Greetings to all my fellow currency traders.

[Pierre]

Greetings to all my fellow currency traders. (I hate the word forex traders)

Marc has asked me if I would be willing to help out with tips and advice for new and intermediate level forex traders. I've been trading currencies for the last 4 years and have been around the block a couple of times.

Have I made my 1st million as a trader? No, but I've lost a million as a trader. Shocked -don't be. I am here to help you not to fall in the same pitfalls and to help you cut your learning curve in half.

Marc is there for the technical stuff and I will tell you about my road as a currency trader. Recently I was coming second out of 1000 traders in the surefire challenge. Unfortunately I and many other entrants were disqualified due to a mix up over leverage rules. I was not a happy bunny at the time but it was good to see how my results were compared to other traders.

A lot of my recent success came about when I joined the forexmentorpro program & I changed to trading 4 hour & daily charts. I had spent years trading 15 minute charts with some success, but this change of direction has taken me to a different level.

You must remember at some point you’re going to have to figure out how it is that you want to trade. That means deciding on an approach that is suitable for YOU, and committing to it. Very few people actually do this. Those that do generally get very well rewarded for it.

So - life as a currency trader is not easy and let me tell you now, there is no holy grail but between Marc, myself and your comments on this blog, we can certainly try and help make the road a scenic one.

Regards

Pierre

World Cup Country.

[Gally]

Hi PIerre,

interested in the tweaks you've made to Marc's system. That week Marc quotes in another thread for instance, following Marc's advice might have seen you enter possibly twice as many trades. I know you use 50% fibs a lot, but anything else you might care to share?
Thanks

[RobPad]

Hi Pierre, you are so right, I have been aware through Marc of your successes with the 4hour chart, my biggest difficulty is the entry, could you let me know where your tweaks are and where you look for entry. Thanks for being apart of this with Marc.

cheers
Robert

[Pierre]

Morning Gally and Rob.
Hope you are both well.
Thank you for making me feel right at home with your questions!!
What do I do different from Marc you ask? Well not allot.
I use all the same indicators and EMA`S but with different settings. I have a different MACDEE but otherwise all are the same except I also use weekly pivot points on my 4 hour charts – however there is something that helped me allot.
If you are a new trader and look at all the candles on a 4 hour chart you might be overwhelmed. I like to have a playing field set out for the week. Being from the South we play rugby here – yes soccer is big but rugby is what we life for. So – I want to know where are the goals, try line, the halfway line, the side lines and the dead ball lines. I want to see it on my charts for the game ahead. I don’t want to change between my charts all the time – I want to stick to one chart per currency. Say my 4 hour charts.
So – this is what you do. If you are using a Meta Trader 4 platform take note off all Marc`s settings. Now open say a 4 hour Euro/Dollar chart – right click on it and go to templates – in template open the Bollinger Band template. I don’t like the grid on my charts so right click on the chart and then click on the grid icon; this will remove the grid from your chart - Now right click on the chart and go to properties. Here you can change the background and candle colours. If you prefer a white background like mine and Marc`s then this will be the settings from the top to bottom.
White – Black –Light Gray – Black – Black- Lime – Red-Blue-Lime Green-Red-Red.
Now you can attach all Marc`s indicators like EMA`S Macdee and others. Remember to save this new chart as a template to make it easy to attach to new charts.
So what do you see now on this chart that is so helpful? You will see some vertical lines on your 4 hour chart that indicates the start/end of each week. If I change to a 1 hour chart it will change to the start/end of each day and on a daily will give you the start/end of each month.
How will it help you? It gives shape to your playing field. I can now fib my weekly fibs on a 4 hour chart without having to jump chars!! I don’t have to do it on a weekly candle because I can see the high and low of last week. So – I stay on my preferred 4 hour chart. I can identify low and highs of each week that will give me support and resistance lines, I can tell you last week’s high or low by only looking at my 4 hour charts. Play around and you will see what I mean. I will change the way how you see your charts.
Regarding my pivot points. I have a weekly pivot point indicator in my indicator box that attached the pivots to my charts. I will ask Marc if he will be able to place it as an indicator on Forex Pro Mentor so that members can down load it if they want to use it.
My fibs are different from Marc`s. I deleted the 23.6 and 38.2 on my fibs. I ONLY WHANT TO TRADE WHEN PRICE IS AT MY WEEKLY 50% FIB OR ABOVE. For me any other place, price is in no man`s land. Some people say I trade only at market extremes – but that is where i whant to be – this is where the volume in the market will be. Yes a week or even two goes by without any trades and I get up tight but the main thing in forex is to stick to your trading plan. It’s also probably the hardest!!!
My trading plan uses 4 hour charts with weekly fibs and pivots – so I have to life with it and most definitely stick with it. If you trade from bigger time frames you have to take your time and wait.
So Rob, you asking me for where to look for entry points. I only start looking for entries when price gets to my 50% weekly Fib area on my 4 hour charts. Here I will look for candle patterns, Marc`s EMA`s, Bollinger band and the rest – o yes don’t forget Marc`s crystal ball areas.
I hope it will help you a bit!! Let me know what you think please.
Regards
Pierre.
PS: At school we always laugh at the boy who took typing as a subject, well I am certainly not laughing anymore!!

[Vyacheslav Kravchenko]

Very nice for to start the thread. I think we all together have to polish this system further - subdivide to entry, s/l, exit, temptation of exit and even hadging. I hate word forex too. I think we need to pay attention to start and finish of daily sessions. V Kravchenko

[RobPad]

Hi Pierre,
very informative and thanks, I have heard about the pivot from an other source but never really understood its significance until this week when the market closed below it. Will be following yours ad Marcs trading style closely.

many thanks again
Robert

[capsmart]

Hi Pierre
And thank you for sharing your ideas and setups. It looks logical I can say.
Could you tell us more about how you calculate/put your stop loss and profit targets?
Regards
Vassilis

[Pierre]

Morning Vyacheslav
I am glad you like the start of our new member’s area.
That’s why Marc started this new area so that we can play with ideas to see what other traders are doing, what works and what not. Saying that – there is nothing wrong with Marc`s M2 system. I prefer this system because it suits my daily life style.
Regarding the start and end of daily sessions. You are spot on with that. Thats where Marc`s M1 system comes in. Stuff usually happens when London opens for about 2/3 hours, then goes flat for a bit till the USA market opens goes flat again and then you will see a lot of movement just before London closes for the day. So yes there are volume patterns in the daily market but the golden questions are where to get in and where to get out.
You will be pleased to know that we are working on something that will help as all in future to become better traders but as all good things in life – it takes time.
Regards
Pierre

[zion]

Hi Pierre
Thanks for sharing and being forum administator. I look forward to the member's forum. So share ideas, based on Marc's trading methods. Personally, I have been more focused on Fibonacci, as its helped me when to enter and exit in a trade. I will posted my findings in the member section. At moment I still exploring with some methods.
Regards
Lawton

[Pierre]

Morning Vassilis
I notice that you are an old hand at trading if I look at your old comments on the blog.
Regarding my stops and profit take – well that is a tuff question. It depends on the trade I took and the reason why I took it.
With my vertical lines – the best start I will say is to look to the left. For the blond girls out there that are now looking to the left – sorry girls, get help. If you entered a trade and want to know where to place a stop always look to the left of your charts. With my vertical lines on my 4 hour charts I can easily see the previous week or weeks, for that matter, high`s and low`s. That will be the obvious start to look for a place to place your stop. That`s your previous support and resistance levels.
That’s one way. Then you can also look at Bollinger bands, important EMA`s and pivot points and Fib levels. The same as Marc does. You will place your stop on the other side of these areas. The indicators are supposed to make a barrier between your entry prices and stop price.
So – I will say this; always ask yourself when you want to take an entry – What can I place between my entry price and my stop? This will be like a never in a million year Bollinger band, a 34 or 55 EMA or a 200 EMA. Something needs to be between these two prices. I hope you understand what I am trying to say, for the new members – if you don’t understand – ask me again! If you trade with the trend you will always find something that will be between these two prices. That’s why it is always important to trade with the trend.
Profit taking is something ells. As you know I only trade 4 hour and daily charts. I wait for day after day for an entry so when I do get one – I don’t want to only take 20 pips.
Again – look to the left – are you with me girls? Look for the highs and lows of last week or the week before. I also use ½ way points – say I get an entry for a sell at a 50% weekly fib level on my 4 hour chart with stuff (ema`s, pivots, Bollinger bands) between this price and my stop price, I will have a look and see where is the ½ way price between the 50% an 0% (Marc`s 100%) Fib level. That will be my first profit taking area, second profit taking area will be the 0% Fib level. After that, it’s a bonus.
You can also use pivot points for exits or EMA`s on other time frames but I like to use my Fib levels. Then there is the Fib Expansion indicator – for that I will ask Marc to help me. For the newer members out there don’t worry if you don’t know what it is or how to use it. I will see if Marc can make us a video to place on the blog so that you can see how this one works.
So that is it in a nutshell – hope it will give you a better idea how my head works.
Regards
Pierre