We often talk about getting the 30R trade in our Skype group but, needless to say, they don't come along too often.  Fortunately for us, the start of a new London session on the first day of the month presented the perfect opportunity.

This was a prime example of perfect timing to get in at the very start of Wave 1; there was also a bit of luck with the placement of the stop loss that was so nearly taken out.

I've made a very short video to explain why and where I entered and placed my SL, and how I managed the trade to the 30R objective - available for viewing in the  Trader Training course.

Indicators used, as always: eWavesHarmonics and the ABC123 add-on.
Timeframes referred: M15 and M1; after pre-session top-down analysis.

Simple stuff really that anyone can do. when the conditions are good.

Here are some good tips for traders who like trading the one-minute charts, myself very much included.  These tips have been gained from my own experiences over many years and discussions with successful traders in our Skype Trading Group.

1. Have a weekly target in mind, so you can accept that you might have a losing day. That target should, of course, be realistically achievable.  Sure, we’d like to make 100% a week (and that’s very possible, in theory) but if you’ve previously succeeded in less than 1% average weekly gains, you might want to start with just 2%. Trading is like picking your own strawberries (see this blog post) - you need to make enough but you don't need to take it all or be a pig.
2. Know when to stop: for gains or losses, in a session. If you’ve met/exceeded your daily max loss, you must accept that this session isn’t going to plan, so wait for the next one. When you’ve achieved your session/day target, you also stop: the chances are otherwise that you might lose … and then the demons take control in trying to recover the loss to only wipe out the day’s gain altogether.
3. Set your trading times: ideally no more than 3 hours per session. You need breaks between sessions, and you need regular breaks during the session.  As soon as you identify that bad decisions are being made/considered, walk away for a break and get some space.
4. Do higher timeframe reviews before each session; and check the M15/H1 during a session if you’re aware that an opportunity is coming. On a new month, you start with the monthly chart; a new week, the weekly; a new day, the daily.  The higher timeframes provide the roadmaps for M1 trading. This approach affords: predetermination of big setups; high probability price magnets and reversal zones; trading bias - long or short. If one timeframe looks a mess, switch to the higher to see if there’s a complex correction in progress, that will yield a nice return once completed. I don’t find the M5 or M30 chart to be particularly helpful, for M1 trading, but that’s a trader’s choice.
5. Focus on no more than two instruments that have the best spread/ADR ratio (see this blog post:).  You really shouldn’t need more than two instruments to find a nice trade for the session. They can fit comfortably side by side, on most traders’ screens. If one of the instruments appears to be more liquid than the other, for the early part of the session, put all your focus there - it’s a lot easier on the mind.
6. Stick to your documented rules or stop trading.  You do have your rules documented, don’t you?  And … you do remind yourself of your documented rules before the start of each session?
7. Listen to your mind verbalising your thoughts. Are they the sort of thoughts that will make for a successful session, or are they the thoughts of a mad out of control trader that will chew your account and previous well-earned gains? Whatever your thoughts, allow some time for listening to your breath, with focus on nothing else – mindfulness – set reminders if it helps.
8. Avoid all distractions when you’re examining a possible setup, before or as it happens.  Don’t be swayed by anything other than what price is telling you - ‘other’ covers a plethora of different things and people.
9. Be comfortable and totally relaxed.  If you’re hunched over the screen with excitement or nerves, you’ll need to readjust. If losing fills you with dread, or avarice is brewing, you’ll need readjust. A loss and a win are all part of the process of trading; neither outcome should affect your state of relaxation. If that’s not the case, then take a break. It’s often a good idea to allow time to pass after any trade that you’ve just closed, regardless of the outcome.
10. And finally – a good M1 trader isn’t just an M1 trader. We trade the instrument using all the information from the higher time frames down to the M1, with fundamentals (such as news releases) in mind, so we’re really trading the instrument as a whole but using the M1 charts to get the lowest pip/point risk to maximise our returns. If a higher timeframe, such as M15 or H1, looks confusing and lacks clear direction (as is often the case with flat corrections, for example) there is no harm in sitting out the session until the fog lifts.

It's been a while since I looked at BTC; a previous post about it was looking for a correction then more upside.  That correction has since gone way deeper than I thought it would but ... it's a correction nonetheless.

Now that the all-important TZ2 has been smashed, price is just about at the momentum gap formed way back in December 2020.   The thing about momentum gaps, that not a lot of traders pay attention to, is that they can act as considerable support, sometimes not allowing price to close it.   Sometimes, of course, price will close and then bounce; on other times price will slip straight through, particularly when there is a lot of momentum behind the approach.    Given the strength of the bulls when the gap was formed, I would anticipate a strong reaction from this level.  Worthy of note though: we have the ABC FE127 (using the ABC123 indi) inside the gap, to act as both a strong magnet and possible support.

Should price break through, we have Fib projection and retrace clusters (drawn with the eWavesHarmonics Fibo Clusters tool) to look out for; again, strong magnets and possible support.  I'm thinking this gap will be closed, going by the strength of the move down, but there will be a bounce coming, if not the start of a new move up, that should offer the bulls something to think about.

I'm looking to buy some more BTC for my Crypto portfolio (which has taking a bit of a kicking this year) but am hanging on just a little longer to see how price reacts to these levels.
​
There’s a module in the course about gaps if you’re interested. They play a very key part in my trading the lower times frames.  Ignore them at your peril..

​

I’ll keep this one as brief as possible, to share my thoughts from experiences (personally and from  coaching others) regarding trading frequency …
 
A good trade (one that is planned, with an R:R of 5+) will always present itself within: 

• X (a variable number that is derived from time, liquidity and prevailing price action) .
• Bars (on whatever is your chosen timeframe).

 
A bad trade (one without planning or pre-determined targets; or within risk tolerance) will always present itself every 1 bar: that is every new bar, completed or not, will offer a bad trade.
 
How do we determine X for good trades?  

• Is the prevailing price action: impulsive, corrective or in consolidation? Any seasoned trader will know which of those provide the best, and often most frequent, trading opportunities on the lower timeframes. When you have a good target price on the higher timeframe, there will be plenty of good trade opportunities on the lower timeframes.
• Are the main markets open for normal working day business (e.g. London and New York stock exchanges) ?
• Is there a big news event scheduled ; or has it just happened?

You get the idea ...

X is computed with due consideration to all the above. If you trade the one-minute chart, it seldom takes longer than half a session to find at least one good trade; often within the first 30 minutes of a session opening.  On the hourly timeframe, it will rarely be longer than a week; often much less.
 
Fear Of Missing Out, the discipline killer, encourages most of us traders, to pick the bad trades; thereby testing what we know to be right and what’s in our plans.

Evidently there is zero need for bad trades when you know there will always be a good trade within X bars; you just need to sit on your hands until it presents itself.
 
Less is usually more, when it comes to opening trades, moving stop losses and taking partial profits.

Can you wait for X bars to improve your success ratio and increase your trading returns?

Whilst I find today's events in Ukraine to be beyond words and terribly worrying, the consequent liquidity in the markets has been staggering, with countless opportunities for really nice trades.  We're seeing one minute bars cover the distance that we might have been lucky to see 15 minute bars cover in the past, so finding optimum entries that offer the lowest pip (or point) risk can be trickier than usual;   

We call these trades VLPR (very low pip risk) in the Skype Trading Group, or VVVVVLPR if it's extra tight.  It's a bit of an art of technical analysis to find them but we had three today, the above is just one example, and there were more to be had.  Without a doubt, these are the most fun to trade, not just because of the rewards but because of the patience required to wait until exactly the right minute to pull the trigger. - split-second timing is often required if you're using the Buy/Sell Market Order button of ATM, which just adds to the fun,

There aren't many indicators that can give you the precision entries like this - it really needs the "mark one human eyeball".  Obviously I use eWavesHarmonics and the ABC123 indicators - and they make trading a lot easier - but you still need to read the price action and see what happened around price levels to the left of the chart. It's all in the confluence and the more there is the better your chances.

Want to know how we do it? It's all covered in the Trader Training Course, that's still free for eWH and ATM users.

The ABC123 indi (that's been available on MT4 for some years now) is an extremely helpful add-on to eWavesHarmonics (eWH), especially good at identifying price targets and potential reversal zones, for corrective and impulsive moves, on any time frame (we use it all the time, with much success on M1). The on-the-fly Elliott Wave guidelines is also a great feature, for those who like Elliott Waves but don't have the main rules stored in their memory banks.. 

The ABC123 indi is now available for MT5 users who already have eWH. Get in touch if you'd like to purchase a copy.

There is often much debate about Fibonacci ratios and which should be used for trading purposes.  Try searching the web and you'll be lucky to find a definitive list from a site that is 100% accurate or doesn't have pop-ups and click-bait all over them.  I'm often having discussions with my trading friends about which are the correct numbers, so with all that in mind, thought it would be a good idea to create a page dedicated to the subject; that also provides a one-stop reference point without the pop-ups and click-baits and, most importantly, explains how these numbers are calculated.

Here's the link: ​https://www.for-exe.com/fibonacci-numbers.html

Ethereum USD is in an interesting spot at the moment - looking very much like an ABC back to the 4.  Thanks to Sergio, in our Skype Group, for pointing this one out on Friday,

The pink horizontal lines, to the right of the chart, are Fibonacci retracements clusters (using the Clusters tool that comes with eWavesHarmonics) going back to 2016 - they act as nice support zones.

I've used the ABC123 indicator, for the corrective move, along with the Fib Expansion and Fib Multiplier (a new addition that's in testing and showing remarkable results) to project the price-magnet clusters: the purple horizontal lines.

BTCUSD is in the bottom window - you can see how nicely correlated these instruments are and how BTC is also at support.

So we have ABC FE100 back to the 4, price is in the 'golden zone' of the up wave - the 50/62 - and it's at the demand zone:  several factors for confluence. Plus it looks like that's a possible small exhaustion gap to the cluster-cluster.

If ETH (or indeed the BTC) breaks current support, we can look to the FE127, right at the end of the 4 of the up-move, then the orange zones but, at least for now, this is looking like a nice discounted price to add some Ethereum to your portfolio.

To all my many trading friends around the world, whatever you celebrate at this time of year, I wish you and yours a very merry festive season.

As it's that time of year, something for free: I've improved the Wave Labels indi with a semi-automated function, to make the labelling of waves quicker and easier.  There's a very short YouTube video here that shows it in action.  Free to download from the eWavesHarmonics page , so help yourself if you fancy it. 

You probably know that I don't offer specials or promotions, as everything on the website is already free or incredibly inexpensive, but since we've had such a terrific year's trading, and it is the time of year for giving, I'd like to offer an extra free year for licence extension/renewals on ATM and eWH, when purchased between now and the end of 2021: two years for the price of one, that will be added to whenever your licence is due to expire, providing your licence is still active. Get in touch if it has expired and we'll see what can be done, with the festive season in mind.

As always, thank you very much for your support, kind words and success stories, throughout the year.  I hope 2022 and eWavesHarmonics. continue to bring you ever more success in your trading,

It's not often that I'll post examples of winning trades but it's not a rare thing to bank some big Rs on the one minute charts; there are plenty of opportunities for them on most days of the week.

Here's one example from yesterday morning, that was called in our Skype group before the London Open. It's my favourite kind of trade, not just because of the nice result but it was easy to manage and required just a one-bar stop loss. There were plenty more in the afternoon session as well - very liquid markets this past few weeks.

There is no special secret to these trades, nor do you need squiggly-line=based indicators, you just need to be aware of the following: -
1. (and always first) where might price be heading to? What are the strongest price magnets that will be pulling price?  Find as much confluence as you can before going to the next step.  If the magnets aren't obvious, then don't move on until you find them,  later in the session or the next session.
2. Where might price want to start that move? Look back to recent history where price previously found support or resistance; where the buyers or sellers previously found a reason to trade the big money.  Look for more confluence with fibs, session times, basic Elliott Wave theory, whatever else you like to use, etc.
3. Zoom in to find the best possible entry around your predetermined price levels and watch how the bars are formed: can you see in a one-minute bar whether the bears or bulls are dominant? If it's not clear during the bar formation, it should be when the bar is closed (after all, a price bar doesn't tell the full story until it is closed) but you'll often see clues in the ticks.
4. Get your stop loss and order ready and go.  I used a market order in the above and the ATM swing lines for my stop loss, then clicked the Buy MO button on the bar close.

It takes some practice, of course, but it really isn't complicated or particularly clever: just reading the price action and key levels, pure and simple.

If you want to learn more then all is explained in the Trader Training Course and discussed everyday in the Skype Group (restricted membership for those who have completed the Training Course)..  Keeping it stupidly simple.