the course, you’ll also learn how to read other critical (or more advanced) price action structures and find more trade setups.

Keep in mind, trading with price action context is a skill that works on any instrument, time frame or environment. If you’re learning a price action strategy or approach that only works on specific time frames, then it’s a limited strategy that doesn’t really understand price action or PA context.

Until then – I look forward to your comments and feedback.

Set and Forget Trading – When To Use It and When Not To

A while back I heard a professional trader who ran a trading desk sum up ‘set and forget forex trading‘ strategies in one sentence:

“That is like getting in a car, putting your foot on the gas, and expecting to get from point A to point B without crashing – complete stupidity.”

By and large, I have to agree with him. There is a lot of confusion around set and forget trading, and it’s likely costing you money.

In today’s article, I’ll begin by sharing the fallacy in this way of thinking and how our brains are wired in relation to trading. Then I’ll cover the ONLY TWO SCENARIOS you should use a forex set and forget trading strategy.

From here, I’ll talk about evolving markets and how this relates to set and forget forex trading. After this, I’ll end with talking about how you limit your profits and how to avoid capping your growth as a trader.

The Irony & Fallacy of Set and Forget Forex Trading

The irony (and fallacy) hiding behind this one size fits all approach is it assumes you are responsible enough to make a good trade entry, stop loss and take profit, BUT you are clearly not mature, intelligent or responsible enough to manage a trade. How ridiculous.

To be fair, our brains are not wired for all the mechanics of trading, and our natural bias is negative towards most things, especially threats.

The translation of how this bias affects us is: we are more likely to close a trade when it goes against us (threat) vs. working for us (beneficial). And I’m sure you have experienced this yourself.

The Scenario
You are in a trade, everything is going for you, the price action is impulsive in your favor, you are in profit…and then…the first major candle goes against you. Immediately you think the move is over and you close the trade to lock in profit.

Has this happened to you? If so, its your brain and reptilian brain working against you.

(NOTE: For a great trading article on the negative bias in trading, read Why We Close Winning Trades Early)

Change & Growth Come Through Re-Wiring Your Brain

To be successful in trading (and anything), you have to re-wire your brain and change your habits. This is best done through repetition, focused awareness and skill based training.

We can either walk on eggshells around our negative biases (no growth), or we can learn to get past them (growth). Simply turning to a one size fits all approach for taking profit (or managing the trade) isn’t the answer. It leaves you crippled in terms of growth and assumes you’ll never get over it.

That is like saying you should never drink a beer (or glass of wine) because you’ll never be able to control yourself. Or you should never get a drivers license because you’ll never be responsible enough to drive on public roads. Ridiculous.

In reality, set and forget forex trading is simply ONE method for managing the trade. And it should (in reality) ONLY be used under two circumstances:

#1: You only have one, maybe two hours per day, and have no real way to manage your trades. Perhaps you work full time, have kids, and are just really really busy with a super tight schedule.

In this case, you are probably best employing a forex set and forget strategy as a profit taking method using daily and 4hr price action strategies, but there is a big assumption in this.

The Assumption
The scenario above assumes you are a) not trained in reading price action context, or b) your trade will likely hit its stop loss or take profit after you enter, but while you are busy.

Hence, unless you are not trained to read the price action context in real time, or the trade will close while you are at work, then you are a decent candidate for a set and forget forex trading strategy.

If your trade will take a few days, then this may not be the best method, because as it progresses, it may show signs it could go for a big runner. These are trades you have to take advantage of when they come, just like a really good poker player loads up on a strong hand.

Once you get good at reading the price action context in real time, you can also trail your stop and reduce your risk as the trade progresses. Almost every professional trader will reduce risk as their trades advance.

Very few will look at it as a hell or high-water scenario, which is what you are saying when you use a set and forget trading strategy as your method.

The other scenario is below.

#2: If after exhausting all other methods of managing your trades (taking profits and adjusting your stop), and the ONLY baseline method which showed profitability, then you’d be a decent candidate for the set and forget method.

This one is pretty straight forward, and the risk of ruin needs to support your decision. Without it, you could have the numbers working entirely against you without even knowing it.

Thus, if you are that trader who falls outside of the two above reasons, you should explore other options, and develop an accurate baseline for gauging which method you use.

Markets Evolve Over Time

The bottom line is the market evolves as it progresses over time. This can happen intra-day, daily, or over days and weeks. Those that train and learn to adapt with such changes in real time will have their finger on the pulse and maximize opportunities.

This is what institutional traders do. They adjust and evolve their positions as the market does, just like a poker player will become more aggressive (or conservative), based on the players around him, and the size of his chips.

Just realize if you don’t explore other options for managing your trades, and train to get beyond your weaknesses, your growth will be limited, and your profits will reflect this.

Having A Curfew on Profits

But perhaps that doesn’t sway you. No problem, just imagine the following scenario:

It is the first week in May, 2013. You have just entered short on the AUDUSD on a break below the key support level around 1.0225. Your stop loss is just above the daily 20 EMA, so -100 pips, and your ‘set and forget‘ target is +200 pips, or +2R.

About a day later, it comes out on the news that George Soros has sold over $1 billion of the AUD. Considering Soros’s history, and that he doesn’t just get in and out in a day (along with the glaring fact other professional traders will likely pile on this trade), chances are this trade is going to run.

Yet…here you are, just a couple days later, saying ‘nope, I only set and forget because I ignore everything and cannot manage my trades responsibly, so I have this curfew on profits‘.

About a day later, you hit your +2R profit, thinking you are a darn good trader. This is your chart below.

Looks great eh?

And then you see this…

Keep in mind, this situation above happens on a micro-scale almost every day, sometimes many times per week.

So when you consider employing a forex set and forget trading strategy, realize there are other options, and this should only be used in very specific circumstances.

Also understand, if you choose to use this method while you have other options, you are a) putting a cap on your upside profits, and more importantly b) putting a limit on your growth and development as a trader.

There are many other methods for managing your trades regardless of what time frame you trade. For those wanting to learn more about these methods and how to leverage them in your trading, learn about my Trading Masterclass Course where you get access to our daily trade setups commentary, trader quizzes, private member webinars, live trade setups forum, and more.

Price Action Trading Videos, Trading Videos

Price Action Trading – Trading Intraday Price Action

Here is a new video on trading intraday price action trading. In this video, I am demonstrating how to read forex price action on an intraday basis for short term price action trading. For those of you wanting to learn advanced price action, make sure to check out my price action course where you learn rule-based systems to trade the forex market using high-probability setups backed by quantitative price action data using simple to learn price action strategies.