The following image was posted on YTC Social Media on Tuesday… and I think it makes such an important point that I want to expand upon it in today's article.
First… here's the image:
All trading conditions are NOT equal.
Sometimes the environment is well suited to your trading strategy, your style and your personality.
Other times it is clearly not suited.
What difference could it make to your results, if you were to start each session with a game plan. Something like this, for example:
As always, the game plan is subject to change during the session. But it's a useful starting place.
It will have you ready to engage the market without hesitation, should price move into areas with potential for ideal trading conditions.
And it will have you operating cautiously at all other times.
But how do you learn to identify these areas?
This is a good goal for your Market Structure & Price Action Journal!
What if you did this every day…
What if you added a short task to your session review procedure? Just a couple of minutes to review the higher timeframe and trading timeframe charts.
What if you identified the areas on the charts which provided ideal trading conditions? The price action with clear directional conviction, smooth flow and ideal pace (or whatever other conditions you prefer). Just the absolute BEST!
What if you studied the market structure, noting on the chart the features or conditions that led to creating this ideal environment. Typically these might be areas that spring an HTF trap, or areas of significant breakout.
What if you studied the price action, noting how to best exploit the trade opportunity to maximise profits while minimising any risk.
What if you printed the charts, along with your market structure and price action notes, and filed it into a ring binder or folder?
What if… after doing this for a year… you realised that you had a document with maybe a hundred or so examples of ideal trading conditions, along with notes on how to identify them, and how to exploit them once they're confirmed. (Yes there are well over 200 sessions a year, but not every session will provide an area of "ideal" trading conditions!)
What if you used this resource to document some rules-of-thumb for identifying potential areas of ideal conditions, allowing you to commence each session with a game plan just like the example listed above?
Would that perhaps be useful?
Let's look at another example using the same market as in the above image, but from the very next day.
What if you did this every day?
Or… what if you fast-tracked the process… looking over the charts from the past year?
What if you started… right now?
Happy trading,
Lance Beggs
Hello Lance,
nice article and good idea to do this analyses on regular basis , I have one Q here related to the test of history if I have forextester program is it better to use it for historical test and print the chart structure and study them than use the chart from last year as hindsight on my platform
Regards
Mohamed
Hi Mohamed,
Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood. Are you asking, “Is it better to use ForexTester to replay the historical data, or your platform for a static hindsight review?”
Why not both (if time allows). There are benefits to both, although the ForexTester replay requires much more time.
From a Market Structure Journal perspective though, both are fine. Just use whatever allows you to print the chart the easiest. And then add some notes by pen. And file it away.
Have I misunderstood the question though????
Lance.
Thanks lance i got it , have a nice weekend ):
If you did all those things and had the tenacity to keep it up,ones learning progress would accelerate dramatically . 2 things . Your first “what if you” point i think is about seiving out bad conditions on basis of context of higher tineframes. For example not trading price when it is in a triangle on h4. Isit important to note as a caveat that we can still dial down tf wize and find similar micro oportunities that qualify as good in the context of a htf appropriate to those micro frames. Ir in the triangle there are impluse moves galore ? Hope ive been clear.
2) i think standard sr on that last m1 chart would have provided an excellent entry close to top as per your risk is confirmation concept (which i subscribe to ) .
(1) Absolutely yes.
The exercise as described aims to build your ability at recognising the areas in which price will provide the most favourable conditions, however you wish to define that. The idea being that you’ll be prepared before price gets there and therefore ready to exploit the opportunity quickly should conditions match your expectations. But this does not mean that we don’t seek opportunity in the other areas. Note the third point in the Game Plan (the image with the blue background). I’ll still be following the market in these other areas, but will do so with more caution and patience. My game plan will not always be right. It’s just a starting point, and needs to adapt to the price movement that actually unfolds at the hard right edge of the screen.
In terms of your post-session reviews though, there will likely be a limit to how much time you have available to drill down to lower timeframes to again review them for “best trading conditions”. If you have the time, do it. You’ll learn a lot. But in terms of allowing you to set up a pre-session game plan, a review of the “very high” timeframe is probably sufficient.
(2) Agree 100% 🙂