It’s overwhelming for a beginner trader to find the ‘strategy (needle)’ from the internet haystack.
Today we are going to talk about price action trading, a simple strategy that you will fall in love with once you get a taste of it.
When you research trading strategies, you often come across systems based off intense mathematical algorithms, which at first look complex and attractive.
At the other extremes you see systems that are much more simplified in nature, and look too basic to actually work.
Eventually, you will come to realize that keeping things as simple as possible in the markets is a much more effective way to trade.
If a strategy seems difficult or complicated, then you’re most likely going to get frustrated and abandon it.
When you focus on the simple, easy things – you’re rewarded with better clarity in your trading analysis, allowing you to finally move forward instead of feeling like you’re ‘running fast but getting nowhere’.
In this article we will discuss: the benefits of trading from a simple chart, why it is one of the most popular strategies used in the markets today, and how it can improve your trading… fast.
Why Trade This Way?
The general idea is to identify recurring patterns that have proven themselves in the past to produce a profitable outcome.
You can then use these same patterns to forecast future price movements when they appear in real time.
We we love the simple, less involved, ‘lazy’ approach to trading here at the The Forex Guy.
Once you learn the skill of reading a plain Forex chart, you will start to really learn how the market move, and before you know it, you will be anticipating the markets next move with higher accuracy.
To get started, all you really need to do is load up a simple candlestick chart, clear off any unnecessary ‘extra’s like useless indicators (some charting platforms load a lot of indicators onto their default chart template). Once you’ve done that, you’re pretty much ready to get started.
Many traders only start to taste the sweetness of trading success, only after learning how to trade strictly off price itself.
By focusing on the candlestick themselves, a trader can learn how the market behaves at its very core – trading from raw price movements will eventually transform you into a ‘master chart reader’.
There are many reasons why price action strategies are becoming an increasingly hot topic among traders.
It’s because they work very effectively and are often considered the ‘holy grail’ of technical trading.
Checkpoint
Price Action Trading is Simple, And That Works In Our Favor
A lot of people mistakenly believe that to become a professional trader you need to have a degree in commerce, mathematics or economics.
This is due to a huge misconception that Forex trading is complicated. FALSE!
It’s not a prerequisite to have any fancy university degrees or other qualifications in any special fields to become a trader. In fact, the ‘high school dropout’ has just as good of a chance of becoming a successful trader as any doctor, engineer, or physicist would.
Actually, the high school drop out probably has a better chance to succeed in the market over a seasoned mathematician.
The humble high school student is able to read things at the surface level and be content – not over complicating the issues by trying to understand every possible factor that could move the market at any given time. #headache
When taken at face value, the simple nature of plain charts gives everybody an equal opportunity to become successful with trading.
Regardless if you’re a single mum, studying full time, or even have a day job – the markets don’t discriminate.
The benefits of price action trading have transformed my abilities as a trader, and I am confident it will do the same for you.
Checkpoint
Reading The Market Via The Candlesticks Only
You would be surprised what sort of information the basic candlestick chart can offer.
I get questions from traders everyday –
- How do I determine the trend?
- Which way is the market moving?
- Where are the important support and resistance levels?
These are entry level questions, and the answers are simple, but traders are searching for a deep complex answer – not taking in the vital information right in front of them on the plain chart.
Check out the chart below…
By observing the swing highs and swing lows you can read a lot about the market direction.
This might seem like Micky Mouse kiddy school stuff, but a lot of Forex traders seem to skip over this simple data, and are continuously looking for deeper explanations where they can’t be found.
All the information is right here – don’t ignore what the chart is trying to tell you.
A bearish market is just a mirror image…
In the chart above, the bearish moves are stronger than the bullish moves in the market – showing bearish dominance and pushing the chart down through lower lows and lower highs.
The other type of market environments are ranging markets, where the swing highs and lows are all contained between too major boundaries. The market is consolidating in a ‘sideways moving’ pattern until the boundaries are breached.
Ranging markets are also easy to identify, it’s just two levels that the market is ‘trapped’ between.
Sometimes you will see the market try to breakout of range like in the chart above, but they can often fail and price just falls back down and gets caught up in the range again.
Price action traders know these as ‘fakeouts’ which trap many traders into bad positions. Eventually the market will breakout of the range, and when it does the breakouts are usually quite strong.
There is a common rule of thumb that a range breakout length will equal the height of the range itself.
Sometimes the market is just not readable and there is nothing more to it than that, but traders have a tendency to try and understand ‘everything’ and will try to make sense of ‘noise’…
This is the gold market mid 2015 – its a very noisy and hostile market. There is no structure here, no trend or range that is clearly definable. What see are looking at is mostly randomness and noise as the market churns away here.
Don’t try and navigate these waters, it’s a ‘no fly zone’ and you should take it as that, and move on. A lot of traders lose their hard earned profits trying to trade in dangerous conditions like this one.
You need to be able to read, and anticipate the market before you can trade with a statistical edge – there is nothing to see here, please move along 🙂
Checkpoint
You Don’t Need Indicators to Make Profitable Trading Decisions
One of the largest benefits of price action trading is the fact you don’t need to worry about indicators to get your trade signals. You only need to concern yourself with one indicator, and that’s price itself!
Introducing external variables like indicators to your chart template will in most cases work against you. You will be surprised how many time they actually get in the way of your trading, rather than doing any good.
Some traders find the concept of trading without indicators impossible.
Let me reassure you that it’s not, I do it everyday and the difference is night and day.
Trading without indicators or other colorful chart tools is actually a much more powerful approach to the markets. Remember what I said before, “simple is better“.
When you dumb it down – Forex Indicators are basically mathematical algorithms that draw squiggly lines all over the price chart. Their function is to “help” traders analyse the market and assist in making trading decisions.
All they really manage to achieve in the long run is to confuse & frustrate traders – you’re most likely nodding your head agreeing with me here.
When traders look at indicator data, they tend to come up with exotic analysis that is disconnected with what’s really going on in the markets.
Indicators are notorious for generating bad buy/sell signals, especially in rough market conditions. Eventually, the trader goes into ‘mental meltdown’ and sadly burns up their trading account.
Indicators hide the real price feed, obstructing what you should really be focusing on. Many traders believe there is an edge using indicators and other expensive third party analytic software. The truth is, there is no better edge that analyzing raw price movements.
Another common ‘flaw’ in indicator design is their output lag.
Indicators are renowned for their slow responsiveness to price changes. It’s not uncommon for an indicator to signal you to ‘buy the market’ after the entire rally is already over.
A price based signal would have likely positioned you in at the bottom of the move. I see this happen everyday. That’s why with price action trading we focus on the ‘now’ data, rather than having to rely on lagging indicator data.
Here is an example of a ‘typical’ indicator based trading strategy chart template.
Just for the record – this isn’t a chart template we conjured just to make indicators look bad. This chart is actually a default template in the most common charting tool used by traders today, ‘Metatrader 4’. The template name was actually called ‘popular’. As you can see it’s loaded with the most commonly used indicators; RSI, Stochastic and the MACD.
This chart is just too ‘busy’ and would be a frustrating environment to trade in. Have a look at the chart template shown below. It is the template that we use every day in the markets.
This is the exact chart template that we use in our everyday trading. The next step would be to mark some support and resistance lines on the chart, and we are good to go.
You may have noticed 2 moving averages on my chart template. These are the 10 and 20 exponential moving averages used to ‘map out’ the mean value of price.
The mean value area is where the market generally finds ‘value’. The market considers this to be a balanced, or ‘fair price’ for the currency. Mean value analysis is used heavily with our Forex trading system and it works very synergistically with price action trading.
The benefits are clear. It’s simplified, easy on the eye, and brings out the clarity in the market.
With this arrangement, we can really start to build a good foundation where low risk, high probability trading opportunities are easily identified.
Checkpoint
Seriously, Forget the News
Many people believe that it’s key to know what’s going on economically, and keep on top of world events to be able to make sound trading decisions.
The thing is there is macro economics, and micro economics.
Sure, central bank policies are the catalyst for large trends and powerful market moves, but you can’t just trade central bank news announcements, the volatility can destroy you.
But traders sometimes get involved with the micro economics releases – which are things you would find on the news calendar at Forex Factory.
Things like unemployment figures and interest rate decisions, can produce short/medium term volatile swings in the market.
Price can dramatically in a matter of seconds causing extreme widening of spreads (the commissions you pay) to unrealistic levels.
The bottom line is news calendar event trading is unpredictable. During during an economic data release, a trade order is very hard to execute, and can be expensive if timed wrong.
Traders who engage in this type of trading put themselves through negative psychological pressure and high levels of stress.
We’ve actually come across people who try to scalp the Non-Farm Payroll.
NFP is on of the largest economic data releases, which causes disturbing amounts of volatility in the markets. Scalping NFP is very reckless, and a quick way to Forex trading failure.
You don’t need to be ‘in tune’ with the news to trade profitably. This is actually one of the key benefits of technical analysis and why traders make to the switch to price action trading.
Most people would prefer to trade technical data from the charts to make confident trading decisions instead of stressing out over what the news is going to do. We actually don’t even look at the economic calendar – if we do it’s just out of curiosity.
The news can be a catalyst for large price movements.
The beautiful thing is, there is generally a candlestick signal that will get you into a trade before the news event.
Sometimes the news can work against you, and trigger your stop loss, but that’s something out of your control. It could just as easily go the other way, and the news could explode your trade into heavenly profits.
As part of the simple trading mantra and philosophy, its better to just ignore the micro news releases.
Some traders like to understand the larger fundamentals of the market, like the stance of central banks and the policies they are implementing.
This can be helpful in forecasting longer term trends, but it’s always a technical signal on the chart you should end up basing your trading decision from.
Checkpoint
Candlestick Signals are Easy to Identify
There is a mountain of candlestick patterns out there appearing on the charts all the time, but we’ve gone and isolated the price patterns that yield the best results.
Some are derived from our own original observations. We use these candlestick patterns to accurately anticipate future price movements like the rejection candle, and the outside candle – two powerful reversal signals.
Above are some bullish rejection candles which are simple straight forward bullish reversal signals.
By lining up strong looking rejection candle with important areas on the chart you can build a high probability, low risk, high reward trade setup.
Here is an example of one of our trade setups, the Breakout Trap & Reverse trade.
First the market breaks out above the previous candle high’s. The initial breakout encourages buyers to jump on board with the bullish momentum.
However, this is not the true intent of the market. The breakout collapses back in on itself and the sellers take full control. There is less resistance for the market to move lower due to the fact all the buyers just got washed out in the initial bullish breakout trap.
Price likes to follow the path of least resistance.
Aggressive selling can cause explosive price movements on the chart. The trigger to go short is when price breaks out the other side of the previous candle’s range. The explosive nature of the breakout trap and reverse signal makes this one of our favorite price action trading setups.
Here is an example of a bearish breakout trap and reverse trade triggered on a live chart…
The chart above shows a bearish breakout trap and reverse trade setup on the AUDUSD daily chart.
Notice the explosive price movements from this setup?
This is how we can generate high return, from low initial risk.
This concept is the backbone of all our money management plans. We like to aim for at least 2-3 times what we risk on the trade. We call this concept ‘positive geared money management’, and it marries well price action trading system.
Checkpoint
Are you Ready To Make Your Trading Easier, Less Stressful & More Profitable?
Most trading systems have an expiration date. They are generally tailored to the market conditions at the time making them obsolete when market conditions change.
You’ve got to remember that markets are dynamic in nature, they’re always changing and adapting. Robotic, or rigid strategies which break when bent, they don’t survive when the market changes.
By learning the skill to read naked price charts – you can interpret what the market is doing, where it is going, and use simple methodologies like we’ve shown in this guide to keep your finger on the market’s pulse, and start make confident trading decisions.
We’ve been using price action for many years, utilizing it mostly during strong trending conditions, ranging markets and even through market crashes with continued success.
The benefits of are the reasons why we love it so much and will continue to passionately trade it – so long as the markets are available to trade.
If indicators are making your nose bleed, or you want to move away from the very stressful news trading scene – and you’re interested in learning more, you might be interested in becoming a War Room Trader.
The war room contains our Forex course that was rated #1 and goes much deeper into the price action concepts we’ve talking about in this guide.
The war room also now comes with an indicator (I know that sounds ironic), but it is tool that monitors the charts for the candlestick patterns we use, and sends you mobile phone notifications when it finds a high quality pattern. To find out more, look at the Battle Station for Mt4 page.
Check out the testimonials and feedback from traders after they learned how to trade with plain charts.
I hope this article has been an eye opener for you, and made you realize there is a better way to go about your trading. If you enjoyed this article, please share using the buttons below. Cheers to your future trading success!
Shilpa
Simple and easy with proper depth insight for the beginners
Seymour
As can be seen, price action trading is closely assisted by technical analysis tools, but the final trading call is dependent on the individual trader, offering flexibility instead of enforcing a strict set of rules to be followed.
Mark chukwuebuka
Pls want to learn how to trader in fx price action trading
Megat Danial Aizat
hi, im new in this trading world.. and im practicing your technique EMA 10/20 for XM demo account.. the result that i get is superb. currently im still survey a good deal broker for my real account, any recommendation? by the way im from Malaysia. good job and thank you dale.
Replying to: Megat Danial Aizat
Dale WoodsAuthor
You might be able to sign up with my Broker – Go Markets AUS
Yuvaraj
Hi sir I need to learn price action in forex plz. Help me
Panpha
….feeling like you’re ‘running fast but getting nowhere’…
CONFUSING MOVEMENT WITH PROGRESS….
dean
Dale thanks for this article…price action trading is opening my eyes to see the realities of the chart and its message to my trading decisions. I am still trading a micro account, and have recently entered Gbp/Nzd 4hr break out from a consolidation range which has proven profitable. There is a lot of bull dung teachings online, When I encountered your videos on you-tube, my eyes where opened and believe me all my indicators are now off the charts. Once again thank you for bringing a shift in my thinking
Michaelforex
Nice article. I really like your teaching and it has taught me so many things that I could ever imagine. Thanks a lot and keep helping people to become better traders and your reward will be unlimited.
Jeremy
Great for a novice like me. Was getting tied up in charts.
Deyan
Hello,
It is interesting approach!
Except the price action do you combine power of the currencies?
How are you managing renko? It is not the same on demo/real and different between brokers.
Can I have a trial to see the power of your approach?
Regards
D
Jun Hiano
What is the difference between war room and battle station?
Replying to: Jun Hiano
Dale WoodsAuthor
The battle station can be purchased here: Battle Station
تحميل افلام
Hi,I read your blog named “Learn Why Price Action Trading Is The Best Forex Strategy” daily.Your story-telling style is awesome, keep it up! And you can look our website about تحميل افلام.
Teiri
Excelent trader
Johnny Reb
I have read the first chapter. All sound advice. I have spent a year trading at MTI, where they give similar advice, especially in risk management. But there is nothing like reinforcement and repetition to becoming a disciplined trader. I look forward to the rest of this course.
Paul
Really enjoyed your trading method. Price Action charts are much clearer. Need to practice more
on candle formation will watch more of your videos.
Wilf
Hi again. Also I want economic news to flash up on my screen as soon as it occurs rather than hunt around for it. Can you recommend a good source. Thanks again.
Replying to: Wilf
Dale WoodsAuthor
I am sure there is an MT4 plugin for this, but I don’t follow economic releases so I’ve never investigated. Google is going to be your friend here 🙂
Wilf
Hi I very much enjoyed your video, I am interested to know what trading platform you use. I am with IG (LCG Trader) and dont know how to manipulate the graphs to show e.g the DOW daily price action in the way you did. I have also just opened an account for Meta 4 but haven’t use it yet. Thanks Wilf
Replying to: Wilf
Dale WoodsAuthor
I also use MT4 as you might be able to spot in the video. My broker is Go Markets, Metatrader 4 is basically the industry standard for a charting platform, most brokers offer it
Luis Ubatay
Very clear explanation. Simple is better
Bulelani Danster
Hello Dale i’d like to know how can I get the price action battle station
Lenard
If you look back on what you said you will see that trying to get direction from candles is bogus….completely false. I have one indicator that is very reliable and when used in conjunction with candles and the age of the candle run it is very good ….BUT ONLY UNDER STEADY CONDITIONS…..If any media guru yells boo…all candles and indicators go for shit….just like today when gold got a little pivot point….(likely one of many false ones) AND ALL GOLD STOCKS came crashing down RIGHT THRU THEIR EMAS EVEN …SETTING UP A NEW BLOATED BOLLINGER BAND USELESS INDICATOR TO THE DOWN SIDE.
Price action with candles is VERRRRY limiting to say the least
Seetsaman
this is good staff
Peter Miller
Hi you say you do not use indicators but you have a 10/20 ema on the charts, is that not conflicting?
I would appreciate your comments thanks
Peter Miller
P.S . I do like your system of vanilla charts though and simple system.
Replying to: Peter Miller
Dale WoodsAuthor
The EMAs are used as a reference point. Just like a support/resistance, or a trendline, except they are dynamic. They are not used for generating buy or sell signals like typical indicators.
Paulo
thanks for sharing …. even though i ´m looking for OHLC bars
Russell
Hi Dale
I’ve tried to follow price action trading before without any success. When a trend is established it is soon over. When a breakout fails it was a fake out. When a channel is broken it was a good opportunity, provided it wasn’t a false break. Likewise when support or resistance holds it was expected, except when it’s broken. When a particular candle stick pattern occurs then that is our entry even though there were many similar patterns on many charts and time frames that weren’t successful.
Any one can trade well in hindsight. What I need to know is what to do at the hard right edge (or not do ) . I don’t mean to be critical of you in any way, you are obviously a good chart reader and successful and patient trader, I’m just relating my experiences. Any way I hope to learn a lot from your website as I follow along. By the way I like Renko charts and SMAs but I haven,t found a good Renko EA yet, all I’ve see so far plot impossibly long wicks.
Regards
Nduduzo
Thanks Dale… As a beginner I’ve learned quite another
Mark Edwards
Dale thanks for the feed on price action!! I see a gartley pattern set up on the 1h time eur/usd and a double bottom of the daily of the eur/usd. Should i wait intill price hits the 1,272 retracement on the 1h time frame ?
bujang
Thanks for sharing Mr Woods. I am in the midst of trying out your methods as it is aligned with my style of laziness. lol. The only issues that I have currently is a) when to pull the trigger (still trying out your trigger mechanism) and b) still getting caught in the traps (as you said, the market move in waves, I am unsure whether I am in the trap or not), or is it maybe that my stop losses are too tight… hmm… but… great articles none the less. thanks again.
Muny
I love your article ! I learn a lot from you now.
Moffat
Thank you very much for the eye opener, i am now three months on demo and i find your strategy or technique quit good and simple. For this three weeks i will follow your way as i want to open real account next month.
Moffat Motngoe
Mr Woods thank you very much for the eye opener, now i know when to and how to place an order. Thank you very, I’m now three months on MT4 demo so i can understand it but your way is the best. hopefully next mont i will start with real account.
Timmy
What time frame do you trade and what EMA’s. So you uses other indicator like rsi Macd.
Replying to: Timmy
Dale WoodsAuthor
Swing trade time frames and using top down analysis approach. So I watch time frames from the h4 and up. The EMAs are 10 and 20.
Rajesh
Immense food for thought. I use the 8EMA and 34EMA as confirmation indicators. Is that ok?
I also found that the further price moves away from these MAs, there is more chance of a reversal of the trend.
FXRaj
Sergio
Hi,dale let me tell you your strategy is the best
I always said to me that all this indicators only confuse traders and they got frustrated Iam with you I want to learn more from you thanks
Steve Epperson
Every time I get on one of these fundamental sites like marketpulse.com, I want to rip my eyes out, swallow them, then regurgitate. I hate Janet Yellen. I can’t stand her. I can’t even stand to look at her. Yet the whole stinkn’ financial world hangs on her every word, as if the seas rise and fall with her every breath. I will stick to my charts with the pretty little green and red candles, thank you very much. I’ll leave the fundamentals to the Warren Buffet-worshipers.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Replying to: Steve Epperson
Dale WoodsAuthor
Lol Steve.
I always appreciate your comments. The only way to keep your finger on the market plus is by reading what the price action tells you. Stay away from those sites if they make you nauseous with your trading 🙂
Valerie Galvin
Thanks for all the help. Looking for the next article.
trevor
good article,have been floundering for too long
johan
Thanks..great article that will change my style of trading..
fxvictory
Great information
Wang
Thanks for your sharing regarding price action methods. Expect to hear from you more senior methods or setups very soon
Rgds
from Wang
Todd Nicksons
Thnx Dale.i made +pips already by trading gu daily chart On 20th..tho was scared of the 150 SL that i had to use.2 qns Dale. #1. Can i use basic vsa to confirm setups? #2. Did u mean that one should close an open trade when news are near.?
Replying to: Todd Nicksons
TheForexGuyAuthor
1. I don’t believe in VSA analysis – it’s a stock market strategy. Forex only gives you tick data not real volume data so the whole backbone of VSA analysis is missing it’s key ingredient with Forex. Some people will say tick data is a good representation of volume but I think that’s bulls**t.
2.No, I am a believer that you shouldn’t really let the ‘news’ dictate changes in your trading strategy. In most cases that is. The news is temporary noise most of the time and it can either go against you or work with you to push your trade into profit. It’s something you have no control over and is always going to be a fact of trading. The best strategy is to just focus on your technical strategy and just let the news do it’s thing.
Andre "a2xm" Muliana
very good written.. !
hapani darshan m.
give information about how can we trade, what is required for that
Replying to: hapani darshan m.
Dale WoodsAuthor
There is plenty of information on how to approach trading here: Forex Trading Strategies
Kevin Penny
Hi Dale, great Forex lesson but the massive stops that need to be used with trading Daily Candles, frighten me.
Cheers, Kevin Penny.
Replying to: Kevin Penny
Dale WoodsAuthor
Hi Kevin,
This is a misunderstanding. It’s all relative to what timeframe you work with – you also need to understand how to calculate your position size correctly. This article might be a good read for you… Busting the 5 Biggest Myths About Using the Daily Time Frame
Sylvester Augustine
Hi Dale – Excellent blog and website for FX traders!!!! Which New York brokers would you recommend?
Thanks & regards
Sylvester
Replying to: Sylvester Augustine
Dale WoodsAuthor
Thank you Sylvester. I only recommend Oanda for US traders, and they also use a New York close price feed.
Marlis
i saw, that the candels from different brokers are not the same. How can i trust the candels and the strategy equal?
Replying to: Marlis
Dale WoodsAuthor
That’s because we use brokers who have a New York close price feed. New York close candles provide the most accurate representation of a daily Forex session.
Nikhil
Fantastic blog guys. Amazing insight and clearly detailed.