forex trading

How To Find The Best Forex Trading Strategies.

Rob Taylor

Apologies for not posting for a while, but i have been really busy with new students. As Christmas is nearly upon us and the markets are pretty quiet, i thought i would write a post about how to find the best Forex trading strategies.

Can you really find a great Forex trading strategy?

how to find the best forex trading strategyEvery Forex trader is looking for a great Forex trading strategy, but finding something that works consistently well, is very difficult for the average retail Forex trader. There are 100’s of strategies you can use to trade Forex, most will fail miserably, but with strict money management, you may find a few that you could make some money with.

The problem with the majority of Forex trading strategies that are employed by retail traders, is that they are based on beliefs about the Forex market that are inaccurate. So a trading strategy based on those beliefs cannot be successful long term.

How do i trade?

I am a very matter of fact trader, and i trade a rules based method, based on a complete understanding of the market, and advanced price action trading. I enter and exit trades at key reversal points to maximize profitability, and to minimize losses. Forex trading as far as i am concerned is very black and white. I don’t waste my time trying to find strategies that work. You really don’t need to do that. All as you need to be a successful Forex trader, is a complete understanding of how the market works, and the ability to read the chart. I have that understanding and ability, and i trade very successfully based on knowledge, rather than weak retail trader strategies.

There are only really 2 ways to trade as far as i am concerned. The right way and the wrong way. On one side of the fence you have retail traders, or the 95% as i like to call them. And on the other side of the fence you have the professional Forex traders, or the 5%.

The 95% waste years trading and back testing 100s of trading strategies, strategies that are never going to work long term, as they are based around rules and beliefs that are inaccurate. The 5% know how to trade, so they spend all their time trading and making money. Now if you are reading this and thinking “this guy does not know what he is talking about, i have been testing this really good strategy for a few months now, it just needs a little bit of tweaking and it will work just fine”, you are more than likely in the 95%, and you need to forget about back testing, and start learning. What i do works, it has always worked, and it will always work. It does not need back testing.

Finding the missing piece in the Forex puzzle.

finding the missing piece to the Forex puzzleI remember when i first started trading, it was really hard. Nothing seemed to work well enough to make money consistently. Everything i tried was not quite cutting it. It was as if i was almost there, but i just needed the last piece of the puzzle to be consistently profitable.

Now if you are in the same situation right now, i am going to let you into a little secret. You will never find the last piece of the puzzle, because the puzzle was created without all the pieces, so no matter how hard you try, you will never find that missing piece.

Traders that join my training and mentoring program often say that they need my help to find the last piece of the puzzle. When i show them how the market really works, and how to be consistently profitable, they are completely blown away, and they quickly realize that the puzzle that they have been trying so hard to complete, can never be completed.

And the reason it can never be completed is because its based around beliefs about the market that are inaccurate. So how can you complete a puzzle if the pieces are wrong to start with? When i teach my students the full story, they can then embark on their journey to becoming a consistently profitable Forex trader.

So what are your options? The education and understanding that i give traders totally transforms their trading, so the best advice i can give you is to enroll on my Forex training course, but if you do not have the money to invest in that, then i suggest you forget about trying to find the best Forex trading strategy, and concentrate on studying charts.

All the information you need to be successful in trading is in the chart. Study the lower time frame charts like the 5 min and the 1 min and see how price moves. Its not going to be easy, and it could take you 1000s of hours of study, but i can honestly say that time you spend studying the smaller time frame charts, will be far more benefit to you than back testing weak Forex trading strategies.

If you enjoyed this article and you think it would benefit other traders, please like it on Facebook share it on Twitter, or bookmark it using the buttons below. Thanks for visiting my blog and have a great trading day.

How To Control Fear And Greed In Forex Trading.

Rob Taylor

Fear and greed are a Forex traders worst enemy. Knowing how to control fear and greed in Forex trading will help you to become a better trader.

The key to making money in the Forex markets is to trade logically without emotion, and if you can remove fear and greed from your trading and trade logically, you will make more money from your trading activities.

What is fear and greed?

Fear and greed are pretty simple concepts to understand, and they are intertwined in the majority of Forex traders psyche. Everyone gets into Forex trading to make money, that is the sole objective of trading, but the fact is the majority of Forex traders lose money in the markets. Not being able to control fear and greed will cause traders to trade emotionally and make irrational trading decisions, which will ultimately lose them money in the markets.

How to control fear in Forex trading.

There are many types of fear in Forex trading, but the fear of losing money is probably the biggest one. Depending on your personality type, some traders will be more prone to fear than others. If you are a trader that has a big fear of losing money you can mitigate that fear in 3 ways.

how to control fear in Forex trading1. Reduce your lot size. If you are trading with a lot size that you are not comfortable with your fear is greater, and your chances of making an emotional irrational decision are greater if you are trading this way.

2. Set a stop loss on every trade. Knowing how much you are prepared to lose on every trade will help you overcome fear. No one wants to lose money in the markets, but if you know your potential loss in advance, and you are comfortable with that, you will not be trading emotionally and making irrational decisions.

3. Understand the market. This is the biggest fear of all in my opinion. And the hardest one to overcome. Lack of market knowledge is the major reason why traders fail, and is the difference between the 5 and the 95%. Many traders think they understand what they are doing, but the truth is they don’t. You have to fully understand what is going on in the Forex market to become a successful Forex trader, and this understanding will greatly reduce your fear.

Fear of the unknown is the hardest fear to overcome. If you think about other types of fear you may have experienced in the past, this will give you an idea of how important knowledge is, in overcoming fear.

Many people may have had a fear of exams at school, because they wanted to do well, but they did not fully understand the subject.

Some people may have had a fear of driving a car, because of a lack of understanding, but now they drive successfully every day.

When you started your first job you may have had a fear of going to work, because you were not familiar with the roles expected of you, but now you go to work every day without fear.

Can you see a pattern here? The pattern is knowledge. Knowledge lessens the fear of all these fearful situations, and Forex trading is exactly the same. Having the knowledge needed to enable you to trade with confidence, will take away the majority of your fear.

How to control greed in Forex trading.

As we have established greed can also play a big part in the success or failure of a Forex trader. There are various types of greed that will attribute to your failure as a trader, but the main one is trying to make money on every market move. Trying to make money from every move in the market will cause you to chase after market moves, and over trade, and if you are chasing the market and over trading you are trading emotionally, and you will lose money. Here are a few tips you can use to help you overcome greed.

how to control greed in Forex trading1. Make pips not money. Its not how much money you make, its how many pips you make that counts. If you are trading 50 lots per pip you can make £3000 per week from just 10 pips. So don’t get greedy and chase after the big money every week, just concentrate on making pips. When you are consistently making pips, week in week out, then you can increase your lot size to make the big money.

2. Be realistic with your expectations. You have to learn to accept that you cannot make money from every move in the market. You have to be satisfied with the pips you do make, and not get frustrated by the pips you miss out on. Getting frustrated by missing out on trades, will cause you to trade emotionally, and chase after those missed pips.

3. Learn to trade. Making money is a by product of trading successfully, but the majority of traders will try to make money first, and then learn to trade, after they have lost a lot of money. Which does not make a great deal of sense, but that’s what happens. The majority of traders that come to me for training and mentoring, have already lost a lot of money in the markets, before they decide to employ me to teach them how to trade.

Summary. Knowing how to control fear and greed in Forex trading will help you to become a better trader, but the biggest obstacle to overcoming fear and greed is a lack of knowledge. Knowledge will give you the understanding you need, to enable you to trade without fear and greed, and consistently make money from Forex trading. Not knowing how to trade correctly, and chasing after the big money, will cause you to trade emotionally, and ultimately lose you money. Trading is not easy, but understanding the market will help you to control your fear and greed, and make you a profitable trader.

If you enjoyed this article and you think it would benefit other traders, please like it on Facebook share it on Twitter, or bookmark it using the buttons below. Thanks for visiting my blog and have a great trading day.

How To Stop Losing Money In The Forex Market.

Rob Taylor

Why do Forex traders lose money? There are many reasons why Forex traders lose money, but in this article i will give you 10 top tips on how to stop losing money in the Forex market.

Knowledge is power.

The most important thing that you need to be a successful Forex trader is knowledge. Knowledge is everything in Forex trading. The more you know about the market the more successful you will become at trading.

There are many websites available online that will give you a certain degree of knowledge to enable you to trade Forex, but 95% of these websites are run by marketing companies, or failed traders, so the knowledge you get from these websites will enable you to trade, but they will not give you the understanding you need to enable you to make money from Forex trading every week.

Its a fact that 95% of Forex traders consistently lose money. And the main reason for this is they do not understand how the market really works, because they have never been educated by a professional Forex trader. I am a professional Forex trader and i can teach you how to trade Forex, and make consistent profits week in week out from trading, but my time is limited so i cannot teach you for free. For more information on my Forex training course please click on the link.

top 10 forex tips

If you do not have the funds available to pay me to teach you how to trade Forex, here are 10 top tips you can use to enable you to cut down on your losses.

1. Don’t trade with more money than you can afford to lose.

Putting pressure on yourself will cause you to make the wrong trading decisions, and trading with more money than you can afford to lose will add to that pressure.

2. Don’t over trade.

Over trading can lead to an emotional roller coaster. If you are taking too many trades you are trading emotionally. Trading should be as mechanical as possible. Emotional trading will lead to big losses.

3. Don’t be greedy.

If you have had a couple of nice trades and banked some pips enjoy them. Don’t think you are on a roll and chase after more pips. This often leads to more risk taking and you end up giving back the pips you made, and some.

4. Don’t revenge trade.

Getting back into a position straight after a losing trade is called revenge trading. When you trade this way you are trading purely on emotion, and you are chasing those lost pips. If you have a losing trade, just sit back and relax, and take some time out to re focus your mind.

5. Don’t over expose yourself to a losing position.

Chasing after a losing position is probably one of the worst things you can do in trading. Adding to a losing trade in the hope that the market will come back will cost you big time. Just admit that you got it wrong and close your trade, and move on.

6. Keep a record of all your trades.

Keeping a record of all your trades may give you some insight into your trading habits. Do you trade better in the morning, or in the evening? What is your average win loss ratio? How many trades are you taking per day? How long are you holding your trades for? Understanding your trading habits will enable you to become a better trader.

7. Trade with a lot size that you are comfortable with.

This is a mistake that a lot of traders can make that will dramatically effect their trading performance. If your lot size is too big, you are anxious when you trade, so you close trades too early, and you stop yourself out of trades too soon. If your lot size is too small the reverse happens. So you need to trade with a lot size that feels comfortable, but not too comfortable.

8. Devise a rules based trading method and have a reason for entering and exiting trades.

You have to have a method. You cannot blindly enter the market in the hope that you will get a winning trade. You have to trade based on a rules based method that has been tested over time and is proven to work.

9. Be patient and wait for the set ups.

When you have your rules based method in place, stick to it. Wait for qualified set ups before entering the market.

10. Don’t rely on indicators to give you trading signals.

The majority of Forex traders rely on indicators to give them trading signals. If trading was that easy everyone would be making fortunes from trading, but that’s not the reality is it. If you want to be successful in Forex trading you have to learn to read price action. Price is the most important thing in trading and it always will be. If you understand price action you will be a much more successful trader.

If you enjoyed this article and you think it would benefit other traders, please like it on Facebook share it on Twitter, or bookmark it using the buttons below. Thanks for visiting my blog and have a great trading day.

Can You Use Price Action Trading For Scalping The Forex Markets?

Rob Taylor

I am a great scalper, and price action trading can be a very successful way of scalping the Forex markets.

What is scalping the Forex markets?

For those of you that are not aware of what scalping is, its basically the process of entering and exiting trades very quickly for just a few pips profit. Scalping trades can last anything from a few seconds to a few minutes. Scalping can be a really effective way of making money from Forex trading very quickly, but it can also be a very high risk strategy if you do not know what you are doing.

Forex Scalping StrategyMany traders end up as scalpers, as they do not really understand the markets, so they try to jump in and out of trades quickly, and make a few pips on each trade. When you do not understand how to scalp effectively it becomes a very high risk Forex trading strategy, as scalpers tend to have much larger stop losses than other traders, some scalpers even trade without stop losses.

If a bad scalper enters the market at the wrong time, price can quickly move against them, and a series of half a dozen winning scalping trades, can be wiped out with one single losing trade.

How can price action trading be useful in scalping?

Price action trading is all about understanding price, and predicting with high probability what will happen next. To be a successful scalper you need to have a complete understanding of price action trading, this will enable you to enter and exit the markets with precision and take your pips effectively, rather than just jumping in and out, and hoping you make some pips. This type of reckless trading is very stressful and can be very costly, and should be avoided at all times. Trading should be relaxed and calm, and you should be entering the trade logically, and with a complete understanding of what price is likely to do.

Can you teach me how to be a successful scalper?

The short answer is yes. I teach advanced price action trading. What i can teach you is as close as you will get to a perfect trading strategy. That is a bold claim i know, but i am 100% confident in what i do, and my strategy if followed correctly will produce a 90% plus win rate, so if you want to be a scalper following my strategy will make you a great scalper, if that is what you want to do.

Teach Forex TradingWhen you have completed my Forex training course you can trade how you want to trade. So if you want to be a scalper, you can do that, if you want to be a swing trader, you can do that. Whatever trading style you have, or wish to have, you can apply it to what i teach.

I like to trade based on what the market is giving me. If there is an opportunity to make 50 pips i will take them, if the opportunity is there to only make 10 pips i will take them too. I trade logically, and i take what the market gives me, and to trade that way you need to have a complete understanding of advanced price action trading, which is what i teach.

So yes you can use price action trading for scalping the Forex markets, and in my opinion you do have to have that knowledge to be a successful scalper, but when you do have a complete understanding of price action Forex trading, why would you want to be a scalper and take 3 or 4 pips from a trade when you can take 50? 🙂

If you enjoyed this article please like it on Facebook share it on Twitter, or bookmark it using the buttons below. Thanks for visiting my blog and have a great trading day.

What Is The Best Time Frame To Trade When Forex Trading?

Rob Taylor

This is a question many new Forex traders ask, but the answer is not as simple as the question.

The best time frame to trade when Forex trading can be down to what each trader is comfortable with.

What Is The Best Time Frame To Trade When Forex TradingIf you know how to trade Forex correctly you can trade any time frame, from the 1 minute chart, up to the monthly chart. My preferred time frame is the 15 minute chart, but a lot of price action Forex traders like to trade the higher time frame charts, 4 hour and daily mainly, and 1 hour occasionally.

There are pros and cons to every time time frame. For example, your stops and your profit targets will be much bigger on the higher time frames, and the trades will take longer to set up. You can sometimes wait a few days for a set up on a 4 hour time frame, but the same set up on a 5 min chart will come around many times throughout the day. The smaller time frames are more profitable in my opinion, as you can take more trades, and your stops are much tighter.

How reliable are the set ups on the smaller time frame charts?

The price action strategies i teach work on any time frame chart, but a lot of Forex traders only trade the higher time frame charts, as they think that the set ups are less reliable on the smaller time frames. This is a myth, if you are trading advanced price action, the way i teach you to trade, you can trade on any time frame, and the set ups are just as reliable.

The only thing you have to be aware of when trading the smaller time frame charts, is high impact news. If you are trading 4 hour and daily charts, then a news announcement will be less of a problem to a trade on that time frame, but on a 1 minute, or a 5 minute trade, you will more than likely get stopped out by a news announcement.

So if you are trading the lower time frame charts, do not trade them when news is imminent. I have an economic calendar on the home page of the site, which shows the latest news announcements for each country, and their potential impact on Forex prices. If you bookmark the page you can come back throughout the day to check on what news is coming up.

Can your price action training course teach me how to trade the smaller time frame charts.

Yes if that is what you want to do. My Forex training course will teach you how to trade any currency pair, on any time frame, at any time of the day or night.

Any professional Forex trader worth his salt should be able to trade any time frame. If you are paying good money for Forex training then you should get what you pay for.

successful tradersAll my students agree that what i teach, is worth far more than what i am charging for it, but i have to be realistic with my pricing. I try to make my training course affordable to the majority of successful people, that wish to learn Forex trading.

I am not really interested in teaching my stuff to the world. I am just looking for a select group of traders that can all trade together, and help each other achieve their trading goals. Forex trading is not an easy job, but if you have a good support network around you, you will do very well indeed.

So if you are serious about learning to trade Forex, and you wish to be part of my group of successful traders, please give me a call or drop me an email. I currently have 2 spots available for my one to one training and mentoring program. When they are sold out i will not be taking on any new students until August or September 2013 at the earliest. My Forex training course is sold on a first come first served basis.

Can You Make Money Day Trading Forex?

Rob Taylor

Day Trading ForexCan you make money day trading Forex?

This is a question that has a very simple answer as far as i am concerned. And its a big fat YES.

There are many well respected Forex traders that say the Forex markets are too volatile, and its impossible to make money consistently from day trading Forex, and you should trade the higher time frames, daily, weekly, and monthly charts, if you want to be successful.

What a load of rubbish. If you are a good trader you can trade any time frame from the 1 minute chart right up to up to the monthly.

People that say you cannot make money day trading Forex, don’t know how to trade, its as simple as that.

My preferred time frame is the 15 minute chart, but i can trade the 5 minute and the 1 minute chart very successfully. I can also trade h1, h4, and daily. I can basically trade anything, and anyone that tells you its not possible to trade the smaller time frames is just a poor trader.

Day trading Forex is what i do. I am a professional Forex day trader and i make 1000s of pips every month day trading the 15 minute time frame. Why do i trade the 15 minute time frame? because that is the most profitable time frame to trade.

Trading daily and weekly time frames? You must be crazy.

When you are trading daily and weekly time frames you have to wait so long for a set up, and your stop loss is so big, its just not worth the hassle to be honest. I take 2 to 3 high probability trades every day. I make my money, and i get on with my life. I am not going to wait for 2 weeks for a set up on the larger time frame chart, and have a 100 pip stop. Whats the point? If you are a great Forex trader, you should be able to trade any time frame.

Yes, but trading the smaller time frames is too stressful? Rubbish.

Take The Stress Out Of Day Trading ForexSome traders say trading the smaller time frames is too stressful. Yes it is if you do not know what you are doing, and you get into a trade and it goes 30 pips in the red. Yes i agree, that is very stressful, that is why my entries are very cleverly worked out in advance, and i enter the market with precision, so my trades go into profit very quickly, which takes the stress out of trading. A lot of my trades are over in less than 30 minutes. I get in, i take my pips, and i get out. That’s not stressful, that’s just great trading.

So yes you can make money day trading Forex, and anyone that tells you otherwise, just doesn’t know how to trade. For more information on how you can learn to day trade Forex, please consider my Forex trading course.

Stop Press. One of my students made 87 pips today off 2 trades, after just 5 weeks of training with me. Stop wasting your time with the 95%, and get into the 5%. Supercharge your trading, and change your life. 🙂

How To Trade Pin Bars Or Hammer Candles.

Rob Taylor

How to trade pin bars or hammer candles as they are also called. Pin bars or hammers can be traded successfully on any time frame, but they tend to be more reliable on higher time frame charts, such as 4 hour and daily charts. Pin bar reversal candles are great price action set ups when traded correctly.

I personally don’t take trades based solely on pin bars or hammer candles, as my trading style is based on other factors, but lots of traders do trade them, and they do make up a large part of price action Forex trading.

I do however take notice of when pin bar set ups present themselves, as it gives me extra confirmation that i am in the correct trade, and it also helps me define a logical exit for my trades.

How to trade pin bars or hammer candles.

pin bar breakout trade

There are 2 possible entries when trading pin bars or hammer set ups. You can take a breakout entry trade, or you can take a retrace entry trade.

The chart on the right shows how to trade a pin bar breakout entry trade. You enter the trade on the breakout of the low, or the nose as its sometimes called.

The low (nose) is marked by the line, and as soon as the low is broken you will enter the trade short.

pin bar retrace tradeNow lets look at a how to take a retrace entry trade. A retrace entry trade is when you enter the trade on a retrace of the pin bar.

The most common retrace that Forex traders take is the 50% retrace.

If you measure the height of the pin bar, pin to pin, and divide it by 2 you will get your 50% retrace entry target.

You enter the trade short, when the price moves up 50% of the height of the pin bar, as shown by the chart on the right. The line marks the 50% retrace entry point.

Both of these trades show short set ups, but both can be applied to long set ups too. The candles are just inverted for a long set up.

It is important to know how to trade pin bars or hammer candles, as a lot of traders do trade them, and they do work very well if they present themselves at the correct point on the chart.

This is just basic price action trading. What i trade and teach is high probability price action trading. If you wish to learn this type of trading please consider my Forex training course.

If you found this article to be helpful to you, please like it on Facebook, share it on Twitter, or bookmark it using the social bookmarking buttons below. Thanks. 🙂

How To Make Money From Forex Trading.

Rob Taylor

how to make money from forex trading

How to make money from Forex trading.

That is a question that many new Forex traders ask. Now if you break the question down into 3 parts, the answer to the question is a lot easier than you think.

First lets look at the last part of the question. Forex trading. What is Forex trading? Answer. Forex Trading is the speculative trading of one currency against another.

Now lets look at the second part. Make money. To make money you have to invest money. If you invest 5 pounds and you get back 6 pounds, you have made money.

Now lets look at the first part of the question. How to. Now this is by far the most important part of the question, and it will give you the answer you are looking for. If you are asking “how to” do something, what exactly are you asking for? You are asking for knowledge. How to cross the road, how to bake a cake, how to drive a car. All of these skills require you to have the knowledge needed to complete the task.

So lets put all the parts of the question together. I am asking for knowledge, on how to get a return on my investment, in the speculative trading of one currency against another.

Now we know what we are actually asking, and what we are actually seeking, we can now ask the question again. How to make money from Forex trading. The answer to the question is knowledge. Knowledge of how the Forex market works, knowledge of currency pairs, knowledge of risk, knowledge of probability, knowledge of price action.

You have heard the saying knowledge is power right? Well knowledge when it comes to Forex trading is the ultimate power. Knowledge is a super power. Knowledge is success, knowledge is money, knowledge is freedom.

Knowledge is power.

If you want to be a successful Forex trader, and make money from Forex trading, you have to have knowledge. The more knowledge you have, the more successful you will be, the more money you will make, and the more freedom you will have to enjoy that money.

A lot of people tell me that they want to become professional Forex traders. They want to give up their current job, and they want Forex to be their new job. If this is you, ask yourself this question. If you saw an advert for a job as a Forex trader in the city of London would you apply for this job? The answer would probably be no. Why? because you don’t know how to trade. So if you do not have the knowledge and the required skill to get a job as a Forex trader in the city, what makes you think that you can give up your day job and become a full time Forex trader? Can you see the problem?

I am a professional Forex trader, and i can help you become a professional Forex trader, but its not going to happen overnight. To get to the stage where you can give up your job and become a full time Forex trader, you need to have the required knowledge and skill needed to enable you to apply for that job in the city.

Fore more information on how to make money from Forex trading please consider my Forex training course. I will give you all the training, knowledge, and skill needed, to enable you to give up your job, and become a professional Forex trader.

Forex Candlestick Patterns. How To Trade Outside Bars.

Rob Taylor

What is an outside bar?

how to trade outside barsAnother very common and successful candlestick pattern is an outside bar, or engulfing bar as they are sometimes called, because they engulf the previous candle. Knowing how to trade outside bars will put plenty of pips in your trading account. Outside bar candlestick patterns are far more reliable trading signals than inside bar patterns are. If you know how to trade inside bars then trading outside bars is very much the same.

The picture on the right shows a bearish outside bar candlestick pattern. Here you can see that the bearish red candle is completely outside the bullish green candle. The red candle completely engulfs it, hence the term engulfing bar.

Why are outside bars more reliable than inside bars?

Outside bars represent a total shift in sentiment (in this case from bullish to bearish). The bearish price action in the red candle is far greater than the bullish green candle, so we have had a total shift in sentiment from bullish to bearish. The red candle is twice the size of the green candle which indicates strong selling pressure.

If you compare the outside bar price action to the price action of an inside bar, where the candle is a lot smaller than the preceding mother candle, you can understand that a bigger candle means a bigger shift in sentiment, which equals a more reliable trade, and that is why outside bars are more reliable candlestick patterns than inside bars are.

How to trade outside bars.

The general rules on how to trade outside bars would be to enter the trade at the breakout of the red outside bar. Some traders prefer to see a retrace of the outside bar before taking the trade. The only problem with taking the trade on a retrace of the outside bar, is you may not get a breakout, you may get another inside bar instead, and then the trade becomes a lot less reliable.

My advice would be similar to the advice i gave on how to trade inside bars, which is wait for the breakout, and then look for the retrace, before entering.

For more information on how to trade outside bars please consider my Forex training course.

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Forex Candlestick Patterns. How To Trade Inside Bars.

Rob Taylor

How to trade inside bars.

Of the numerous price action Forex candlestick patterns that present themselves on a daily basis, inside bars are probably seen more often than any other pattern. Knowing how to trade inside bars will give you an edge in your Forex trading.

So what is an inside bar?

price action inside barsIts a pretty simple answer. An inside bar is a candle that forms inside another candle. If you look at the picture on the right you will see an example of a bullish inside bar. For a candle to qualify as an inside bar, it has to be inside the candle to its left, as per the picture. The red candle to the left of the green inside bar is commonly called the mother candle.

If the green candle was to the left of the mother candle it would not qualify as an inside bar. An inside bar has to be to the right of the mother candle. A mother candle that has an inside candle to its left is called an outside bar. An outside bar is a totally different candlestick pattern to an inside bar, and has a totally different meaning. You can find information here on how to trade outside bars.

So what does an inside bar signify?

An inside bar can mean one of 2 things primarily. In a trending market it can mean a reversal is likely, or it can mean a trend continuation is likely. The concept behind an inside bar is the market is showing indecision or consolidation after a big move. The red candle is a big move down and sentiment has changed from bearish to bullish. This could be a temporary change in sentiment, which would result in a trend continuation, or the start of an overall change in sentiment, which would lead to a reversal.

The candles preceding the inside bar are a good indication of whether a trend continuation or reversal is likely. Also the level at which the inside bar presents itself is also a good indication of what the likely outcome will be.

Trading guidelines for inside bars.

The general rule on how to trade inside bars would be to enter the trade at the breakout of the red mother candle. If you are trading the reversal, you would trade the breakout of the mother candle to the upside in this instance. If you were trading a trend continuation move, you would trade the breakout to the downside.

I don’t generally trade breakouts, but if i was trading this set up i would personally like to see a convincing breakout of the mother candle, and then a retest of the inside bar before i would take the trade. I like to enter my trades at the best possible price, and when you are trading breakouts you do often see a little retrace, or re test of the breakout area, before a continuation, and that is where i would like to get in, as you are getting a discount to the price paid by the breakout traders. This strategy does run the risk of missing the breakout though, as the price does not always come back for the re test.

For more information on how to trade inside bars please consider my price action Forex training course.

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