Jul 13 2009
Understand the
forex market.Suppose you believe that the currency prices will not be able to follow through action in the direction of the breakout. Fading breakouts refers to trading against breakouts. When we believe that breakouts from support and resistance levels to be false and unsustainable we fade breakouts. Get good
forex training.
Develop your own
forex trading system.Fading breakouts tends to be more effective as a short term strategy. It is not meant to be a long term strategy. False breakouts are also known as fakeouts. False breakouts are a bane for breakout traders but boon for breakout faders.
Support and resistance are seen as the price floor and the price ceiling respectively. Support level attracts the buyer’s enthusiasm for higher bids and prevents the price from falling further. The resistance level attracts the seller’s enthusiasm for shorting. It prevents the price action from advancing higher.
The crowd likes to trade the breakout. The idea of trading breakouts appeals to many independent traders especially those new to currency trading. It is perfectly logical for the crowd to think that if the support level is penetrated, then the price action should move downward. The crowd is more likely to sell than to buy.
The opposite is true of a price break above the resistance level and the crowd usually concludes that if the resistance is broken, then the prices are more likely to advance higher in the rally. Hence, the crowd is more likely to buy than to sell when the price action breaks the resistance level from below.
Now you can understand why there tends to be large number of entry stop orders placed just above a resistance level and also placed below a support level. You will also find clusters of stop loss orders placed by traders who have brought near the support level or have sold near the resistance level.
So when the price action breaks out above the resistance level, short positions will be stopped out. Similarly, long positions will be stopped out when the currency prices crosses below the support level.
Why most breakouts fade? One of the most important reasons why most breakouts fail is due to the fact that winners need to take the money from the losers. It does not always pay to have the same mentality as the crowd. The majority will cash out of the trading game broke.
Money has to be made from the majority. Not from the minority who got it right. The crowd holds the dumb money with the weak hands. Smart money belongs to the big players who have a couple of tricks to sabotage the crowd.
The most money is made when the crowd turns out to be wrong. When the crowd scrambles to get out of their losing positions, it causes vertical rallies or declines.
Jul 12 2009
Understand the
forex market.The forex broker acting as the market maker has to absorb all the buy/sell orders if there is so much market demand to buy above a resistance level or sell below the support. There must be a seller for each buyer and a buyer for each seller. However, you must know that the market maker is not a fool. Get good
forex training.
Develop your own
forex trading system. Most of the retail traders being inexperienced or new like to trade the breakouts! When the new traders learn technical analysis, they tend to most eagerly follow trade recommendations based on certain chart patterns recommended in the books.
However, the seasoned traders prefer to fade breakouts. They do exactly the opposite of what the crowd is expected to do. Most of the successful traders have contrarian trading approach.
For every loser, there is a winner. Trading is a zero sum game. Most of the breakouts fail because the institutional or the seasoned traders take advantage of the crowd psychology of the retail or inexperienced traders and win at their expense.
Let’s understand the tricks that can be played by the institutional dealers and traders. Their game plan is simple. Market markets mostly the forex dealers and brokers can fade breakouts. They will make money from the majority of the crowd who thinks that prices will rally happily after an upside breakout. Similarly, it will decline dangerously after a downside breakout.
Market makers have to take the opposite side of your trade whether you like it or not. They are the pricing counterparties to the retail traders like you and me. Suppose most of the retail traders have placed their stop entry order at a certain price above the resistance level.
Market makers reach into their pockets and spend some of their money to bid up the price to that level where most of the stop entry levels have been placed. Now they can sell to most of the traders who are desperate to buy thus making some decent profits from this trick.
Market makers get the chance to close their long positions by selling to the retail crowd. Now they begin to short. They try to overwhelm the buying crowd. This pushes the prices down, below the breakout level. This is the price level where many stop loss orders have been placed by the retail traders who wanted to trade the upside breakout.
Market makers happily offload their short positions now by buying from the retail traders who are selling to close their losing breakout trades. Market makers have the information of their customer’s orders from their order book. Thus a potential conflict of interest exists and retail traders must know how to protect themselves.
Market makers often go on the stop hunting spree. False breakouts maybe the consequence of that! Retail crowd thinks that the false breakout is due to the sudden turning of the market. These false breakouts are most likely the direct result of the games market makers play.