Importance of day trading plan

Whether you want it or not you do need at least a few rules in your life. There are things that you tell yourself you �should� do, but there must be a few things which you �must do�. If you label everything under should you will hardly achieve anything in life. �I should lose weight, stop smoking, sleep less, work more and etc.) It does not work. Have a few �musts�. The same can be said about day trading. You need a few rules and you must have a trading plan to be a successful day trader. I want to talk a little about it in the post. 

If you do not have a plan you will be ruled by emotional impulses and illogical behavior. You cannot trade on the hunch all the time. Occasional trade is ok, but not regular. Do you get what I mean? I hope you do. Trading rules help you to shape and filter your trading system and keep you from making spontaneous trades. I would say that a bad plan is much better than no plan at all. No army general would go to battle without a strategy and a plan. The same can be said about successful traders. Trading is battle for money. Somebody is after your money and you are after somebody�s. Cruel truth, but truth! 

Before you ever consider of opening a trade you need to look through your plan and see if a possible trade meets your criteria for a �good trade�.

Some of the points you might ask yourself:

Is there some technical pattern that indicates a reversal or continuation? I wrote a number of posts on the topic and the series is not finished yet, but as I wanted to make a short break I decided to write on day trading. Be sure to check my series on chart patterns. 

Is price near support or resistance level? It is very important as it indicates a reversal level if you a security is in a range. 

Is the price close to a trend line (upward or downward)? When price comes to a rising trend line (especially on daily charts) it is very usual for price to find support and jump off the trend line as strong demand comes to market. See how gbp/jpy pair bounced off its� daily trend line when price hit it on the 13^th of June 2013.

Do you see long bullish or bearish candles indicating that support/resistance is strong and you may trade in the direction of the tendency? These candle patterns indicate strong supply and demand areas (or accumulation/distribution zones). I haven�t written on candle patterns yet, but intend to do it after I finish chart pattern series. 

Is the move I see is in the direction of the trend or is it a counter trend rally? Day traders can capitalize on both, but most successful traders trade only in the direction of prevailing tendency. Buying on dips in an uptrend and selling rallies in a downtrend should be a common practice for any day trader.

These are just some of the things that should be on your trading plan. I hope to add more stuff on the subject in my future posts. 

I hope you benefited from the post. If you liked the post I would also be happy if you gave a plus on Google+, tweeted, liked it on Facebook and other social platforms. Have a nice day. 

Vytas.

Related posts:

Day trading strategies and rules for dummies

10 top day trading rules

Day trading tips

Learn day trading

Is day trading for a living possible

Long term or intraday trading

Day trading example with eur/usd

If you want to see and experience what real investing in financial markets such as Forex, stocks and commodities is all about I recommend trying innovative social investment platform of Etoro. Initial deposits are as low as a few hundred bucks. The best dealer I have heard of so far!

http://www.etoro.com/A41516_TClick.aspx 

Disclaimer

Trading financial markets carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. All information on the blog http://trend0.blogspot.com/ is of educational nature and cannot be considered as advice, recommendation or signals to trade in any financial markets.

Double top reversal chart pattern

This is continuation of my article series on chart patterns. Last time I discussed bullish reversal pattern: double bottom. What could I do today if not discuss bearish reversal pattern: double top? Like any other technical structure it can be found of various time frames and all of them can be both valid and fake. Everything depends on whether the pattern is broken in the direction it should break. A reversal pattern should change a current trend and continuation pattern should be broken in the direction of a current trend after consolidation period is over. As double top is a bearish pattern it means that an upward trend is about to end and bears will show their strength soon. Let us look at some necessary conditions that have to be that we might state that the picture we see is a valid double top pattern.

Key components in double bottom pattern

As it is a reversal pattern the first thing that there has to be is a previous uptrend. The security had to go up for some time in order for the pattern we are discussing to be formed. Depending on the structure the uptrend could have been from a few days (weeks, months) to a year and even more. 

There has to be the first sharp rise that marks the first spot in the top or peak. It is known as the highest point in the current uptrend. At this point we cannot say whether the tendency has changed or not as there still isn�t any indication of a reversal and increase in supply.

The first sharp fall! Reaching the first top the price of the security crashes. It indicates that smart money is distributing the security and it is good time to sell it short and so selling starts. After some time (hours, days or even weeks) the first bottom (or important support) is formed. 

Back to the top! At some point inertia of the bulls kicks in and they continue buying assuming that the uptrend is not over yet. So, the price of the security soars to the first spot of resistance (top) and this time the spot becomes the second spot of a double top pattern. 

The second sharp fall! After hitting the first resistance (top) the security starts collapsing, which indicates that there really is serious distribution of the security taking place at current prices. In most cases the prices will reach the first spot in support. Likewise, in most cases the price after hitting the support will go up (rally) a little. 

Break of the support. The two points of support that were made as the security fell sharply after reaching the top is finally broken. That is the point where the double top pattern becomes a valid one. 

Resistance becomes support. That is a classical rule of technical analysis. It is not a necessity, but a security sometimes comes back to test previous support (that is now resistance) and if the break was not fake the resistance will hold. 

Traditional target for the exit of your short trade is the distance from the break point to the highest point of the pattern added to the breakout point. That is the smallest distance that the price is expected to travel. It may go further, or it may fail to reach the expected target. However, if you need some guidelines where to exit this could be one of those. Additionally, you can move your stop above clusters of hourly or daily candles (depending on the strength of reversal). 

US dollar index example

US dollar index has been in a clear uptrend for a prolonged period of time. On the 22^nd of May it may a strong rally upwards and on the 23^rd of May it fell sharply. So we can say that the rally on the 22^nd of May formed the first peak (resistance) in the pattern at 10 876 level. The fall formed the first point of support at 10 766. 

It then made an attempt to come back to the peak and break it, but the attempts were futile and after failing to make new highs US dollar collapsed to previous support (just a little lower). It then consolidated for a few days. Then the security broke down again jumped back to test previous support, which is now resistance and failing to break that it collapsed. 

Watch the video to see for yourselves.

Ok, I will finish now. Be sure to read related articles to learn more on technical analysis. I promise to expand on this in my future posts. 

I hope you benefited from the post. If you liked the post I would also be happy if you gave a plus on Google+, tweeted, liked it on Facebook and other social platforms. Have a nice day. 

Vytas.

Related posts:

Double bottom chart pattern

Inverted head and shoulders pattern

Analyzing chart patterns: pennants

Analyzing technical patterns: flags

Wedge technical pattern

How to do technical chart analysis

Six key elements of technical analysis

Triangle pattern

Head and shoulders pattern

If you want to see and experience what real investing in financial markets such as Forex, stocks and commodities is all about I recommend trying innovative social investment platform of Etoro. Initial deposits are as low as a few hundred bucks. The best dealer I have heard of so far!

http://www.etoro.com/A41516_TClick.aspx 

Disclaimer

Trading financial markets carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. All information on the blog http://trend0.blogspot.com/ is of educational nature and cannot be considered as advice, recommendation or signals to trade in any financial markets.

Double bottom chart pattern

Today we continue analyzing various chart patterns and double bottom technical pattern is the topic of the post. You can find this structure on various time frames and it is pretty go indication that a trend is about to change. So, this particular pattern indicates a reversal. You probably remember that we either have continuation or reversal patterns. This is a bullish reversal pattern. It means that the bears will probably lose their fight soon and bulls will start reigning in a particular security double bottom is formed. Let us look at some necessary conditions that have to be that we might state that the picture we see is a valid double bottom pattern. 

Key components in double bottom pattern

As it is a reversal pattern the first thing that there has to be is a previous downtrend. The security had to go down for some time in order for the pattern we are discussing to be formed. Depending on the structure the downtrend could have been from a few days (weeks, months) to a year and more. 

There has to be the first sharp fall that marks the first spot in the bottom. It is known as the lowest point in the ongoing downtrend. At this point we cannot say whether the tendency has changed or not as there still isn�t any indication of a reversal and increase in demand.

The first rally! Reaching the first bottom the price of the security rallies upwards. It indicates that smart money assumes it is good time to accumulate the security and so buying ensues. After some time (hours, days or even weeks) the first top (or important resistance) is formed. 

Back to the bottom! At some point inertia of the bears kicks in and they continue selling assuming that the downtrend is not over. So, the price of the security collapses to the first spot of support (bottom) and this time the spot becomes the second spot of a double bottom pattern. 

The second rally! After hitting the first support (bottom) the security starts rallying, which indicates that there really is serious demand for the security at current prices. In most cases the prices will reach the first spot in resistance. In most cases the price after hitting the resistance will retrace a little. 

Break of the resistance. The two points of resistance that were made as the security rallied after reaching the bottom is finally broken. That is the point where the double bottom pattern becomes a valid one. 

Support becomes resistance. That is a classical rule of technical analysis. It is not a necessity, but a security sometimes comes back to test previous resistance (that is now support) and if the break was not fake the support will hold. 

Traditional target for the exit of your long trade is the distance from the break point to the lowest point of the pattern added to the breakout point. That is the smallest distance that the price is expected to travel. It may go further, or it may fail to reach the expected target. However, if you need some guidelines where to exit this could be one of those. Additionally, you can move your stop below clusters of hourly or daily candles (depending on the strength of reversal). 

Time frames

As I said, you can find the pattern on all time frames. The longer the time frames the more valid it becomes. There have been a few of those patterns (on smaller time frames) in various currencies. Let us look an example that happened on a small time frame.

gbp/usd example

After a prolonged move upwards gbp/usd pair started collapsing on the 9^th of May (2013). The downward move continued for about two weeks till the sharp move down ended on the 23^rd of May (2013) with a strong rally upwards. The rally continued for four days and formed the first peak or resistance on the 27^th of May at 1.5156 level.  

The pair then retraced to its� previous bottom and failed to break it. On the 29^th of May the second point in the double bottom pattern was formed. On the same day it rallied to previous resistance and formed second high (resistance) at 1.5145. It then retraced and consolidated for a few sessions before breaking the resistance and rallying to 1.5240 on the next day. One had to place a buy stop above the resistance (1.5156) with a stop loss below the bounce after second rally�s high (at 1.5098) and take profit order around 1.5300 level. 

According to our rules the exit target should be around 1.5300 level, so it has not been reached yet. The pair came to visit previous resistance (now support) and support held. The pair bounced from 1.5140 level.

This week will show whether gbp/usd will reach our target or not. Looking at technical price action we can see clear demand coming at previous resistance. So, let us be patient and wait for confirmations during European session whether we could add to our position or let the pair go down. 

Conclusion

Double bottom pattern is a bullish reversal pattern that can be found on various time frames. The pattern can be found in various securities regularly. One should wait for a break of resistance to enter market with buy orders. 

Ok, I will finish now. Be sure to read related articles to learn more on technical analysis. I promise to expand on this in my future posts. 

I hope you benefited from the post. If you liked the post I would also be happy if you gave a plus on Google+, tweeted, liked it on Facebook and other social platforms. Have a nice day. 

Vytas.

Related posts:

Inverted head and shoulders pattern

Analyzing chart patterns: pennants

Analyzing technical patterns: flags

Wedge technical pattern

How to do technical chart analysis

Six key elements of technical analysis

Triangle pattern

Head and shoulders pattern

If you want to see and experience what real investing in financial markets such as Forex, stocks and commodities is all about I recommend trying innovative social investment platform of Etoro. Initial deposits are as low as a few hundred bucks. The best dealer I have heard of so far!

http://www.etoro.com/A41516_TClick.aspx 

Disclaimer

Trading financial markets carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. All information on the blog http://trend0.blogspot.com/ is of educational nature and cannot be considered as advice, recommendation or signals to trade in any financial markets.

Analyzing chart patterns: inverted head and shoulders

Hi, I am happy to continue writing on my series of chart patterns. Last time we analyzed bullish and bearish pennants that are continuation patterns and today I want to expand on one specific reversal pattern. I covered head and shoulders pattern a few years ago and today I want to discuss its� twin: inverted head and shoulders pattern. It is often formed after a security has been in a prolonged downtrend. The pattern indicates that the downtrend is most probably over and we are going to see higher prices soon. It is a very powerful pattern as prices often start trending for a prolonged period of time when the pattern is eventually broken upwards. 

The pattern consists of three lows: left shoulder, head and right shoulder. The structure is joined by a neckline that constitutes resistance. 

How is inverted head and shoulders pattern formed?

Firstly, there has to be a downtrend in order for the pattern to be formed. After a prolonged collapse prices start to go (sort of) parabolic and at some point suddenly shoot up. At this point (usually) the left shoulder and the point for a neckline are formed. Then the previous downtrend resumes and prices go below previous low (the left shoulder). Then the security rises again, but fails to go beyond previous resistance. It falls back again, but this time lower low is not achieved. At this point the right shoulder is usually formed. All the other attempts to go lower fail and the security starts going upwards bit by bit till it reaches the highs of previous rally after the left shoulder was formed. It my bounce off the level or break it (the neckline). When a break upwards occurs new uptrend usually starts. If the break does not occur and prices go below the right shoulder the pattern is distorted and you may justly call it a failure. 

False breakouts

False breakouts are a repetitive thing in financial markets and prices often come back to the range. However, you should have specific entry rules and you either you risk and jump on the trade or you stand aside and continue waiting when the breakout occurs. In the latter situation you will be sure that it was the true head and shoulders pattern after the move up have gone so far that it is no longer useful for you to join it. So, you go long after the neckline (resistance) is broken.

Various time frames

If you read classical technical analysis you will be told that these type of patterns last from six months to a few years. However, you can find both �head and shoulders� and �inverted head and shoulders� patterns on various time frames. These patterns might be formed on hourly charts and the patterns can stretch a few days� or a few weeks. And you can successfully trade both long and short term patterns. At least my experience confirms the fact. 

How to trade the pattern

The best way to trade the pattern is to buy the break of the necklace. The chart above shows you how you could enter the market with long orders. The necklace (or resistance) was at 80.67 point. That�s the place to enter your first package of orders (if you are a serious trend trader). The ideal place for a stop loss order was below the low of the breakout day. In our case it was 80.12 level. So, you could place your stop at 80.07 (five pips below the lowest point of the day). How could you have exited the market? There are plenty of ways to do that. Much depends on the size of your position, number of orders and the state of the market. I like moving my stop as the market makes new highs by placing the stops below clusters of daily candles. These spots are marked with blue rectangles on the chart above. Finally, market stops going upwards and starts going sideways. This is one of the signs that the tendency is about to end. Eventually, your stop loss is hit and you are out of the market with nice profits. What a nice way to trade the pattern!

Ok, I will finish now. Be sure to read related articles to learn more on technical analysis. I promise to expand on this in my future posts. 

I hope you benefited from the post. If you liked the post I would also be happy if you gave a plus on Google+, tweeted, liked it on Facebook and other social platforms. Have a nice day. 

Vytas.

Related posts:

Analyzing chart patterns: pennants

Analyzing technical patterns: flags

Wedge technical pattern

How to do technical chart analysis

Six key elements of technical analysis

Triangle patterns

Head and shoulders pattern

If you want to see and experience what real investing in financial markets such as Forex, stocks and commodities is all about I recommend trying innovative social investment platform of Etoro. Initial deposits are as low as a few hundred bucks. The best dealer I have heard of so far!

http://www.etoro.com/A41516_TClick.aspx 

Disclaimer

Trading financial markets carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. All information on the blog http://trend0.blogspot.com/ is of educational nature and cannot be considered as advice, recommendation or signals to trade in any financial markets.