Imagine this plausible situation. It’s the weekend, you’re a technical trader so you don’t think the news is going to involve anything with the moves you’re expecting, but you need to keep in mind there are events that will cause short-term volatility. This knowledge can get you a better entry time (since short-term news causes short-term moves) or keep you out due to the noise.
And now the hunt is on, what can you find to increase your profits in the long and short term? Or do you look for swing trades that will open and close within the week? This leads us into the most fun part of trading! Once you’ve finished your cup of coffee and were able to find potential opportunities that excite you for the week, it’s time to watch your portfolio jump up sky high (if all your ideas work out).
When the week has passed, you’ve won and lost some. When reviewing trades, you notice that all the setups you found were not that bad, most of them would have worked out. The only problem is that you have lost track of them because you weren’t scanning your charts appropriately. In this article, I want to share with you how I deal with this problem.
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Buy and Sell orders
Most platforms offer the opportunity to place buy and sell orders. For those of you who don’t know how to place orders let me quickly explain how that works. Let’s assume you have found an interesting zone where you want to buy. Prices have not reached that level yet and to get in on the trade, platforms, like Metatrader, offer the possibility to set an order that will open automatically (even if you’re not watching the chart). That way you will never miss a trade.
The only problem with orders is that once a price doesn’t respect a level, you’ll be stopped out right away. Some traders prefer to get in on a trade once the price turns around and starts heading in the direction they want. In other words, they wait for price action to confirm the move before getting in to prevent getting stopped out. Since they are professional traders, they know that they should not be picking tops and bottoms. If this is your way of trading, placing orders cannot always be the right way for you to prevent missing trades, and setting alerts may be a better solution for you.
Setting Price Alerts
I tend to enter into a trade only if price action confirms my idea. I understand market movement pretty well, so I know when I need to be paying attention and when to stand aside. I prefer to get notified when prices reach certain levels. Once levels are reached, I don’t want to enter the trade right away, but I do want to start watching charts closely. This is the only time I zoom in to the 1 hour/4 hour timeframe to get confirmation on the move and to find a great risk-reward entry.
Here at Tradeview you can place buy/sell orders and set price alerts on any of our trading platforms (such Ctrader, MT4, MT5, or Currenex), so your trades can be triggered even when you are sleeping. For more information about how to set up an account with Tradeview, please email me at rgrados@tvmarkets.com.
Wish you a good trading day.
Ricardo Grados
Business Development Manager
RGrados@tvmarkets.com