Market Structure
Learning Price Action Through Observation
Learning Happens when you’re open and curious and making observations from what you see. From there, you must be mentally balanced to take action on your observations.
In this post, I focus on the price action that happens in the pivot portion of a swing cycle. If you make observations of this area you will see a certain kind of repeating behavior that can help you understand and design methods for trading swings. You will notice that the market likes to wash everybody out of their positions before pivoting to continue its swing.
I look at two ways this shows up in the price action of a pivot. The first is an engulfing bar that expands and swallows at least 3 of the previous bars. The second is a Gap Swap where a WRB Gap will make an effort in one direction just to be followed by another WRB GAP that reverses that effort and direction and shows that the balance of power has shifted.
This is just a small part of what makes up a swing but it factors into my overall methods and trade plan. You can make observations yourself on pivots and see what you can learn.
Shane
Median Lines and Finding The Right Path
When it comes to learning about markets and trading, finding the right path and committing to it is the hardest part. The right path has little to do with any technical analysis method. It has to do with structuring our mental framework so that we fundamentally change how we experience markets, trading, and loss.
In the video, I show some Median Line and Action/Reaction work but this work is useless by itself. No tool is good or bad, they are just tools we use to comprehend markets. The problem arises when the tools start using us and we think there is some kind of magic to them.
The essence of our strategy should be to structure our methods and mindset toward functionality. The journey we should commit to is one marked by fostering accountability and responsibility in all our actions. The swing trade Idea I show takes a method and structures it into function.
Shane
Defining Target for Risk Reward: Maybe you shouldn’t?
The trade plan is broken up into parts. We have an objective and consistent entry, stop, and exit plan. Here I will be talking about the exit plan and setting targets that will give you a particular risk/reward ratio. There are no absolutes when it comes to what risk/reward you should be aiming for, a lot has to do with how you handle risk and loss and your overall understanding of markets.
Defining the stop (risk) is relatively easy compared to defining the target (reward). Mostly you need a clean set of statistics on an objective method. This will give you an average distance that the swing will run in relation to your method. The reward part of the equation is a function of how far your stop is to your entry.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to trading. For many, it may be best not to set a target, but instead use something simple and objective like a moving average to exit the trade. This way, you get what the market gives you while incorporating consistency and objectivity into your exit plan. Keep it simple, objective, and consistent, and learn as you go. In the video, I make something up on the spot that may give you some ideas. I use a 20ema as a profit stop only after the price has made a new high. It’s simple, principle-based, and it’s objective.
No matter what your method, knowing where you are in the swing cycle will help in defining entry, stop, and target, and this will directly influence the risk/reward ratio.