Firstly, thanks for the overwhelming comments and feedback. Genuinely really appreciated. I am pleased 500+ of you find it useful.
If you didn't read the first post you can do so here: risk management part I. You'll need to do so in order to make sense of the topic.
As ever please comment/reply below with questions or feedback and I'll do my best to get back to you.
Part II

• Letting stops breathe
• When to change a stop
• Entering and exiting winning positions
• Risk:reward ratios
• Risk-adjusted returns

Letting stops breathe

We talked earlier about giving a position enough room to breathe so it is not stopped out in day-to-day noise.
Let’s consider the chart below and imagine you had a trailing stop. It would be super painful to miss out on the wider move just because you left a stop that was too tight.
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Imagine being long and stopped out on a meaningless retracement ... ouch!
One simple technique is simply to look at your chosen chart - let’s say daily bars. And then look at previous trends and use the measuring tool. Those generally look something like this and then you just click and drag to measure.
For example if we wanted to bet on a downtrend on the chart above we might look at the biggest retracement on the previous uptrend. That max drawdown was about 100 pips or just under 1%. So you’d want your stop to be able to withstand at least that.
If market conditions have changed - for example if CVIX has risen - and daily ranges are now higher you should incorporate that. If you know a big event is coming up you might think about that, too. The human brain is a remarkable tool and the power of the eye-ball method is not to be dismissed. This is how most discretionary traders do it.
There are also more analytical approaches.
Some look at the Average True Range (ATR). This attempts to capture the volatility of a pair, typically averaged over a number of sessions. It looks at three separate measures and takes the largest reading. Think of this as a moving average of how much a pair moves.
For example, below shows the daily move in EURUSD was around 60 pips before spiking to 140 pips in March. Conditions were clearly far more volatile in March. Accordingly, you would need to leave your stop further away in March and take a correspondingly smaller position size.
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ATR is available on pretty much all charting systems
Professional traders tend to use standard deviation as a measure of volatility instead of ATR. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Averages are useful but can be misleading when regimes switch (see above chart).
Once you have chosen a measure of volatility, stop distance can then be back-tested and optimised. For example does 2x ATR work best or 5x ATR for a given style and time horizon?
Discretionary traders may still eye-ball the ATR or standard deviation to get a feeling for how it has changed over time and what ‘normal’ feels like for a chosen study period - daily, weekly, monthly etc.
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Reasons to change a stop

As a general rule you should be disciplined and not change your stops. Remember - losers average losers. This is really hard at first and we’re going to look at that in more detail later.
There are some good reasons to modify stops but they are rare.
One reason is if another risk management process demands you stop trading and close positions. We’ll look at this later. In that case just close out your positions at market and take the loss/gains as they are.
Another is event risk. If you have some big upcoming data like Non Farm Payrolls that you know can move the market +/- 150 pips and you have no edge going into the release then many traders will take off or scale down their positions. They’ll go back into the positions when the data is out and the market has quietened down after fifteen minutes or so. This is a matter of some debate - many traders consider it a coin toss and argue you win some and lose some and it all averages out.
Trailing stops can also be used to ‘lock in’ profits. We looked at those before. As the trade moves in your favour (say up if you are long) the stop loss ratchets with it. This means you may well end up ‘stopping out’ at a profit - as per the below example.
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The mighty trailing stop loss order
It is perfectly reasonable to have your stop loss move in the direction of PNL. This is not exposing you to more risk than you originally were comfortable with. It is taking less and less risk as the trade moves in your favour. Trend-followers in particular love trailing stops.
One final question traders ask is what they should do if they get stopped out but still like the trade. Should they try the same trade again a day later for the same reasons? Nope. Look for a different trade rather than getting emotionally wed to the original idea.
Let’s say a particular stock looked cheap based on valuation metrics yesterday, you bought, it went down and you got stopped out. Well, it is going to look even better on those same metrics today. Maybe the market just doesn’t respect value at the moment and is driven by momentum. Wait it out.
Otherwise, why even have a stop in the first place?

Entering and exiting winning positions

Take profits are the opposite of stop losses. They are also resting orders, left with the broker, to automatically close your position if it reaches a certain price.
Imagine I’m long EURUSD at 1.1250. If it hits a previous high of 1.1400 (150 pips higher) I will leave a sell order to take profit and close the position.
The rookie mistake on take profits is to take profit too early. One should start from the assumption that you will win on no more than half of your trades. Therefore you will need to ensure that you win more on the ones that work than you lose on those that don’t.
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Sad to say but incredibly common: retail traders often take profits way too early
This is going to be the exact opposite of what your emotions want you to do. We are going to look at that in the Psychology of Trading chapter.
Remember: let winners run. Just like stops you need to know in advance the level where you will close out at a profit. Then let the trade happen. Don’t override yourself and let emotions force you to take a small profit. A classic mistake to avoid.
The trader puts on a trade and it almost stops out before rebounding. As soon as it is slightly in the money they spook and cut out, instead of letting it run to their original take profit. Do not do this.

Entering positions with limit orders

That covers exiting a position but how about getting into one?
Take profits can also be left speculatively to enter a position. Sometimes referred to as “bids” (buy orders) or “offers” (sell orders). Imagine the price is 1.1250 and the recent low is 1.1205.
You might wish to leave a bid around 1.2010 to enter a long position, if the market reaches that price. This way you don’t need to sit at the computer and wait.
Again, typically traders will use tech analysis to identify attractive levels. Again - other traders will cluster with your orders. Just like the stop loss we need to bake that in.
So this time if we know everyone is going to buy around the recent low of 1.1205 we might leave the take profit bit a little bit above there at 1.1210 to ensure it gets done. Sure it costs 5 more pips but how mad would you be if the low was 1.1207 and then it rallied a hundred points and you didn’t have the trade on?!
There are two more methods that traders often use for entering a position.
Scaling in is one such technique. Let’s imagine that you think we are in a long-term bulltrend for AUDUSD but experiencing a brief retracement. You want to take a total position of 500,000 AUD and don’t have a strong view on the current price action.
You might therefore leave a series of five bids of 100,000. As the price moves lower each one gets hit. The nice thing about scaling in is it reduces pressure on you to pick the perfect level. Of course the risk is that not all your orders get hit before the price moves higher and you have to trade at-market.
Pyramiding is the second technique. Pyramiding is for take profits what a trailing stop loss is to regular stops. It is especially common for momentum traders.
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Pyramiding into a position means buying more as it goes in your favour
Again let’s imagine we’re bullish AUDUSD and want to take a position of 500,000 AUD.
Here we add 100,000 when our first signal is reached. Then we add subsequent clips of 100,000 when the trade moves in our favour. We are waiting for confirmation that the move is correct.
Obviously this is quite nice as we humans love trading when it goes in our direction. However, the drawback is obvious: we haven’t had the full amount of risk on from the start of the trend.
You can see the attractions and drawbacks of both approaches. It is best to experiment and choose techniques that work for your own personal psychology as these will be the easiest for you to stick with and build a disciplined process around.

Risk:reward and win ratios

Be extremely skeptical of people who claim to win on 80% of trades. Most traders will win on roughly 50% of trades and lose on 50% of trades. This is why risk management is so important!
Once you start keeping a trading journal you’ll be able to see how the win/loss ratio looks for you. Until then, assume you’re typical and that every other trade will lose money.
If that is the case then you need to be sure you make more on the wins than you lose on the losses. You can see the effect of this below.
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A combination of win % and risk:reward ratio determine if you are profitable
A typical rule of thumb is that a ratio of 1:3 works well for most traders.
That is, if you are prepared to risk 100 pips on your stop you should be setting a take profit at a level that would return you 300 pips.
One needn’t be religious about these numbers - 11 pips and 28 pips would be perfectly fine - but they are a guideline.
Again - you should still use technical analysis to find meaningful chart levels for both the stop and take profit. Don’t just blindly take your stop distance and do 3x the pips on the other side as your take profit. Use the ratio to set approximate targets and then look for a relevant resistance or support level in that kind of region.

Risk-adjusted returns

Not all returns are equal. Suppose you are examining the track record of two traders. Now, both have produced a return of 14% over the year. Not bad!
The first trader, however, made hundreds of small bets throughout the year and his cumulative PNL looked like the left image below.
The second trader made just one bet — he sold CADJPY at the start of the year — and his PNL looked like the right image below with lots of large drawdowns and volatility.
Would you rather have the first trading record or the second?
If you were investing money and betting on who would do well next year which would you choose? Of course all sensible people would choose the first trader. Yet if you look only at returns one cannot distinguish between the two. Both are up 14% at that point in time. This is where the Sharpe ratio helps .
A high Sharpe ratio indicates that a portfolio has better risk-adjusted performance. One cannot sensibly compare returns without considering the risk taken to earn that return.
If I can earn 80% of the return of another investor at only 50% of the risk then a rational investor should simply leverage me at 2x and enjoy 160% of the return at the same level of risk.
This is very important in the context of Execution Advisor algorithms (EAs) that are popular in the retail community. You must evaluate historic performance by its risk-adjusted return — not just the nominal return. Incidentally look at the Sharpe ratio of ones that have been live for a year or more ...
Otherwise an EA developer could produce two EAs: the first simply buys at 1000:1 leverage on January 1st ; and the second sells in the same manner. At the end of the year, one of them will be discarded and the other will look incredible. Its risk-adjusted return, however, would be abysmal and the odds of repeated success are similarly poor.

Sharpe ratio

The Sharpe ratio works like this:

• It takes the average returns of your strategy;
• It deducts from these the risk-free rate of return i.e. the rate anyone could have got by investing in US government bonds with very little risk;
• It then divides this total return by its own volatility - the more smooth the return the higher and better the Sharpe, the more volatile the lower and worse the Sharpe.

For example, say the return last year was 15% with a volatility of 10% and US bonds are trading at 2%. That gives (15-2)/10 or a Sharpe ratio of 1.3. As a rule of thumb a Sharpe ratio of above 0.5 would be considered decent for a discretionary retail trader. Above 1 is excellent.
You don’t really need to know how to calculate Sharpe ratios. Good trading software will do this for you. It will either be available in the system by default or you can add a plug-in.

VAR

VAR is another useful measure to help with drawdowns. It stands for Value at Risk. Normally people will use 99% VAR (conservative) or 95% VAR (aggressive). Let’s say you’re long EURUSD and using 95% VAR. The system will look at the historic movement of EURUSD. It might spit out a number of -1.2%.
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A 5% VAR of -1.2% tells you you should expect to lose 1.2% on 5% of days, whilst 95% of days should be better than that
This means it is expected that on 5 days out of 100 (hence the 95%) the portfolio will lose 1.2% or more. This can help you manage your capital by taking appropriately sized positions. Typically you would look at VAR across your portfolio of trades rather than trade by trade.
Sharpe ratios and VAR don’t give you the whole picture, though. Legendary fund manager, Howard Marks of Oaktree, notes that, while tools like VAR and Sharpe ratios are helpful and absolutely necessary, the best investors will also overlay their own judgment.
Investors can calculate risk metrics like VaR and Sharpe ratios (we use them at Oaktree; they’re the best tools we have), but they shouldn’t put too much faith in them. The bottom line for me is that risk management should be the responsibility of every participant in the investment process, applying experience, judgment and knowledge of the underlying investments.Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital
What he’s saying is don’t misplace your common sense. Do use these tools as they are helpful. However, you cannot fully rely on them. Both assume a normal distribution of returns. Whereas in real life you get “black swans” - events that should supposedly happen only once every thousand years but which actually seem to happen fairly often.
These outlier events are often referred to as “tail risk”. Don’t make the mistake of saying “well, the model said…” - overlay what the model is telling you with your own common sense and good judgment.

Coming up in part III

Available here
Squeezes and other risks
Market positioning
Bet correlation
Crap trades, timeouts and monthly limits
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Disclaimer:This content is not investment advice and you should not place any reliance on it. The views expressed are the author's own and should not be attributed to any other person, including their employer.

Welcome to the third and final part of this chapter.
Thank you all for the 100s of comments and upvotes - maybe this post will take us above 1,000 for this topic!
Keep any feedback or questions coming in the replies below.
Before you read this note, please start with Part I and then Part II so it hangs together and makes sense.
Part III

• Squeezes and other risks
• Market positioning
• Bet correlation
• Crap trades, timeouts and monthly limits

Squeezes and other risks

We are going to cover three common risks that traders face: events; squeezes, asymmetric bets.

Events

Economic releases can cause large short-term volatility. The most famous is Non Farm Payrolls, which is the most widely watched measure of US employment levels and affects the price of many instruments.On an NFP announcement currencies like EURUSD might jump (or drop) 100 pips no problem.
This is fine and there are trading strategies that one may employ around this but the key thing is to be aware of these releases.You can find economic calendars all over the internet - including on this site - and you need only check if there are any major releases each day or week.
For example, if you are trading off some intraday chart and scalping a few pips here and there it would be highly sensible to go into a known data release flat as it is pure coin-toss and not the reason for your trading. It only takes five minutes each day to plan for the day ahead so do not get caught out by this. Many retail traders get stopped out on such events when price volatility is at its peak.

Squeezes

Short squeezes bring a lot of danger and perhaps some opportunity.
The story of VW and Porsche is the best short squeeze ever. Throughout these articles we've used FX examples wherever possible but in this one instance the concept (which is also highly relevant in FX) is best illustrated with an historical lesson from a different asset class.
A short squeeze is when a participant ends up in a short position they are forced to cover. Especially when the rest of the market knows that this participant can be bullied into stopping out at terrible levels, provided the market can briefly drive the price into their pain zone.
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There's a reason for the car, don't worry
Hedge funds had been shorting VW stock. However the amount of VW stock available to buy in the open market was actually quite limited. The local government owned a chunk and Porsche itself had bought and locked away around 30%. Neither of these would sell to the hedge-funds so a good amount of the stock was un-buyable at any price.
If you sell or short a stock you must be prepared to buy it back to go flat at some point.
To cut a long story short, Porsche bought a lot of call options on VW stock. These options gave them the right to purchase VW stock from banks at slightly above market price.
Eventually the banks who had sold these options realised there was no VW stock to go out and buy since the German government wouldn’t sell its allocation and Porsche wouldn’t either. If Porsche called in the options the banks were in trouble.
Porsche called in the options which forced the shorts to buy stock - at whatever price they could get it.
The price squeezed higher as those that were short got massively squeezed and stopped out. For one brief moment in 2008, VW was the world’s most valuable company. Shorts were burned hard.
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Incredible event
Porsche apparently made $11.5 billion on the trade. The BBC described Porsche as “a hedge fund with a carmaker attached.”
If this all seems exotic then know that the same thing happens in FX all the time. If everyone in the market is talking about a key level in EURUSD being 1.2050 then you can bet the market will try to push through 1.2050 just to take out any short stops at that level. Whether it then rallies higher or fails and trades back lower is a different matter entirely.
This brings us on to the matter of crowded trades. We will look at positioning in more detail in the next section. Crowded trades are dangerous for PNL. If everyone believes EURUSD is going down and has already sold EURUSD then you run the risk of a short squeeze.
For additional selling to take place you need a very good reason for people to add to their position whereas a move in the other direction could force mass buying to cover their shorts.
A trading mentor when I worked at the investment bank once advised me:
Always think about which move would cause the maximum people the maximum pain. That move is precisely what you should be watching out for at all times.

Asymmetric losses

Also known as picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. This risk has caught out many a retail trader. Sometimes it is referred to as a "negative skew" strategy.
Ideally what you are looking for is asymmetric risk trade set-ups: that is where the downside is clearly defined and smaller than the upside. What you want to avoid is the opposite.
A famous example of this going wrong was the Swiss National Bank de-peg in 2012.
The Swiss National Bank had said they would defend the price of EURCHF so that it did not go below 1.2. Many people believed it could never go below 1.2 due to this. Many retail traders therefore opted for a strategy that some describe as ‘picking up pennies in front of a steam-roller’.
They would would buy EURCHF above the peg level and hope for a tiny rally of several pips before selling them back and keep doing this repeatedly. Often they were highly leveraged at 100:1 so that they could amplify the profit of the tiny 5-10 pip rally.
Then this happened.
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Something that changed FX markets forever
The SNB suddenly did the unthinkable. They stopped defending the price. CHF jumped and so EURCHF (the number of CHF per 1 EUR) dropped to new lows very fast. Clearly, this trade had horrific risk : reward asymmetry: you risked 30% to make 0.05%.
Other strategies like naively selling options have the same result. You win a small amount of money each day and then spectacularly blow up at some point down the line.

Market positioning

We have talked about short squeezes. But how do you know what the market position is? And should you care?
Let’s start with the first. You should definitely care.
Let’s imagine the entire market is exceptionally long EURUSD and positioning reaches extreme levels. This makes EURUSD very vulnerable.
To keep the price going higher EURUSD needs to attract fresh buy orders. If everyone is already long and has no room to add, what can incentivise people to keep buying? The news flow might be good. They may believe EURUSD goes higher. But they have already bought and have their maximum position on.
On the flip side, if there’s an unexpected event and EURUSD gaps lower you will have the entire market trying to exit the position at the same time. Like a herd of cows running through a single doorway. Messy.
We are going to look at this in more detail in a later chapter, where we discuss ‘carry’ trades. For now this TRYJPY chart might provide some idea of what a rush to the exits of a crowded position looks like.
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A carry trade position clear-out in action
Knowing if the market is currently at extreme levels of long or short can therefore be helpful.
The CFTC makes available a weekly report, which details the overall positions of speculative traders “Non Commercial Traders” in some of the major futures products. This includes futures tied to deliverable FX pairs such as EURUSD as well as products such as gold. The report is called “CFTC Commitments of Traders” ("COT").
This is a great benchmark. It is far more representative of the overall market than the proprietary ones offered by retail brokers as it covers a far larger cross-section of the institutional market.
Generally market participants will not pay a lot of attention to commercial hedgers, which are also detailed in the report. This data is worth tracking but these folks are simply hedging real-world transactions rather than speculating so their activity is far less revealing and far more noisy.
You can find the data online for free and download it directly here.
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Raw format is kinda hard to work with
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However, many websites will chart this for you free of charge and you may find it more convenient to look at it that way. Just google “CFTC positioning charts”.
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But you can easily get visualisations
You can visually spot extreme positioning. It is extremely powerful.
Bear in mind the reports come out Friday afternoon US time and the report is a snapshot up to the prior Tuesday. That means it is a lagged report - by the time it is released it is a few days out of date. For longer term trades where you hold positions for weeks this is of course still pretty helpful information.
As well as the absolute level (is the speculative market net long or short) you can also use this to pick up on changes in positioning.
For example if bad news comes out how much does the net short increase? If good news comes out, the market may remain net short but how much did they buy back?
A lot of traders ask themselves “Does the market have this trade on?” The positioning data is a good method for answering this. It provides a good finger on the pulse of the wider market sentiment and activity.
For example you might say: “There was lots of noise about the good employment numbers in the US. However, there wasn’t actually a lot of position change on the back of it. Maybe everyone who wants to buy already has. What would happen now if bad news came out?”
In general traders will be wary of entering a crowded position because it will be hard to attract additional buyers or sellers and there could be an aggressive exit.
If you want to enter a trade that is showing extreme levels of positioning you must think carefully about this dynamic.
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Bet correlation

Retail traders often drastically underestimate how correlated their bets are.
Through bitter experience, I have learned that a mistake in position correlation is the root of some of the most serious problems in trading. If you have eight highly correlated positions, then you are really trading one position that is eight times as large.
Bruce Kovner of hedge fund, Caxton Associates
For example, if you are trading a bunch of pairs against the USD you will end up with a simply huge USD exposure. A single USD-trigger can ruin all your bets. Your ideal scenario — and it isn’t always possible — would be to have a highly diversified portfolio of bets that do not move in tandem.
Look at this chart. Inverted USD index (DXY) is green. AUDUSD is orange. EURUSD is blue.
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Chart from TradingView
So the whole thing is just one big USD trade! If you are long AUDUSD, long EURUSD, and short DXY you have three anti USD bets that are all likely to work or fail together.
The more diversified your portfolio of bets are, the more risk you can take on each.
There’s a really good video, explaining the benefits of diversification from Ray Dalio.
A systematic fund with access to an investable universe of 10,000 instruments has more opportunity to make a better risk-adjusted return than a trader who only focuses on three symbols. Diversification really is the closest thing to a free lunch in finance.
But let’s be pragmatic and realistic. Human retail traders don’t have capacity to run even one hundred bets at a time. More realistic would be an average of 2-3 trades on simultaneously. So what can be done?
For example:

• You might diversify across time horizons by having a mix of short-term and long-term trades.
• You might diversify across asset classes - trading some FX but also crypto and equities.
• You might diversify your trade generation approach so you are not relying on the same indicators or drivers on each trade.
• You might diversify your exposure to the market regime by having some trades that assume a trend will continue (momentum) and some that assume we will be range-bound (carry).

And so on. Basically you want to scan your portfolio of trades and make sure you are not putting all your eggs in one basket. If some trades underperform others will perform - assuming the bets are not correlated - and that way you can ensure your overall portfolio takes less risk per unit of return.
The key thing is to start thinking about a portfolio of bets and what each new trade offers to your existing portfolio of risk. Will it diversify or amplify a current exposure?

Crap trades, timeouts and monthly limits

One common mistake is to get bored and restless and put on crap trades. This just means trades in which you have low conviction.
It is perfectly fine not to trade. If you feel like you do not understand the market at a particular point, simply choose not to trade.
Flat is a position.
Do not waste your bullets on rubbish trades. Only enter a trade when you have carefully considered it from all angles and feel good about the risk. This will make it far easier to hold onto the trade if it moves against you at any point. You actually believe in it.
Equally, you need to set monthly limits. A standard limit might be a 10% account balance stop per month. At that point you close all your positions immediately and stop trading till next month.
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Be strict with yourself and walk away
Let’s assume you started the year with $100k and made 5% in January so enter Feb with $105k balance. Your stop is therefore 10% of $105k or $10.5k . If your account balance dips to $94.5k ($105k-$10.5k) then you stop yourself out and don’t resume trading till March the first.
Having monthly calendar breaks is nice for another reason. Say you made a load of money in January. You don’t want to start February feeling you are up 5% or it is too tempting to avoid trading all month and protect the existing win. Each month and each year should feel like a clean slate and an independent period.
Everyone has trading slumps. It is perfectly normal. It will definitely happen to you at some stage. The trick is to take a break and refocus. Conserve your capital by not trading a lot whilst you are on a losing streak. This period will be much harder for you emotionally and you’ll end up making suboptimal decisions. An enforced break will help you see the bigger picture.
Put in place a process before you start trading and then it’ll be easy to follow and will feel much less emotional. Remember: the market doesn’t care if you win or lose, it is nothing personal.
When your head has cooled and you feel calm you return the next month and begin the task of building back your account balance.

That's a wrap on risk management

Thanks for taking time to read this three-part chapter on risk management. I hope you enjoyed it. Do comment in the replies if you have any questions or feedback.
Remember: the most important part of trading is not making money. It is not losing money. Always start with that principle. I hope these three notes have provided some food for thought on how you might approach risk management and are of practical use to you when trading. Avoiding mistakes is not a sexy tagline but it is an effective and reliable way to improve results.
Next up I will be writing about an exciting topic I think many traders should look at rather differently: news trading. Please follow on here to receive notifications and the broad outline is below.
News Trading Part I

• Introduction
• Why use the economic calendar
• Reading the economic calendar
• Knowing what's priced in
• Surveys
• Interest rates
• First order thinking vs second order thinking

News Trading Part II

• Preparing for quantitative and qualitative releases
• Data surprise index
• Using recent events to predict future reactions
• Buy the rumour, sell the fact
• The mysterious 'position trim' effect
• Reversals
• Some key FX releases

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Disclaimer:This content is not investment advice and you should not place any reliance on it. The views expressed are the author's own and should not be attributed to any other person, including their employer.

4 Forex and Stocks Scalping Strategies Reddit

We take a look at scalping trading strategies, as well as some useful indicators.
https://preview.redd.it/rb33l4c42nw51.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c225b90045dcd566f5a85e09cf51d887a1b69ed7

What does scalping mean?

Scalping is a type of trading strategy designed to profit from small price changes since the benefits of these transactions are obtained quickly and once an operation has become profitable. All forms of trading require discipline, but because the number of trades is so large, and the profits from each trade are so small, a scalper must rigorously stick to their trading system, to avoid large losses that could eliminate dozens. successful operations.
The scalper traders: they will take small profits to take advantage of the gains as they appear. The goal is a successful trading strategy by means of a large number of profitable trades, rather than a few successful trades with large profits.
The scalping of the idea of a better risk exposure as the current time each operation is quite short, which reduces the risk of an adverse event that causes a big move. Furthermore, it is considered that smaller movements are easier to achieve than larger movements and that smaller movements are more frequent than larger ones.
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The best scalping strategies

1. Stochastic Oscillator Strategy
2. Moving average strategy
3. Parabolic SAR Indicator Strategy
4. RSI (Relative Strength Index) Strategy

Reddit Forex Scalping Strategies:

1- Scalping trading using the stochastic oscillator

Scalping can be achieved by using the stochastic oscillator. The term stochastic refers to the current price point relative to its range over a recent period of time. When comparing the price of a security with its recent range, a stochastic tries to provide potential changes. The scalping using said oscillator aims to capture the movements of a market trend, ie, one that moves up or down accordingly. Prices tend to close near the extremes of the recent range before a change occurs, as in the example seen below:
https://preview.redd.it/7wy3ixui2nw51.png?width=1397&format=png&auto=webp&s=91f50d685dd4841015c51322cee9fb90701aad33
the chart above, for Brent over a three minute period, we can see that the price rises even higher, and the lows in the stochastic (marked with arrows) provide entry points for long trades, when the black line of% K is crosses over with the red dotted line of% D. The operation is exited when the stochastic reaches the maximum value of its range, above 80, when a bearish convergence appears, when the line of% K crosses below with% D.
Rather, short positions would be used in a downtrend market, as in the example below. This time, instead of 'buying dips', we are 'selling raises'. Therefore, we will look for a bearish convergence in the direction of the trend, as highlighted below:
https://preview.redd.it/y3qqvejs2nw51.png?width=1398&format=png&auto=webp&s=627f3ded47e901c1f9ea97d5416caeea49b9dc3f

2- Scalping using the moving average

Another method is to use moving averages, usually with two relatively short-term and one longer-term to indicate the trend.
In the examples below, on a three-minute chart of the EUR / USD pair , we are using 5- and 20-period moving averages in the short term, and a further 200-period moving averages in the long term. In the first chart, the longer-term moving average is rising, so we expect the five-period moving average to cross above the 20-period moving average, and then we take positions in the direction of the trend. These are marked with an arrow.
https://preview.redd.it/22jquy1z2nw51.png?width=1499&format=png&auto=webp&s=ed4f724384b86f95dff584c596e25652f23f240d
In the second example, the long-term moving average is declining, so we look for short positions when the price crosses below the 5-period moving average, which has already crossed below the 20-period moving average.
https://preview.redd.it/0tl7mky23nw51.png?width=1496&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca7b44138901537185d9e0dbd639a799407ced08
It is important to remember that these trades are trending and that we are not trying to find and capture every move. As in any scalping strategy, it is essential to have good risk management with stops, which is vital to avoid large losses that could eliminate many small gains quickly.
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3- Scalping with the use of the parabolic SAR indicator

The Parabolic SAR is an indicator that highlights the direction in which the market is moving and also tries to provide entry and exit points. SAR is the acronym for ' stop and reversal ', which means stop and revocation. The indicator is a series of points placed above or below the price bars. One point below the price is bullish and one point above it is bearish.
A change in the position of the points suggests that there is going to be a change in trend. The chart below shows the DAX on a five minute chart; You can open short trades when the price moves below the SAR points and long when the price moves above them. As you can see, some trends are quite widespread and at other times a trader will encounter many trades that generate losses.
https://preview.redd.it/35uo837g3nw51.png?width=1498&format=png&auto=webp&s=f020a461c6ff1f8d49fab381da0713b1de75dbf7

4- Scalping using the RSI

Lastly, investors can use an RSI strategy to find entry points that go with the prevailing trend. In the first example, the price is rising steadily, with three higher overall moving averages.
Downs in the trend are to be bought, so when the RSI drops to 30 and then moves above this line, a possible entry point is created.
https://preview.redd.it/fkk1df2k3nw51.png?width=1499&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e9b4c7b1af0d0732793ddf5dc462aeaa7321dc9
Conversely, when the RSI moves to 70 and then begins to decline within the downtrend, an opportunity is created to 'sell the rally', as we have seen in the example below.
https://preview.redd.it/dlq4ge7p3nw51.png?width=1497&format=png&auto=webp&s=10eb4baf8bd92a4e0e33905464859b73871a6201
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What do you have to know before starting scalping strategies Reddit?

The scalping requires the trader has an iron discipline, but also very demanding as far as time is concerned. Although long-term times and smaller sizes allow investors to move away from their platforms, given that there are few possible entries and can be controlled remotely, scalping requires the investor's full attention.
Possible entry points can appear and disappear very quickly and therefore a trader must be very vigilant about his platform. For individuals who have a day job or other activities, scalping is not necessarily an ideal strategy. On the other hand, long-term operations with higher profit objectives are a more suitable option.
It is difficult to execute a successful scalping strategy. One of the main reasons is that many operations need to be performed over time. Some research in this regard usually shows that more frequent investors only lose money faster, and have a negative capital curve. Instead, most investors are more successful and reduce their time commitments to trading, and even reduce stress by using long-term strategies and avoiding scalping strategies.
The scalping requires quick responses to market movements and the ability to forgo an operation if the exact moment has passed. 'Chase' trades, along with a lack of stop-loss discipline, are the key reasons why scalpers are often unsuccessful. The idea of ​​only being in the market for a short period of time sounds appealing, but the chances of being stopped out on a sudden move with a quick correction are high.
Trading is an activity that rewards patience and discipline. Although those who are successful with scalping do demonstrate these qualities, they are a small number. Most investors do better with a long-term view, smaller position sizes, and a less frenetic pace of activity.
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Entry Level Testing

Follow results here.
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Starting Fee - $270
Starting Funding - $6,000
Live Account - Yes
Required Profit to Pass - $375
Duration - Minimum of 20 days. Maximum time of 6 months to hit profit target.
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Risk Restrictions

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Maximum Net Loss - $250
Maximum Risk in Stop Loss - 1.5%
Maximum Size of Position - 0.30 lots
Hold Overnight - Yes
Hold Over Weekend - Yes
News Trading Restrictions - News trading is not strictly prohibited.
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Notes

5%ers give you a live account from sign up. You can trade and begin to build up real earnings on day one. To qualify to be paid you need to pass the evaluation phase by hitting 6% ($375) profit. It takes at least 20 days to pass (Even if you hit target early) and you have up to 6 months to do it (So it can be passed with an average of 1% a month).
5%ers have a liberal approach to trader flexibility. The only hard and fast rule that needs to be followed is the maximum net loss. This is 4% of the starting balance (Making this far easier than high water mark systems). Traders can use some discretion on their money management to achieve this, but more aggressive trading will mean your profit targets to progress will increase.
Using conservative risk (Complying with the risk restrictions listed above) can lead to lower profit targets to progress (And account size doubles each time you hit a profit target, so this is a good thing).
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5%ers main form of communication with their traders is via email. You're expected to give an active email address that you will check regularly and to respond to any messages in a timely manner.
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Thoughts on Passing 5%ers Forex Funding Evaluation Stage

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For experienced traders passing the evaluation stage should be easy enough and something that can be done within 3 months (Or quicker, depending on strategy and market conditions). The fact the 4% drawdown limit is off the starting balance and not a trailing high water mark give a lot of leeway for a good trader if they can get a bit ahead.
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For somewhat experienced traders passing the evaluation stage is achievable if you can apply solid risk management and a strategy that has a winning edge. Having 6 months in which to complete it and the only stipulation if you can not lose $250 off the starting $6,000 mean as long as you keep lot sizing small you can stay alive long enough to hit the target.
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For new traders since trading in general is hard, you're going to find stipulated risk conditions very hard. There is a fair chance for newer traders to pass this (Given it's a lot target over 6 months) but there is a higher likelihood of not passing, meaning you lose your $270 evaluation fee. I do not know the stats, but I'd assume a lot of new traders do not pass. It's probably worth getting experience first.
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On boarding Process

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Getting started with 5%ers Forex funding was and smooth on boarding. I made my payment via PayPal of $270. I was sent a welcome email and details to log into a back office. My account was processing for a while, and then after 30 minutes to an hour I was sent MT4 login details to a funded account of $6,000 with a $250 loss limit. I could trade within 2 hours of signing up.
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Reward on Pass

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Get paid 50% of the profits made. Account is increased 400% to $24,000. Each 10% made the account will be doubled again up to a maximum of $1.25 million.
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Content from Welcome Email

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https://preview.redd.it/41m5zg1q7tu51.png?width=572&format=png&auto=webp&s=8cdb9709335e5f722590246d63effafc56961ce6
https://preview.redd.it/slh5rcfr7tu51.png?width=621&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1c94838cdfb7156156b8c6a83375014ed383cf3

My Results

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Follow results here.

See risk management plan here for 5%ers funded Forex trading.

Part IV - Entry Options
Hey everyone, you can find Part III of this series here: https://www.reddit.com/Forex/comments/h97sv7/part_iii_my_10_minutesday_trading_strategy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Welcome to Part IV where I will be discussing various entry options. I’ve said this before, but it is worth repeating here as well: identifying a technical setup is one thing. Making money off of that setup is a whole other thing. This is precisely why most signal services fail. While the quality of the signal provider is one thing to consider, the other thing to take into account is that it is very difficult to blindly trade like somebody else - even if they give you their exact entry and exit points.
This is why I really want to focus on figuring out how to make MY strategy work for YOU. I will share with you a few different options for entries based on the strategy’s prototypical setup. But it is 100% on you to figure out what suits your trading style, personality, and lifestyle the best.
Part V will cover exit options.
Part VI will cover risk allocation & management
Let’s get on with it.
Basic Notes On Entries:
We are assuming that all entries are referring to a setup that forms at 5pm EST. I am using 5pm EST because that is when the most trading opportunities have the potential of occurring based on this strategy. It is also when you will see the spreads widen out as the NY Session comes to a close. Therefore, you will not want to take a market order right at 5pm EST. Usually the spreads start narrowing again by 6pm EST.
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1. Market order
2. Limit order (we will use fibonacci retracements to figure out where to place our limit entry orders)
3. Stop order (we can set a stop order beyond the setup candle’s high/low. I personally do not recommend this particular method, but I am including it here because one trader that uses this strategy has had success with it and prefers it)

The big difference between the stop order and the other entry types is pretty simple. If you are using a stop order to get into the trade, you will not have as good a risk to reward ratio as a trader that used a limit order to get into the trade. The advantage to using a stop order is that there will be some trades where you do not enter the trade because price never went beyond the high/low point of the setup candle. This means you avoid taking a loss on those trades whereas a trader who used a limit or market order to get into the trade would take a loss. The other advantage is that there may be trade setups where the limit orders don’t get filled but the stop order will. I have NOT statistically tested stop orders vs the other order types. If you want to know what works best for you, it is on you to do the testing.
Okay let’s take a deeper look now into the different ways we can enter:
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1. Limit order: We will draw our fibonacci retracement levels over the setup candle (I have updated the Fibonacci levels I use in Part III. Replaced the old screenshot with the new one with up-to-date levels). We will then look to place our limit orders just below (IF a short trade setup) / above (IF a long trade setup) the 23.6% and 38.2% Retracement levels. When I say just below or above, I am referring to the spread amount at minimum. However more above/below you want to go is up to you and your testing. Sometimes your limit orders get filled rather quickly. Sometimes they take longer (hours longer). I cancel unfilled Retracement orders if price has run to a fiboancci extension level without filling me on the trade. The obvious benefit to limit orders is that you can set your orders and then simply walk away from the screens. IF the setup candle closes past its 23.6% Retracement level then you will only take ONE limit order off the 38.2%.

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1. Market order: Since we will not be taking a market order trade right at 5pm EST, this leaves us with options. Because a market order does not guarantee us a fill price, we do have some flexibility vs taking strict limit orders. The risk you run with using limit orders is that if your price is not met, you do not get filled. So for example, let’s say it is 6pm EST and the spreads begin to narrow once more and price just so happens to trade right around the 23.6% Fibonacci Retracement area. This is a great opportunity to simply take a market order and get into the trade. Let’s say, however, that price never retraced back into the setup candle and it looks like the trade may simply run to its profit target. What do you do? Well, you can still take a market order to get into the trade… OR you can wait to see if price will retrace back into the candle later on… OR you can write the trade off because price has already run to a fibonacci extension level. The bottom line is that if you have flexibility and you have options. **NOTE: On setups that occur outside the 5pm hour, you can obviously take market orders as soon as the setup bar closes without worrying about unusual spreads)**

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1. Stop order: Stop orders are similar to limit orders in that you can set the orders and then walk away from the screens. If you are using stop orders you will not split your order into several parts. You will simply take one order. You will set the stop order just beyond the high/low of the setup candle.

My preferred method of entry:
I like to combine the market and limit entry options myself. Again - assuming a 5pm EST setup here is what I do:
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• Set limit orders at 38.2 and 61.8% Retracement levels and walk away. If I get a notification that my 23.6% order got triggered, I don’t have to come back to my screens. If I don’t get a notification that my 23.6% order got triggered by 6pm EST, I’ll come back to the trade setup and execute a market order and then delete the 23.6% order. I leave the 38.2% limit order as is. Hopefully it triggers, but if it doesn’t then at least I have half my position on. IF it is a situation where the setup candle closes past its 23.6% Retracement then I will only take 1 order, whether it is the market or the limit.

Final Thoughts:
I hope this gives you some insight into how we look at taking entries on the setup. There is a lot of room for additional mix and matching. You could combine limit orders with a stop order for example. I encourage you to play around and experiment with different entry conditions and see what feels best for you.
Some Examples:
*NOTE ON THE EXAMPLES* I have done my best to pick very recent examples so you can go back to this months’ charts to find a lot of these setups
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https://preview.redd.it/sqj1haj3g4651.png?width=2820&format=png&auto=webp&s=39b1c99981856e85ab7c662926134994306c1938
https://preview.redd.it/5h1jacj3g4651.png?width=2820&format=png&auto=webp&s=2a7ddda53eca7b1f299d39ff67ff67f1739d8150
https://preview.redd.it/1h688uj3g4651.png?width=2820&format=png&auto=webp&s=d5f96ea18ec208329a18bca6f1b2da04d4eef8b5
https://preview.redd.it/vlhywuj3g4651.png?width=2820&format=png&auto=webp&s=58ae4911a1899f85e2e05f603f0f5856c4cc2c3f
https://preview.redd.it/h2wd4uj3g4651.png?width=2820&format=png&auto=webp&s=f332fe0cd5445d4170f4e6ac0d23351bbf08dae3

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https://preview.redd.it/n4g9y8aq1ai51.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b2236713450ad0a21b544e07c170067cad80f29
DeFi has a total market cap of $13.022 billion, according to Glassnode, it covers a wide range of sectors including currencies, loans, synthetic assets, instrument architecture (such as forex), exchanges, etc. However, there is a large gap in the derivatives area, such as options. Thus, Institutions such as FinNexus and Chainlink predict that decentralized options will be the next DeFi hotspot, which could be the lifesaver of the Bitcoin contract.
DeFi decentralized options address the crucial points of current decentralized options and the points about investor participation in traditional finance.

1. In essence, an option is a kind of contract that gives the option holder the right to buy or sell an asset at a fixed price on a specific period. The buyer of the option has only rights but no obligations, and the seller of the option has only obligations but no rights. The risk of the buyer is the loss of capital to gain the unlimited potential of profit. The risk of the seller is to earn the option premium under the unlimited potential of loss. The imbalance of such rights and obligations leads to the difference between the risk attributes of the buyer and the seller.
   
2. Even if there are professional institutional participants, as sellers, in order to control their own risks, they still need to rely on abundant risk hedging tools to hedge their potential risks. At the moment in the DeFi market, it is clear that the selection of these hedging instruments is very scarce.
   
3. Traditional options are matched by order books and need to rely on professional market makers, which, if carried out in the chain, will cause problems of low efficiency and high cost. Recently, the GAS fee on Ethereum has reached 300Gwei, and the high cost will greatly reduce the enthusiasm of users to participate.
   
4. Due to the liquidity, for the buyer, the option buyer cannot choose the option products as they expect, such as different underlying assets, different strike prices, or products with an expiration date.
   

In view of these problems, the decentralized liquidity options of DeFi arising subsequently. By establishing the liquidity option deposit pool as the counterparty of all users who purchase options. The premium and other agreements rewards are brought into the pool and share by the joining users, all the returns and risk of investment options will also be borne by the entire pool of users.
The potential of decentralized option flow pools is that it can freely create options with the underlying asset, which not only the digital currencies such as BTC but also the traditional financial assets. Compared with the centralized options, it eliminates the middleman and counterparty, has unlimited liquidity, and the ability to pledge mines.
With the popularity of DeFi decentralized options, the trading strategy of hedging with options and contracts will be used by more people to reduce the risk of being liquidation. After the option hedging, even if the contract is under liquidation, the profit is still far greater than the contract principal, thus, the profit can be maintained eventually.
Here is a detailed description of the hedging strategy of making money under contract liquidation.
For example, now the Bitcoin price is $10,000:
Open long 20X Bitcoin at $800;
Meanwhile, buy 2 put options contracts on BitOffer (the total budget is $60).
✅ The first situation: When the Bitcoin price increases by $200 (+2%):

1. Open long 20X Bitcoin: Earning 40% in profits, $320.
   
2. Lose the premium that you use to buy put options contract: -$60.
   
3. The net profit will be $320-$60= $260.
   

✅The second situation: When the Bitcoin price decreases by $200 (-2%):
1.Open long 20X Bitcoin: Losing 40%, $320.

1. The Put Options contracts You buy earn $400.
   
2. The net profit will be $400-$320–$60=$20.
   

This is only one of the strategies of the contract, there are many other strategies that I won’t show you here. To sum up, the hedging strategy could help us profitable no matter it’s ups or downs, even when the contract hit the liquidation.
However, it should be noted that the options that we’ve mentioned in this article specifically refer to the BTC options (American version) without margin, commission fee, and liquidation mechanism, which are issued globally by BitOffer Exchange. If you choose traditional European options such as from OKEX and JEX, you cannot carry out such contract hedging, and there is a liquidity risk as well.

﷽
The Federal Reserve and the United States government are pumping extreme amounts of money into the economy, already totaling over $484 billion. They are doing so because it already had a goal to inflate the United States Dollar (USD) so that the market can continue to all-time highs. It has always had this goal. They do not care how much inflation goes up by now as we are going into a depression with the potential to totally crash the US economy forever. They believe the only way to save the market from going to zero or negative values is to inflate it so much that it cannot possibly crash that low. Even if the market does not dip that low, inflation serves the interest of powerful people.
The impending crash of the stock market has ramifications for Bitcoin, as, though there is no direct ongoing-correlation between the two, major movements in traditional markets will necessarily affect Bitcoin. According to the Blockchain Center’s Cryptocurrency Correlation Tool, Bitcoin is not correlated with the stock market. However, when major market movements occur, they send ripples throughout the financial ecosystem which necessary affect even ordinarily uncorrelated assets.
Therefore, Bitcoin will reach X price on X date after crashing to a price of X by X date.

Stock Market Crash

The Federal Reserve has caused some serious consternation with their release of ridiculous amounts of money in an attempt to buoy the economy. At face value, it does not seem to have any rationale or logic behind it other than keeping the economy afloat long enough for individuals to profit financially and politically. However, there is an underlying basis to what is going on which is important to understand in order to profit financially.
All markets are functionally price probing systems. They constantly undergo a price-discovery process. In a fiat system, money is an illusory and a fundamentally synthetic instrument with no intrinsic value – similar to Bitcoin. The primary difference between Bitcoin is the underlying technology which provides a slew of benefits that fiat does not. Fiat, however, has an advantage in being able to have the support of powerful nation-states which can use their might to insure the currency’s prosperity.
Traditional stock markets are composed of indices (pl. of index). Indices are non-trading market instruments which are essentially summaries of business values which comprise them. They are continuously recalculated throughout a trading day, and sometimes reflected through tradable instruments such as Exchange Traded Funds or Futures. Indices are weighted by market capitalizations of various businesses.
Price theory essentially states that when a market fails to take out a new low in a given range, it will have an objective to take out the high. When a market fails to take out a new high, it has an objective to make a new low. This is why price-time charts go up and down, as it does this on a second-by-second, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, and even century-by-century basis. Therefore, market indices will always return to some type of bull market as, once a true low is formed, the market will have a price objective to take out a new high outside of its’ given range – which is an all-time high. Instruments can only functionally fall to zero, whereas they can grow infinitely.
So, why inflate the economy so much?
Deflation is disastrous for central banks and markets as it raises the possibility of producing an overall price objective of zero or negative values. Therefore, under a fractional reserve system with a fiat currency managed by a central bank – the goal of the central bank is to depreciate the currency. The dollar is manipulated constantly with the intention of depreciating its’ value.
Central banks have a goal of continued inflated fiat values. They tend to ordinarily contain it at less than ten percent (10%) per annum in order for the psyche of the general populace to slowly adjust price increases. As such, the markets are divorced from any other logic. Economic policy is the maintenance of human egos, not catering to fundamental analysis. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is well-known not to be a measure of actual growth or output. It is a measure of increase in dollars processed. Banks seek to produce raising numbers which make society feel like it is growing economically, making people optimistic. To do so, the currency is inflated, though inflation itself does not actually increase growth. When society is optimistic, it spends and engages in business – resulting in actual growth. It also encourages people to take on credit and debts, creating more fictional fiat.
Inflation is necessary for markets to continue to reach new heights, generating positive emotional responses from the populace, encouraging spending, encouraging debt intake, further inflating the currency, and increasing the sale of government bonds. The fiat system only survives by generating more imaginary money on a regular basis.
Bitcoin investors may profit from this by realizing that stock investors as a whole always stand to profit from the market so long as it is managed by a central bank and does not collapse entirely. If those elements are filled, it has an unending price objective to raise to new heights. It also allows us to realize that this response indicates that the higher-ups believe that the economy could crash in entirety, and it may be wise for investors to have multiple well-thought-out exit strategies.

Economic Analysis of Bitcoin

The reason why the Fed is so aggressively inflating the economy is due to fears that it will collapse forever or never rebound. As such, coupled with a global depression, a huge demand will appear for a reserve currency which is fundamentally different than the previous system. Bitcoin, though a currency or asset, is also a market. It also undergoes a constant price-probing process. Unlike traditional markets, Bitcoin has the exact opposite goal. Bitcoin seeks to appreciate in value and not depreciate. This has a quite different affect in that Bitcoin could potentially become worthless and have a price objective of zero.
Bitcoin was created in 2008 by a now famous mysterious figure known as Satoshi Nakamoto and its’ open source code was released in 2009. It was the first decentralized cryptocurrency to utilize a novel protocol known as the blockchain. Up to one megabyte of data may be sent with each transaction. It is decentralized, anonymous, transparent, easy to set-up, and provides myriad other benefits. Bitcoin is not backed up by anything other than its’ own technology.
Bitcoin is can never be expected to collapse as a framework, even were it to become worthless. The stock market has the potential to collapse in entirety, whereas, as long as the internet exists, Bitcoin will be a functional system with a self-authenticating framework. That capacity to persist regardless of the actual price of Bitcoin and the deflationary nature of Bitcoin means that it has something which fiat does not – inherent value.
Bitcoin is based on a distributed database known as the “blockchain.” Blockchains are essentially decentralized virtual ledger books, replete with pages known as “blocks.” Each page in a ledger is composed of paragraph entries, which are the actual transactions in the block.
Blockchains store information in the form of numerical transactions, which are just numbers. We can consider these numbers digital assets, such as Bitcoin. The data in a blockchain is immutable and recorded only by consensus-based algorithms. Bitcoin is cryptographic and all transactions are direct, without intermediary, peer-to-peer.
Bitcoin does not require trust in a central bank. It requires trust on the technology behind it, which is open-source and may be evaluated by anyone at any time. Furthermore, it is impossible to manipulate as doing so would require all of the nodes in the network to be hacked at once – unlike the stock market which is manipulated by the government and “Market Makers”. Bitcoin is also private in that, though the ledge is openly distributed, it is encrypted. Bitcoin’s blockchain has one of the greatest redundancy and information disaster recovery systems ever developed.
Bitcoin has a distributed governance model in that it is controlled by its’ users. There is no need to trust a payment processor or bank, or even to pay fees to such entities. There are also no third-party fees for transaction processing. As the ledge is immutable and transparent it is never possible to change it – the data on the blockchain is permanent. The system is not easily susceptible to attacks as it is widely distributed. Furthermore, as users of Bitcoin have their private keys assigned to their transactions, they are virtually impossible to fake. No lengthy verification, reconciliation, nor clearing process exists with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is based on a proof-of-work algorithm. Every transaction on the network has an associated mathetical “puzzle”. Computers known as miners compete to solve the complex cryptographic hash algorithm that comprises that puzzle. The solution is proof that the miner engaged in sufficient work. The puzzle is known as a nonce, a number used only once. There is only one major nonce at a time and it issues 12.5 Bitcoin. Once it is solved, the fact that the nonce has been solved is made public.
A block is mined on average of once every ten minutes. However, the blockchain checks every 2,016,000 minutes (approximately four years) if 201,600 blocks were mined. If it was faster, it increases difficulty by half, thereby deflating Bitcoin. If it was slower, it decreases, thereby inflating Bitcoin. It will continue to do this until zero Bitcoin are issued, projected at the year 2140. On the twelfth of May, 2020, the blockchain will halve the amount of Bitcoin issued when each nonce is guessed. When Bitcoin was first created, fifty were issued per block as a reward to miners. 6.25 BTC will be issued from that point on once each nonce is solved.
Unlike fiat, Bitcoin is a deflationary currency. As BTC becomes scarcer, demand for it will increase, also raising the price. In this, BTC is similar to gold. It is predictable in its’ output, unlike the USD, as it is based on a programmed supply. We can predict BTC’s deflation and inflation almost exactly, if not exactly. Only 21 million BTC will ever be produced, unless the entire network concedes to change the protocol – which is highly unlikely.
Some of the drawbacks to BTC include congestion. At peak congestion, it may take an entire day to process a Bitcoin transaction as only three to five transactions may be processed per second. Receiving priority on a payment may cost up to the equivalent of twenty dollars ($20). Bitcoin mining consumes enough energy in one day to power a single-family home for an entire week.

Trading or Investing?

The fundamental divide in trading revolves around the question of market structure. Many feel that the market operates totally randomly and its’ behavior cannot be predicted. For the purposes of this article, we will assume that the market has a structure, but that that structure is not perfect. That market structure naturally generates chart patterns as the market records prices in time. In order to determine when the stock market will crash, causing a major decline in BTC price, we will analyze an instrument, an exchange traded fund, which represents an index, as opposed to a particular stock. The price patterns of the various stocks in an index are effectively smoothed out. In doing so, a more technical picture arises. Perhaps the most popular of these is the SPDR S&P Standard and Poor 500 Exchange Traded Fund ($SPY).
In trading, little to no concern is given about value of underlying asset. We are concerned primarily about liquidity and trading ranges, which are the amount of value fluctuating on a short-term basis, as measured by volatility-implied trading ranges. Fundamental analysis plays a role, however markets often do not react to real-world factors in a logical fashion. Therefore, fundamental analysis is more appropriate for long-term investing.
The fundamental derivatives of a chart are time (x-axis) and price (y-axis). The primary technical indicator is price, as everything else is lagging in the past. Price represents current asking price and incorrectly implementing positions based on price is one of the biggest trading errors.
Markets and currencies ordinarily have noise, their tendency to back-and-fill, which must be filtered out for true pattern recognition. That noise does have a utility, however, in allowing traders second chances to enter favorable positions at slightly less favorable entry points. When you have any market with enough liquidity for historical data to record a pattern, then a structure can be divined. The market probes prices as part of an ongoing price-discovery process. Market technicians must sometimes look outside of the technical realm and use visual inspection to ascertain the relevance of certain patterns, using a qualitative eye that recognizes the underlying quantitative nature
Markets and instruments rise slower than they correct, however they rise much more than they fall. In the same vein, instruments can only fall to having no worth, whereas they could theoretically grow infinitely and have continued to grow over time. Money in a fiat system is illusory. It is a fundamentally synthetic instrument which has no intrinsic value. Hence, the recent seemingly illogical fluctuations in the market.
According to trade theory, the unending purpose of a market or instrument is to create and break price ranges according to the laws of supply and demand. We must determine when to trade based on each market inflection point as defined in price and in time as opposed to abandoning the trend (as the contrarian trading in this sub often does). Time and Price symmetry must be used to be in accordance with the trend. When coupled with a favorable risk to reward ratio, the ability to stay in the market for most of the defined time period, and adherence to risk management rules; the trader has a solid methodology for achieving considerable gains.
We will engage in a longer term market-oriented analysis to avoid any time-focused pressure. The Bitcoin market is open twenty-four-hours a day, so trading may be done when the individual is ready, without any pressing need to be constantly alert. Let alone, we can safely project months in advance with relatively high accuracy. Bitcoin is an asset which an individual can both trade and invest, however this article will be focused on trading due to the wide volatility in BTC prices over the short-term.

Technical Indicator Analysis of Bitcoin

Technical indicators are often considered self-fulfilling prophecies due to mass-market psychology gravitating towards certain common numbers yielded from them. They are also often discounted when it comes to BTC. That means a trader must be especially aware of these numbers as they can prognosticate market movements. Often, they are meaningless in the larger picture of things.

• Volume – derived from the market itself, it is mostly irrelevant. The major problem with volume for stocks is that the US market open causes tremendous volume surges eradicating any intrinsic volume analysis. This does not occur with BTC, as it is open twenty-four-seven. At major highs and lows, the market is typically anemic. Most traders are not active at terminal discretes (peaks and troughs) because of levels of fear. Volume allows us confidence in time and price symmetry market inflection points, if we observe low volume at a foretold range of values. We can rationalize that an absolute discrete is usually only discovered and anticipated by very few traders. As the general market realizes it, a herd mentality will push the market in the direction favorable to defending it. Volume is also useful for swing trading, as chances for swing’s validity increases if an increase in volume is seen on and after the swing’s activation. Volume is steadily decreasing. Lows and highs are reached when volume is lower.

Therefore, due to the relatively high volume on the 12th of March, we can safely determine that a low for BTC was not reached.

• VIX – Volatility Index, this technical indicator indicates level of fear by the amount of options-based “insurance” in portfolios. A low VIX environment, less than 20 for the S&P index, indicates a stable market with a possible uptrend. A high VIX, over 20, indicates a possible downtrend. VIX is essentially useless for BTC as BTC-based options do not exist. It allows us to predict the market low for $SPY, which will have an indirect impact on BTC in the short term, likely leading to the yearly low. However, it is equally important to see how VIX is changing over time, if it is decreasing or increasing, as that indicates increasing or decreasing fear. Low volatility allows high leverage without risk or rest. Occasionally, markets do rise with high VIX.

As VIX is unusually high, in the forties, we can be confident that a downtrend for the S&P 500 is imminent.

• RSI (Relative Strength Index): The most important technical indicator, useful for determining highs and lows when time symmetry is not availing itself. Sometimes analysis of RSI can conflict in different time frames, easiest way to use it is when it is at extremes – either under 30 or over 70. Extremes can be used for filtering highs or lows based on time-and-price window calculations. Highly instructive as to major corrective clues and indicative of continued directional movement. Must determine if longer-term RSI values find support at same values as before. It is currently at 73.56.
• Secondly, RSI may be used as a high or low filter, to observe the level that short-term RSI reaches in counter-trend corrections. Repetitions based on market movements based on RSI determine how long a trade should be held onto. Once a short term RSI reaches an extreme and stay there, the other RSI’s should gradually reach the same extremes. Once all RSI’s are at extreme highs, a trend confirmation should occur and RSI’s should drop to their midpoint.

Trend Definition Analysis of Bitcoin

Trend definition is highly powerful, cannot be understated. Knowledge of trend logic is enough to be a profitable trader, yet defining a trend is an arduous process. Multiple trends coexist across multiple time frames and across multiple market sectors. Like time structure, it makes the underlying price of the instrument irrelevant. Trend definitions cannot determine the validity of newly formed discretes. Trend becomes apparent when trades based in counter-trend inflection points continue to fail.
Downtrends are defined as an instrument making lower lows and lower highs that are recurrent, additive, qualified swing setups. Downtrends for all instruments are similar, except forex. They are fast and complete much quicker than uptrends. An average downtrend is 18 months, something which we will return to. An uptrend inception occurs when an instrument reaches a point where it fails to make a new low, then that low will be tested. After that, the instrument will either have a deep range retracement or it may take out the low slightly, resulting in a double-bottom. A swing must eventually form.
A simple way to roughly determine trend is to attempt to draw a line from three tops going upwards (uptrend) or a line from three bottoms going downwards (downtrend). It is not possible to correctly draw a downtrend line on the BTC chart, but it is possible to correctly draw an uptrend – indicating that the overall trend is downwards. The only mitigating factor is the impending stock market crash.
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Time Symmetry Analysis of Bitcoin

Time is the movement from the past through the present into the future. It is a measurement in quantified intervals. In many ways, our perception of it is a human construct. It is more powerful than price as time may be utilized for a trade regardless of the market inflection point’s price. Were it possible to perfectly understand time, price would be totally irrelevant due to the predictive certainty time affords. Time structure is easier to learn than price, but much more difficult to apply with any accuracy. It is the hardest aspect of trading to learn, but also the most rewarding.
Humans do not have the ability to recognize every time window, however the ability to define market inflection points in terms of time is the single most powerful trading edge. Regardless, price should not be abandoned for time alone. Time structure analysis It is inherently flawed, as such the markets have a fail-safe, which is Price Structure. Even though Time is much more powerful, Price Structure should never be completely ignored. Time is the qualifier for Price and vice versa. Time can fail by tricking traders into counter-trend trading.
Time is a predestined trade quantifier, a filter to slow trades down, as it allows a trader to specifically focus on specific time windows and rest at others. It allows for quantitative measurements to reach deterministic values and is the primary qualifier for trends. Time structure should be utilized before price structure, and it is the primary trade criterion which requires support from price. We can see price structure on a chart, as areas of mathematical support or resistance, but we cannot see time structure.
Time may be used to tell us an exact point in the future where the market will inflect, after Price Theory has been fulfilled. In the present, price objectives based on price theory added to possible future times for market inflection points give us the exact time of market inflection points and price.
Time Structure is repetitions of time or inherent cycles of time, occurring in a methodical way to provide time windows which may be utilized for inflection points. They are not easily recognized and not easily defined by a price chart as measuring and observing time is very exact. Time structure is not a science, yet it does require precise measurements. Nothing is certain or definite. The critical question must be if a particular approach to time structure is currently lucrative or not.
We will measure it in intervals of 180 bars. Our goal is to determine time windows, when the market will react and when we should pay the most attention. By using time repetitions, the fact that market inflection points occurred at some point in the past and should, therefore, reoccur at some point in the future, we should obtain confidence as to when SPY will reach a market inflection point. Time repetitions are essentially the market’s memory. However, simply measuring the time between two points then trying to extrapolate into the future does not work. Measuring time is not the same as defining time repetitions. We will evaluate past sessions for market inflection points, whether discretes, qualified swings, or intra-range. Then records the times that the market has made highs or lows in a comparable time period to the future one seeks to trade in.
What follows is a time Histogram – A grouping of times which appear close together, then segregated based on that closeness. Time is aligned into combined histogram of repetitions and cycles, however cycles are irrelevant on a daily basis. If trading on an hourly basis, do not use hours.

• Yearly Lows (last seven years): 1/1/13, 4/10/14, 1/15/15, 1/17/16, 1/1/17, 12/15/18, 2/6/19
• Monthly Mode: 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 12
• Daily Mode: 1, 1, 6, 10, 15, 15, 17
• Monthly Lows (for the last year): 3/12/20 (10:00pm), 2/28/20 (7:09am), 1/2/20 (8:09pm), 12/18/19 (8:00am), 11/25/19 (1:00am), 10/24/19 (2:59am), 9/30/19 (2:59am), 8/29,19 (4:00am), 7/17/19 (7:59am), 6/4/19 (5:59pm), 5/1/19 (12:00am), 4/1/19 (12:00am)
• Daily Lows Mode for those Months: 1, 1, 2, 4, 12, 17, 18, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30
• Hourly Lows Mode for those Months (Military time): 0100, 0200, 0200, 0400, 0700, 0700, 0800, 1200, 1200, 1700, 2000, 2200
• Minute Lows Mode for those Months: 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 09, 09, 59, 59, 59, 59
• Day of the Week Lows (last twenty-six weeks):

Weighted Times are repetitions which appears multiple times within the same list, observed and accentuated once divided into relevant sections of the histogram. They are important in the presently defined trading time period and are similar to a mathematical mode with respect to a series. Phased times are essentially periodical patterns in histograms, though they do not guarantee inflection points
Evaluating the yearly lows, we see that BTC tends to have its lows primarily at the beginning of every year, with a possibility of it being at the end of the year. Following the same methodology, we get the middle of the month as the likeliest day. However, evaluating the monthly lows for the past year, the beginning and end of the month are more likely for lows.
Therefore, we have two primary dates from our histogram.
1/1/21, 1/15/21, and 1/29/21
2:00am, 8:00am, 12:00pm, or 10:00pm
In fact, the high for this year was February the 14th, only thirty days off from our histogram calculations.
The 8.6-Year Armstrong-Princeton Global Economic Confidence model states that 2.15 year intervals occur between corrections, relevant highs and lows. 2.15 years from the all-time peak discrete is February 9, 2020 – a reasonably accurate depiction of the low for this year (which was on 3/12/20). (Taking only the Armstrong model into account, the next high should be Saturday, April 23, 2022). Therefore, the Armstrong model indicates that we have actually bottomed out for the year!
Bear markets cannot exist in perpetuity whereas bull markets can. Bear markets will eventually have price objectives of zero, whereas bull markets can increase to infinity. It can occur for individual market instruments, but not markets as a whole. Since bull markets are defined by low volatility, they also last longer. Once a bull market is indicated, the trader can remain in a long position until a new high is reached, then switch to shorts. The average bear market is eighteen months long, giving us a date of August 19th, 2021 for the end of this bear market – roughly speaking. They cannot be shorter than fifteen months for a central-bank controlled market, which does not apply to Bitcoin. (Otherwise, it would continue until Sunday, September 12, 2021.) However, we should expect Bitcoin to experience its’ exponential growth after the stock market re-enters a bull market.
Terry Laundy’s T-Theory implemented by measuring the time of an indicator from peak to trough, then using that to define a future time window. It is similar to an head-and-shoulders pattern in that it is the process of forming the right side from a synthetic technical indicator. If the indicator is making continued lows, then time is recalculated for defining the right side of the T. The date of the market inflection point may be a price or indicator inflection date, so it is not always exactly useful. It is better to make us aware of possible market inflection points, clustered with other data. It gives us an RSI low of May, 9th 2020.
The Bradley Cycle is coupled with volatility allows start dates for campaigns or put options as insurance in portfolios for stocks. However, it is also useful for predicting market moves instead of terminal dates for discretes. Using dates which correspond to discretes, we can see how those dates correspond with changes in VIX.
Therefore, our timeline looks like:

• 2/14/20 – yearly high ($10372 USD)
• 3/12/20 – yearly low thus far ($3858 USD)
• 5/9/20 – T-Theory true yearly low (BTC between 4863 and 3569)
• 5/26/20 – hashrate difficulty halvening
• 11/14/20 – stock market low
• 1/15/21 – yearly low for BTC, around $8528
• 8/19/21 – end of stock bear market
• 11/26/21 – eighteen months from halvening, average peak from halvenings (BTC begins rising from $3000 area to above $23,312)
• 4/23/22 – all-time high

Taken from my blog: http://aliamin.info/2020/