Trading Double Tops and Double Bottoms
No chart pattern is more common in trading than the double bottom or double top. In fact this pattern appears so often that it alone may serve as proof positive that price action is not as wildly random as many academics claim. Price charts simply express trader sentiment and double tops and double bottoms represent a re-testing of temporary extremes. If prices were truly random, why do they pause so frequently at just those points? To traders the answer is that many participants are making their stand at those clearly demarcated levels.

If these levels undergo and repel attacks, they instill even more confidence in the traders who've defended the barrier and, as such, are likely to generate strong profitable countermoves. Here we look at the difficult task of spotting the important double bottom and double tops, and we demonstrate how Bollinger Bands can help you set appropriate stops when you're trading these patterns.


React or Anticipate?
One great criticism of technical pattern trading is that setups always look obvious in hindsight but that executing them in real time is actually very difficult. Double tops and double bottoms are no exception. Though these patterns appear almost daily, successfully identifying and trading them is no easy task.

There are two approaches to this problem and both have their merits and drawbacks. In short, traders can either anticipate these formations or wait for confirmation and react to them. Which approach you chose is more a function of your personality than relative merit. Those who have a fader mentality - who love to fight the tape, sell into strength and buy weakness - will try to anticipate the pattern by stepping in front of the price move.



Reactive traders, who want to see confirmation of the pattern before entering, have the advantage of knowing that the pattern exists but there's a tradeoff: they must pay worse prices and suffer greater losses should the pattern fail.


What's Obvious Is Not Often Right
Most traders are inclined to place a stop right at the bottom of a double bottom or top of the double top. The conventional wisdom says that once the pattern is broken, the trader should get out. But conventional wisdom is often wrong.

Leaving the trade early may seem prudent and logical, but markets are rarely that straightforward. Many retail traders play double tops/bottoms, and, knowing this, dealers and institutional traders love to exploit the retail traders' behavior of exiting early, forcing the weak hands out of the trade before price changes direction. The net effect is a series of frustrating stops out of positions that often would have turned out to be successful trades.



What Are Stops For?
Most traders make the mistake of using stops for risk control. But risk control in trading should be achieved through proper position size, not stops. The general rule of thumb is never to risk more than 2% of capital per trade. For smaller traders, that can sometimes mean ridiculously small trades.

Fortunately in FX where many dealers allow flexible lot sizes, down to one unit per lot - the 2% rule of thumb is easily possible. Nevertheless, many traders insist on using tight stops on highly leveraged positions. In fact, it is quite common for a trader to generate 10 consecutive losing trades under such tight stop methods. So, we could say that in FX, instead of controlling risk, ineffective stops might even increase it. Their function, then, is to determine the highest probability for a point of failure. An effective stop poses little doubt to the trader over whether he or she is wrong.

Implementing the True Function of Stops
A technique using Bollinger Bands can help traders set those proper stops. Because Bollinger Bands incorporate volatility by using standard deviations in their calculations, they can accurately project price levels at which traders should abandon their trades.
The method for using Bollinger-Bands stops for double tops and double bottoms is quite simple:

1. Isolate the point of the first top or bottom, and overlay Bollinger Bands with four standard-deviation parameters.
2. Draw a line from the first top or bottom to the Bollinger Band. The point of intersection becomes your stop.

At first glance four standard deviations may seem like an extreme choice. After all, two standard deviations cover 95% of possible scenarios in a normal distribution of a dataset. However, all those who have traded financial markets know that price action is anything but normal - if it were, the type of crashes that happen in financial markets every five or 10 years would occur only once every 6,000 years. Classic statistical assumptions are not very useful for traders. Therefore setting a wider standard-deviation parameter is a must.
The four standard deviations cover more than 99% of all probabilities and therefore seem to offer a reasonable cut-off point. More importantly they work well in actual testing, providing stops that are not too tight, yet not so wide as to become prohibitively costly. Note how well they work on the following GBP/USD example.


More importantly, take a look at the next example. A true sign of a proper stop is a capacity to protect the trader from runaway losses. In the following chart, the trade is clearly wrong but is stopped out well before the one-way move causes major damage to the trader's account.

Conclusion
The genius of Bollinger Bands is their adaptability. By constantly incorporating volatility, they adjust quickly to the rhythm of the market. Using them to set proper stops when trading double bottoms and double tops - the most frequent price patterns in forex - makes those common trades much more effective.

--- by; Boris Schlossberg / director of currency research at GFT Forex. ----

Joe Ross has been trading and investing since his first trade at the age of 14, and is a well known Master Trader and Investor. He has survived all the up and downs of the markets because of his adaptable trading style, using a low-risk approach that produces consistent profits. Joe Ross is the creator of the Ross Hook ™ (Rh), and has set new standards for low-risk trading with his concepts of "The Law of Charts™" and the "Traders Trick Entry™" (TTE). Joe Ross has a few preferred trading signals, but we will present here the Ross Hook and the Traders Trick Entry.

Ross hook could be created on charts after:

1. First correction after a 1-2-3 pattern breakout;
2. First correction after a ledge pattern breakout (A ledge consists of a minimum of four price bars. It must have two matching lows and two matching highs. The matching highs must be separated by at least one price bar, and the matching lows must be separated by at least one price bar.);

First correction after a trading range breakout (A Trading Range is similar to a ledge, but must consist of more than ten price bars.).

The definitions are from "Law of Charts" by Joe Ross. This is very useful reading also.

During an uptrend when the market fails to make new high, a Ross Hook is formed. During a downtrend when the market fails to make new low, a Ross Hook is formed. Every directional price move reaches a point of exhaustion and needs new participants to continue. That is why the market takes its breath and at this point a Ross hook occurs. The Ross hook could be identified when the market is trending not when it is in a phase of consolidation. We skip the signal if the market opens with gap beyond the Ross Hook.

With the Traders Trick Entry TTE we try to open position before the other traders. We can make profits in trading only if we take other people's money. We have to learn how we can be one step ahead of the other market players. When Ross Hook, 1-2-3 pattern or other chart formation occurs most of the traders will place their orders at these levels. The Big boys know this very well and often target these order to make easy profits. They move the prices towards the nearest major level and activate the orders around only to reverse the price movement towards the stop losses. TTE is designed for such cases. When we see Ross hook and expect a test of this level we try to open a position early and make a nice profit if the break is successful with good risk/reward ratio. In most of the cases if the break of the Rh is false we can close our position with small profit



Long Position

1. The high of the last period is lower than the high of the previous Ross hook is formed;
2. The price retraces lower and the high of every period is lower than the previous one. The retracement should be 3-5 periods max;
3. We place a buy order above the high of the last period with stop loss below its low;
4. When the long position is opened we place limit order according to our money management rules. We suggest closing part of the position and move the stop loss to break even when the Rh level is reached.

Short Position

1. The low of the last period is higher than the low of the previous Ross hook is formed;
2. The price retraces higher and the low of every period is higher than the previous one. The retracement should be 3-5 periods max;
3. We place a sell order below the low of the last period with stop loss above its high;
4. When the short position is opened we place limit order according to our money management rules. We suggest closing part of the position and move the stop loss to break even when the Rh level is reached.

---- by : Svetlin Minev ------

Directional Movement Index and Parabolic SAR
DMI and Parabolic SAR are very efficient trend indicators and are used often by traders for developing of their strategies. These indicators could be used separately and in combination with other technical studies. The DMI system is plotted by three lines: ADX, +DI and -DI, and could be used for generating of signals or trend filter:

Rising ADX shows that the market has a clear direction and is in a trending mode;

Declining ADX shows that the trend is losing steam or the market is in consolidation phase;
When ADX is above 20-25, the market is in a clear trend.

DMI system generates the following signals:
Rules for long position

1. ADX is above 25 and rising;

2. The Parabolic SAR goes form below to above the chart of the price. The bar when this happens is marked as Signal bar.

3. Long position is initiated when the price breaks 2-3 pips above the high of the Signal bar.

4. After the position is open an initial stop loss order is placed 2-3 pips below the low of the signal bar.

5. A limit order is placed according our Money management rules.
Rules for short position

1. ADX is above 25 and rising;

2. The Parabolic SAR goes form above to below the chart of the price. The bar when this happens is marked as Signal bar..

3. Short position is initiated when the price breaks 2-3 pips below the low of the Signal bar.

4. After the position is open an initial stop loss order is placed 2-3 pips above the high signal bar.

5. A limit order is placed according to our Money management rules.

Indicator chart



----- by ; Svetlin Minev / M.Popov ------

Fx Indicator's ; Elliott Wave Oscillator, Juice and MA” -
the currency pair EURUSD (but you can choose any other, the selection of suitable values of stop-loss, profit and trailing stop),
a time-frame - M30 - MetaTrader4

Indicators Forex:
1) Exponential Moving Average EMA (200), applied to a close, the color blue.
2) Exponential Moving Average EMA (50), applied to a close, the color red.
3) Oscillator Elliott Wave Oscillator.
4) indicator of the level of Juice 0,0004.


Open a deal to BUY conclude with the following conditions:

1) Price is above the 2 moving averages EMA (200) and EMA (50), and the trend is upward, as indicated by the intersection of bullish Moving Averages (red above blue)

2) Oscillator Elliott Wave Oscillator crossed its zero line and closed above it.

3) Juice indicator is above its level of 0.0004.

Take-profit set to a value of 100 points from the entrance to the market.

Stop-loss - 20 points, trailing stop just 20 points.


Open a deal to SELL is when the following conditions:

1) Price is below the 2 moving average EMA (200) and EMA (50), while the trend is downward, as indicated by the intersection Moving Averages bearish (red below blue)

2) Oscillator Elliott Wave Oscillator crossed its zero line and closed below it.

3) Juice indicator is above its level of 0.0004.

Take-profit as set on the value of 100 points from the entrance to the market.

Stop-loss, respectively - 20 points, trailing stop - 20 points.

----- by ; ForexStrategies ----