Trading for visual price patterns is a bit like hunting for fish. Sometimes the small fish come close to the beach – and at other times, you need to go out a bit deeper into the waters to find bigger ones.
If you consider the whole ocean as your hunting ground, then you don’t really need to fear that you will not find any fish. You might be unaware of the fish right now, you know that they are out there for you to capitalize on. Once you understand that the ocean is your friend and is abundant, then the fear of missing out on potential opportunities fades away completely.
What if you were to view your Trading Universe as a vast ocean, also friendly and abundant? It’s nice to know that there are, and always will be, more than enough fish out there. You just need to go hunting and take action when the risk-to-reward is attractive enough.
Just as some fish are really easy to catch, you can get quick, small R winners out of many trades. At other times, fish are more difficult to hunt. But once you find them, they might provide you a big prey — meaning a big R multiple, even a double-digit result. You might do really well feeding on lots of small or medium-sized fish but once in a while, catching a big one is nice too.
Choose Your Hunting Ground
People who learn my three Forex trading systems keep their eyes open to all different sizes of fish. The big advantage of trading visual price patterns is that you can be very flexible with the timeframes. You get the small fish in the 5min or 15min timeframe while we can also find bigger ones on the 240min, Daily, or Weekly charts. Looking at a multitude of different timeframes determines the borders for our hunting territory in the ocean. We can choose how many currency pairs we want to trade. Some traders focus on the 30 most liquid pairs while others are open to a wider range of 50, 100, or even more FX pairs. Together, hunting across Multiple Timeframes and Currency Pairs opens up a vast ocean of Trade Universe opportunities.
You can think of the Trade Universe as a Matrix where every intersection offers a potential trade opportunity at any given time:
Trade Universe Matrix
Focus on Specific Price Patterns
The 3 systems I trade and teach use individual visual price patterns which represent different species of fish. The systems specialize on 3 species of juicy fish — which come in sizes from small to huge. Each species has its own particular personality, characteristics and behaviors. Once you get to know them really well, you can sense them from a far distance just as a shark can sniff prey from far away.
Because price patterns are fractal, focusing on a price pattern (or the fish species) makes much more sense than specializing on a timeframe or currency pair. Remember, scanning more timeframes and more currency pairs means you will be hunting a much bigger hunting territory and you will find many more opportunities. A shark has a big territory, too, so he can wander around far and wide looking for the juiciest prey. Isn’t that what we are looking for?
Every hunt, however, does not guarantee you a fish. Sharks understand this easily but traders often need to learn this lesson first. If you continue to evaluate, measure up, and hunt, then eventually, you will find your fish. The patterns are everywhere at any time — same as the fish in the ocean. Sometimes you might just see a few opportunities while a day later you find a big swarm.
The Hunting Process
Do you need to try and catch every fish? Do you need to trade every price move? No, not at all. As a trader you want to be really selective — as selective as the shark is on a hunt. Do you remember how a shark approaches his prey while seizing it up real close before he even thinks about starting an attack? This is the phase of trade evaluation during which you want to determine the quality of your trade pattern. As a clever hunter, you only want to put a measured amount of risk on the line when you have a really nice, high-quality pattern in front of your eyes. Only go after the juiciest fish — we call these No-Regret Trades. Everything else risks your money on a mediocre or poor bet. Sharks do not do this, so why should you?
If your hunt was successful and you have eaten a lot of fish already (i.e. you have reached your weekly R goal), then you can settle down and call it a day. On other days, you may not be in the right mood or you may have other things to do so just do not hunt on these days. You can rest knowing that there are always fish out there growing and reproducing every day in the big ocean. If you pay attention and keep your eyes open, then you trust to always get an opportunity out there to satisfy your needs.
When trading the markets, think, feel and act in the same way as a shark would do! To succeed in the market, I coach my trader students to become part of a “Group of Sharks” who feed on the fish. A group of like-minded traders like in my those who come together after my workshops can be such a group sharing experiences and knowledge. You can too if you make the decision to move up the path of Trader Development. Learning the 3 systems that I trade and teach at my upcoming Forex Trading Systems Workshop would be the first step in that direction.
I look forward to meeting you in person soon,
Gabriel Grammatidis
PS — Gabriel teaches the next Forex Trading Systems Workshop in March. To learn more about the Forex market, visit Gabriel’s Forex Playlist HERE.
See some recent Testimonials from some Masters’ Class Traders who are all sharks in their very special way: https://youtu.be/5z7F6au5Gjo
See Gabriel’s previous article “Become the Hunter Yourself”:
https://www.intufx.com/become-the-hunter-yourself/