Nội dung

trade secrets in intermarket analysis and the power of neural networks as pattern recognition and forecasting tools. Figure 6.3. VantagePoint accuracy figures for each market. No method can predict market movements with 100% accuracy, but VantagePoint’s nearly 80% accuracy rates for short-term forecasts put probabilities on the trader’s side and improve the odds of trading successfully. Source: Market Technologies, LLC (www.MarketTechnologies.com) 70 7 Technical Tactics For Trading Forex Once you understand the basics of trading in the forex market, know some of the fundamental factors that affect it and are familiar with various technical analysis approaches briefly discussed earlier in this book, including different technical indicators that help identify trend and momentum, the next big step is to move from theory to practice. It may seem like this should be an easy process, but the fact is that it isn’t for many, if not most, novice traders. Putting all of the pieces together about how the financial markets function and learning the nuances of trading, as well as formulating a coherent and sound trading strategy, can be an insurmountable challenge for new traders. Let’s face it. If it were really as easy as some would suggest, every new trader would become a self-made millionaire overnight. But that’s not the case. 71 trade secrets Flow Like a River So, your first practical task is to develop your own personal mindset for trading with which you can be comfortable. Fortunately for forex traders, this might come a little bit easier than for other traders because forex traders may already be more familiar with speculating on fluctuations in currency values. Then you have to decide what sort of trader you want to be. There are trend-followers, contrarians, day traders, position traders, buy-andhold investors, etc. Each approach has its own positives and negatives. Some may have more viability and appeal to you than others, depending on your risk propensity, available speculative capital, time constraints and financial goals. Trading can be compared to floating down a flowing river, which twists and turns within its banks, sometimes quickly and sometimes more slowly. Floating along with the river’s current is the easiest way to travel, because all you have to do is sit back and go with the flow. Admittedly, you can go against the flow, as many traders try to do in their trading, but doing so is much more difficult and frustrating and less likely to get you to where you want to go. The problem is never the river. Its flow is never wrong since water always flows downhill. It’s the same thing with trading forex or foreign currencies. The market is never wrong. The problem is always with the traders themselves who may try to fight the market’s underlying current. When they find themselves in a losing trade, they are often unwilling to admit that they made a mistake or that this might not be the best trading strategy for them to continue to pursue. Too often, new traders wait until it’s too late to adjust their course of action and end up becoming paralyzed soon after their winning position turns into a losing position that fails to turn around and quickly results in a large unnecessary loss. 72 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis Trading has also been compared to competitive sports. Every futures trade has a winner and a loser, since futures trading is a zero-sum game. What you need are analysis tools that will give you a competitive advantage to achieve your goal of making as large a profit as possible with the least amount of risk. Like a successful chess player, you should always be evaluating the ability of your opponents and looking ahead to your next moves if you want to be a successful trader. As a forex trader, you should also develop an analytical routine, consistent with your own trading mindset that you apply whenever you are looking at the market and deciding about what trade to take. This process includes several basis steps: F Fundamentals and the big picture. Based on your observations and fundamental information available to you, what is happening with the market overall? What are the events and issues that could influence currency values? Are prices rising, falling, or moving sideways? O Orient current market action into the context of the big picture. Is the present market activity part of a larger trend or fluctuating within a trading range? Are interrelated markets moving in tandem? How are factors such as interest rates, commodity prices, or related financial markets influencing the forex market that you’re trading? R React. Once you have incorporated the market’s current action within the broader context of trading and global economic forces, what are your conclusions about the course of action you should take? Your decision needs to be based upon actual facts as well as your trading mindset. E X Execute your trading decision by taking action to place orders based upon your understanding of the situation, including assessments of risk and the size of a position. This is the “plan-your-trade/trade-your-plan” axiom often cited by successful traders. 73 trade secrets This FOREX process is not a one-time event for a trader but is instead a continuous loop of observations, orientations, actions, and reactions. In other words, every decision and every action generates new observations and reactions, which then produce new decisions and actions. The goal is to arrive at sound trading decisions and act more quickly than your trading opponents. Remember, the fact of life in trading is that someone is going to lose. You don’t want it to be you. Obviously, there are numerous technical analysis approaches, such as the trend and momentum indicators mentioned earlier in Chapter 4, which can be used in conjunction with each other in this FOREX process. One problem, though, is that most single-market indicators use the same underlying information—historical price data on just one market—to produce their trading signals. Ideally, it would be more effective to use two or more indicators based on different data sets that have little or no correlation with one another. Volume and open interest, in conjunction with price, for instance, can provide a different look at market action. But volume and open interest seem to be less effective nowadays as confirming information in the financial markets including forex than they were in the past because hedge funds, money managers and other large traders appear to have altered the dynamics of trading in forex futures, especially near the end of quarterly contract expiration cycles, and there is no way to gauge volume in the cash forex market. Volatility is another non-correlated input worthy of consideration for market analysis, but it can add even more complexity to a process that is already beyond the capabilities of most beginning traders and is, therefore, a subject that is perhaps best left to traders specializing in options. 74 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis So that leaves price as the major analytical focus. However, over-reliance on redundant indicators can lead to failure in today’s fast-paced, global markets. That’s why I have suggested that market indicators utilizing global intermarket data need to be incorporated into your trading strategies as part of the FOREX process. To accomplish this, popular indicators such as moving averages, MACD, stochastics, and RSI, which look at trend and momentum and which are normally thought of as lagging in nature, can be transformed into true leading indicators using intermarket data as inputs into neural networks. Since the real underlying purpose of technical analysis from a practical standpoint is market forecasting, to the extent that leading indicators can be developed traders will have more effective tools at their disposal. Additionally, other analysis tools such as candlesticks can be used in conjunction with various leading indicators to help you further confirm changes in trend and give you more confidence to take trades. I’d like to briefly discuss how candlesticks can be used in conjunction with forecasted moving averages to give you some more food for thought when you start to develop your own trading mindset and work through your FOREX trading process. Candlestick Charts Add Spice Open-high-low-close bar charts provide the same information as candlesticks, but the latter does so in a much more visually appealing way. Compare the bar chart in Figure 7.1 with the candlestick chart in Figure 7.2. Both figures show the U.S. dollar/Canadian dollar cash spread for the same two-month period. 75 trade secrets Figure 7.1. - U.S. dollar/Canadian Bar Chart dollar USD/CAD Cash Actual 5-Day Simple Moving Average Predicted 5-Day Simple Moving Average Figure 7.2. - U.S. dollar/Canadian Candlestick Chart dollar USD/CAD Cash Actual 5-Day Simple Moving Average Predicted 5-Day Simple Moving Average Both charts show the open, high, low, close price information, but the bar chart doesn’t have the same visual impact as the candlestick chart, where white or black candlesticks highlight trends and price reversals more clearly. Source: VantagePoint Intermarket Analysis Software (www.TraderTech.com) 76 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis The crossovers of the predicted 5-day moving average and the actual 5-day moving average based on closes are identical on both charts, but the candlestick chart depicts the strength or weakness of each day’s price action more quickly at a glance. The long black or white candlesticks stand out, emphasizing the importance of that period’s price action, and a series of black or white candlesticks illustrates the bearishness or bullishness of a trend more clearly. Candlestick analysts have given various patterns clever names and have provided more descriptive characteristics for these patterns than is the case in typical bar chart analysis. Both types of charts have their double tops, inside days, gaps and other formations. But candlestick analysis ascribes more meaning to the candle “bodies” – price action between the open and close – and to the “shadows” or “tails” – price action that takes place outside of the open-close range for a period. The chart in Figure 7.2 shows how candlesticks might be used to analyze price action in conjunction with other techniques such as predicted and actual moving averages. If you get a moving average crossover signal, it is instructive to see what that day’s candlestick indicates. Or vice versa, if you see a particular candlestick pattern, it is worthwhile to know what the moving averages on that day suggest about future market activity. In this manner one signal can corroborate the other and thereby give you more confidence to act. Two Months in the Life of a Currency Spread Let’s examine this chart in more detail. 1 – Hammer. After trending down, the price opens at about the previous close and then sinks. But the market rejects the down draft and closes higher, a bullish signal that the market has hammered in a bottom. 77 trade secrets 2 – Crossover signal day with bullish candlestick. When the predicted 5-day moving average crosses above the actual 5-day moving average, it does so on a day with a bullish candlestick, increasing chances of a valid buy signal. In this case, the market chops around for several days. Depending on your trading style, you may have been stopped out of the trade during this period although your moving average reading suggests sticking with a long position. 3 – Shooting star. The market shows some signs of weakness as it opens near the previous close, shoots to a new high and then falls sharply as traders reject the higher price level. 4 – Shooting star. After barely maintaining a long status (predicted moving average above the actual moving average), the market again makes another shooting star candlestick, reaching the previous high before being rejected again, warning that strength may be evaporating. 5 – Doji. Traders are a bit indecisive about which way to take the market as prices move up and down from the open during the day before settling at almost the same price as the open. A doji signal is a caution flag that adds weight to a pending top. 6 – Bearish engulfing pattern. The market opens higher than the previous close, then closes sharply lower with a long black candle body that engulfs the previous candle’s body. The predicted moving average drops below the actual moving average on the same day. The strong negative candlestick reinforces the moving average crossover that signals a reversal to a bearish trend. A sell stop placed below the low of 6 would close out the previous long position and catch the new trend, if a downtrend materializes. 7 – Harami. The market isn’t quite sure it wants to head down yet as price action on this day remains within the boundaries of the previous candlestick’s price range – an inside day in 78 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis Western terms. It isn’t until the following day that prices drop below the low of 6 and trigger the entry into a short position. 8 – Bullish engulfing pattern. After declining sharply for several days, the market hits a slight pause at 8 with the white body engulfing the previous candle body. However, the candle body is not very large and convincing. With the predicted moving average below the actual moving average, the trend indication is still bearish, and there is no reason to abandon the short position. 9 – Doji. Depending on how tightly you placed a buy stop, you might have been stopped out of the short position on the doji two candlesticks after 8 or after the doji candlestick at 9. But the moving average crossover signal is still in a bearish mode. A doji candlestick after a downtrend is not as reliable a reversal signal as a doji after an uptrend. 10 – Pause. A pause of several days takes the predicted moving average above the actual moving average, indicating a shift to a long position, but the action again to make such a switch is not very compelling. Buy stops placed above the candlesticks around 10 would not have been triggered, maintaining the short position as the predicted moving average once again slides below the actual moving average. 11 – Hammer and upsurge. The action between candlesticks 10 and 11 provides more conclusive evidence of a bottom as a doji is followed by a hammer – the market plunges to a low, then rejects the lower price level and rallies to near the high of the day at the close. The long white candlestick at 11 confirms the turn, and the crossover of the predicted moving average above the actual moving average suggests an uptrend. Again, it takes another day’s action before the market is ready to move into its new trend. 12 – Pause. As often happens, the market reacts to the new trend by pausing – perhaps a flag in Western parlance – but the candlesticks do not provide any strong signal on direction. Stops 79