Forex Trading Opportunities in ALL timeframes

Posted June 17th, 2010 by Rapid Forex 15 Comments »

Today I’m going to share how to use the forex trading market snapshot to find forex trading opportunities in any timeframe. Once you master this skill, you’ll be able to go Forex Sailing, Forex Surfing, & Forex Swimming practically whenever you want to.

Which Forex Charts to Use?

When evaluating forex trading opportunities you need to use charts. Your broker will provide charts for you inside of your online forex trading account. Use the charts that your broker provides as a primary chart.

If your broker doesn’t provide all of the timeframes I discuss below, or doesn’t have fibonacci, please use the free web charts at forex-markets.com. You won’t need to login, just access the charts for free I’ll be sharing a video with you soon that shows oyu how to use these charts very easily.

Your Window into Forex Trading Opportunities

Your job each day before you trade is to update your forex trading market snapshot. Once you get used to doing this, it shouldn’t take you more than 15-25 minutes to do. If you don’t plan on trading in a given day, you won’t need to update the market snapshot worksheet.

I’ll be referring to the forex trading market snapshot worksheet throughout the rest of the 90 day bootcamp, so you’ll get used to this very soon

Opportunity Spotting on the Forex Trading Market Snapshot

There are a few criteria for seeing forex trading opportunities in the forex trading market snapshot.

Criteria #1: The daily charts determine trading direction (if o, then use 4-hour for direction).

Criteria #2: The timeframe above the one you want to trade MUST be the same as the daily.

Criteria #3: The timeframe above the one in criteria #2 must be either 1.) SAME as daily -OR- 2.) o (neutral)

Criteria #4: ALL timeframes above the timeframe you want to trade MUST have more symbols in the daily direction than o’s or in opposing direction. (i.e. more +’s than o’s or -’s in an uptrend -OR- more -’s than o’s or +’s in a downtrend).

This sounds more involved than it is. It’s actually really easy. What this criteria means is that if we look at a timeframe, we want to have more timeframes moving in our trend direction than against us AND the ones right above us are moving in our direction.

That’s all the 4 criteria above are looking at.

The only exception to this criteria is the 4-hour charts. With 4-hour charts it’s a lot simpler, just trade in the direction of the daily charts. Since we don’t look at higher timeframes, the 4 criteria all merge into looking at just the daily.

Forex Trading Market Snapshot Opportunity Examples

In the image below, I’ve highlighted the timeframes that should have good trading opportunities based on the forex trading market snapshot. The picture below is an example only, so don’t try to trade with this one

Look at the image below and notice the highlighted boxes. Every trading opportunity that fits the 4 criteria above is highlighted.

Look at each highlighted box below and notice how the 4 criteria are satisfied:

forex trading opportunities analyzed with forex market snapshot

(click on image for full size view)

Waiting for an Opportunity

If you look at the example above, you will notice that in most cases, the symbol in the highlighted box is different than the trend direction. This is because we are only looking at higher timeframes to spot an opportunity. When we spot an opportunity, it doesn’t matter what the current timeframe is doing, we will wait for the next wave.

How Long to Wait for Opportunities

Every timeframe has a different period for a fibonacci wave to complete. If you’re waiting for a trade to develop in 15-minute timeframes it’ll take 6-10 hours. On 4-hour charts a wave lasts about 5-7 days.

If you find a cool trading opportunity on your forex trading market snapshot, here’s when you should come back and check your charts again (no sense waiting around when you could do other things):

4-hour charts: check every 2 days.

1-hour charts: check every 12 hours.

30-min charts: check every 6 hours.

15-min charts: check every 3 hours.

10-min charts: check every 2 hours.

5-min charts: check every 45 minutes.

1-min charts: check every 5 minutes.

You’re allowed to check a littler earlier than what I recommend above, but there’s really no need to. On average only about 1/3 to 1/2 of a wave will happen in that time, so you won’t miss much

Don’t Trade With This Yet

If you’re reading this post for the first time, you should know Forex Sailing pretty well. You can continue to sail the forex with what you know.

But you’ve only been introduced to Forex Surfing & Forex Swimming today. In a few days I’ll be showing you some examples of trades using timeframes shorter than 4-hours. Wait to see some examples first because there are just a few more things we’ll need to look at before trading in smaller timeframes.

Tags: 90 Day Forex Trading Bootcamp, daytrading, forex sailing, forex surfing, forex swimming, forex trading market snapshot, online forex trading, scalping, swing trading Posted in 90 Day Forex Trading Bootcamp

15 Responses to “Forex Trading Opportunities in ALL timeframes”

Walt Witham Says:
June 17th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Brian, I don’t see why you highlighted the USDCAD 4-hr. looks like +s outnumber -s. The rest all make sense to me. Please help.
Walt

[Reply]
Rapid Forex Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 11:29 am
@Walt – the USD/CAD is highlighted simply because the daily direction isn’t a o. It doesn’t mean that there’s an opportunity on the 4-hour charts yet, it simply means that you should be waiting for an opportunity on the 4-hour charts for that currency.

This is true for all highlighted boxes. Whatever sign is in the highlighted box doesn’t matter. The highlighted box simply indicates that this is where you should wait for the next opportunity to happen. This is the “salt lick” you want to watch from the tree until the deer comes

This is also just an example, it doesn’t reflect current market situations. It’s a teaching lesson only to explain the theory.

[Reply]
Chris D. Says:
June 17th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Brian,

Correct me if I’m wrong but the USD/JPY and USD/CHF on the hourly should qualify based on your criteria. Am I missing something?

[Reply]
Rapid Forex Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
@Chris – good eye. Thanks for catching that. It’s a good reason to verify this stuff for yourself I make mistakes like everyone else. The good news is that even if we get the analysis wrong, we’re still only looking to catch waves in a direction & it can still work out. These are simply good places to look

[Reply]
Chris Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Brian,

I just want to say thanks for all the valuable info your giving. I realize that sometimes with the vast amount of material your covering ssometimes slip ups happen. I’m just stoked that I’m getting this info and able to put it into practice.

Thanks again, Brian. We appreciate all your doing!

[Reply]
Rapid Forex Reply:
June 20th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
@Chris – thanks, I appreciate that! It does make it worthwhile when people share positive feedback. I appreciate you too
Kulvadee Says:
June 17th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Thanks so much for the criteria. I am looking forward to seeing some examples, if in the video version would be great.

[Reply]
Rapid Forex Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
@Kulvadee – this is why it’s a 90 day bootcamp. I’ll be providing TONS of examples.

[Reply]
Kyle Says:
June 18th, 2010 at 3:59 am
Hi Brian,
I understand the highlighted boxes except for two.

I don’t understand how the USD/CHF 10 minute qualifies. Criteria 2 is met (15 min is same as daily) but criteria 3 (the 30 min is not the same as daily nor is it neutral) So how does this qualify?

The USD/CAD 5 minute I think should qualify because criteria 2 is met (the 10 min is same as daily), criteria 3 is also met (15 min is same as daily or neutral), criteria 4 is also met (above the 5 minute there are 4 plus signs as opposed to 1 negative and 1 neutral). So shouldn’t the USD/CAD 5 minute qualify?

Thanks
Kyle

[Reply]
Rapid Forex Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 8:19 am
@Kyle – good eye my friend. You’re right. Thanks for catching my mistake. Always double check my work, I make mistakes like any other human Read my reply to Chris’s comment above for the bright side about getting the analysis wrong (turns out it doesn’t hurt us too bad

[Reply]
Gennadij Says:
June 18th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Thanks for shoking information!

[Reply]
Adyur (AD) Says:
June 20th, 2010 at 6:52 am
Hi Brian! This is my first post on a web-site (I found it very educative and visualized for people that are not experienced with FOREX so my best appreciation for your affords). My question is about trend of the market. Depending on what we use to define the trend we could get quite different results: long term moving averages can give an opposite result with short term. For instance 200 or 100, even 50 day MA can show DOWN trend while 5 or 3 day MA could show an UP trend, so what would you recommend to use in this case? Beside: statistically market has (like they say) clear trend just for 20% of time so should we just wait for better market conditions those 80% of the time? Sincerely AD

[Reply]
Rapid Forex Reply:
June 20th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
@Ad – I don’t believe in using moving averages as they lag behind. You’re right that the market only trends about 20% of the time (this is just a number, but it’s close enough to reality). But there are many currency pairs, so 1/5 of the time means that something is almost always trending… Fibonacci wave zones explain how prices trend. If you watch Forex Sailing video #4 & video #6, this should make sense to you.

[Reply]
Allan J Says:
June 20th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Brian how does one get to put items into the boxes as they are read only
thanks

[Reply]
Trading System Development Says:
June 24th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I like to use channels for each time frame too, as it gives a fair indication of how far a correction (which can be a trend in a smaller time frame) can go.

[Reply]