Simple Three Step Bollinger Band Strategy That Makes Money

Top professional traders all over the world use this system to trade. It works on any time frame but produces better results on the longer time frames such as daily, weekly and monthly. If used properly it can help you make money.

The first step in the system is identifying one of three specific candlestick patterns. There are over 80 Japanese candlestick patterns however, we are only interested in the strongest patterns. The strong patterns we are looking for are dark cloud cover, bearish engulfing patterns, bullish engulfing patterns and piercing lines. Each of these patterns need two candlesticks to form completely. The second candlestick is the most important and it must appear very strong.

The first thing we need is a strong candlestick pattern. A order should not be placed unless a strong candle stick pattern has formed.

The second step is the candlestick pattern must have a strong Bollinger band break out of the upper or lower bands. The first and second candle must break out of the upper or lower band strongly. If the rules are not met the trade set up should be ignored.

So the second thing we need is a very strong upper or lower Bollinger band breakout.

Rule one and two show a sign which indicates that the price wants to change. Either to collapse or advance. It only tells us that either the buyers (bulls) or the sellers (bears) are getting tired, giving up, or switching sides.

The rules also requires that the strong candle stick pattern should form were neither the bulls or the bears do not have full control over the price. This means one of the parties have become exhausted in the struggle to control the price movement.

So the third thing we need is a market showing signs of exhaustion where neither bulls or bears have full control over the price action.

If you do not have all three of these conditions it is too risky to place an order.

Using this Bollinger band system you can expect to trade five times in one month. You can set your take profit order up to ten times your stop-loss order. Your stop-loss order is best set at the previous candles high or low price.

I recommend that you practice in a demo account first. No strategy is one hundred percent right all the time. We are traders not fortune tellers. However, with proper risk management, and a solid exit plan it is possible to become consistently profitable trading currencies.

You are welcome to join our blog and community of experienced professional traders who love to mentor novice traders absolutely free of charge.To receive a free eBook explaining the system described here in full detail visit

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Automated Breakout Strategies for Small Accounts

People often ask me if breakout strategies can be used for small accounts. And the simple answer is, yes, they can. Today, let's have a closer look at this topic and how it can be done.

First of all, it is important to explain one crucial context. If you would like to create breakout strategies for small accounts, you need to work with a low risk. But everything costs something. A low risk will practically always lead to some compromise - mostly you will make less and the stability of your equity will be lower. But, you will experience longer periods when your account will go mostly sideways. Unfortunately, in trading there aren't black and white solutions, and each advantage is redeemed by certain disadvantage. Once you decide to build strategies for small accounts, you have got to ask yourself: What is more important to you? Is it a small risk per trade or a drawdown that is the smallest it can possibly be? (And don't say both, as these are contradictory. Why? I will explain that in examples.)

Drawdown vs. risk per trade

There is a general rule in breakout strategies - the bigger stop-loss, the smaller the drawdowns. Maybe it sounds inconsistent, but the logic behind is pretty clear: Breakout strategies have a tendency to go through substantial corrections throughout a day and a bigger stop-loss will cope with this much better. You risk less with small stop-loss, but you will be out with loss more often. A bigger stop-loss will help you to stay in during corrections. So, even though each loss will be a bit more painful, the overall drawdown can be smaller and the profit and success rate much higher.

Let's have a look at one of my simple breakout systems which can be used to trade on numerous markets even with a small stop-loss.

In this system, the smallest acceptable stop-loss value is 100 USD (market EMD, 30-minute timeframe). It is possible to use the same stop-loss in ES or TF markets with similar results. Such stop-loss is indeed very low for automated trading strategy - quite often even smaller than in similar markets during discretionary trading. With a stop-loss like this, it is possible to trade a small account and losing trades won't be considerably unbearable.

How would equity and maximum drawdown look like with this scenario? The system is generating stable profits, but equity has its weak periods. The average profit is 3000 USD per annum and overall drawdown is 2380 USD. It means it is possible to trade with a very small stop loss. However the question is: Wouldn't it be worth to increase the risk a bit? I understand that for someone with a small account a stop-loss higher than 100 USD could be unacceptable, but let's see if we wouldn't actually gain more than if we used a very small 100 USD stop-loss.

And now the same system with a stop-loss of 300 USD. It sounds like a big jump to increase stop-loss to 300% of the original amount, but let's have a look at what we have gained. The average profit per annum increased to approx. 4200 USD (a 40% improvement), the stability of equity is considerably better, and drawdown decreased to 1930 USD (almost a 20% improvement).

So, the first rule when searching for ATS breakout strategies is: Even if you are working with a small account, search for a strategy with a slightly bigger stop-loss than you would normally use in discretionary trading, or a bit bigger than you would feel is acceptable.

In this case you have to perceive stop-loss only as a necessary protection. Even though individual losses will be more painful to some extent, your results will improve and profit distribution will be more stable.

How to capitalize

Once we have a system with relatively small risk (300 USD is still a very small stop-loss; I personally also work with stop-losses of 2000 USD per contract) and a small drawdown (drawdowns of under 2000 USD for an automated breakout strategy can be regarded as small), for such strategy we can capitalize with a relatively small account. The technique is simple:

1) Conduct a Monte Carlo analysis of the system (e.g. in Market System Analyzer 

 This drawdown will be mostly 25% higher than your original equity - i.e. in the above system we would have to anticipate a drawdown of 2400 USD instead of 1930 USD.

2) Think of what your maximum accepted drawdown is in percentage and capitalize in accordance to the Monte Carlo drawdown that needs to correspond with this percentage. If you decide that you are able to accept a 50% drawdown on your account, then your capitalization will look like this: 2 x 2400 USD = 4800 USD. If you decide you can accept a maximum drawdown of one third of your account, then your capitalization will look like this: 3 x 2400 USD = 7200 USD.

With a bit of patience and research you can come up with strategies that will be possible to trade under certain circumstances with very small accounts - i.e. 5000-10000 USD.

Once you have a few strategies like this, it is possible to work with small portfolios (2-3 systems). In such case you need to conduct a Monte Carlo analysis on your portfolio as a whole (program MSA is great for that) and capitalize in accordance to the Monte Carlo drawdown of the portfolio.

How to search for strategies for small accounts

So, once more... The good news is that to find a good, quality breakout strategy for small accounts is possible. The bad news is that it will take much more patience and you will always have to compromise slightly.

You have to ask yourself what is the amount you are willing to accept (such amount needs to be reasonable, e.g. 100 USD is a bit extreme, but 300-500 USD seems reasonable) and during the development of the breakout strategy, you will have to implement this as a fixed amount from the very beginning of the whole process, i.e. in search and development of the breakout strategy.

Generally speaking, breakout strategies with small stop-loss are better to find on markets like YM and ES, especially on 15 minutes and 30 minutes timeframes. However, it takes much more patience - to find a strategy for small-stop loss is considerably more difficult (but not impossible). From my experience, sometimes it is worth it to take a tested and proven strategy and to try it on other markets with different stop-loss values. This way I have found, for instance, low values of stop-loss for the BOSS system (but for timeframes higher than 15 minutes). Generally, only one in approximately six of my breakout strategies is usable with small stop-loss. This only confirms the difficulty to search for this kind of strategy - but with an account of around 8000 - 10000 USD, I can imagine to have a portfolio with three such strategies and have a decent base for further growth.

Happy Trading!

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How to Trade the Market During the Summer When You Don't Trust the Price Action

There are few times during the year when trading is more frustrating than the summertime. The price action tends to be clipped and erratic and I generally lose any confidence that a move will follow through in a normal fashion. In short, traders tend to lose confidence in what are normally "automatic" setups because the market has trouble maintaining a consistent order flow in any direction. This loss of confidence in the market can make e-mini scalping a tenuous and exasperating time to trade.

To trade the summertime takes a change in your approach to trading; you need to become more selective in your trade choices and make a conscious attempt at scaling back the risk factor in each of your trades. In my experience, the market tends to slowly drift either long or short and then may spike one way or the other and then resume the slow drift. These are hardly optimal conditions for an e-mini scalper to trade, but with some forethought, you can make the best of the situation and post decent gains. Of course, my expectations for trading gains are lowered because of the adverse price action, but every now and then a highly profitable day can be had. In short, I tend to lose confidence that the market will show any follow-through on trades that can often be counted on to run in one direction.

Here are some of the techniques I employ while trading during the summer doldrums:

· Scale back your earning expectations so you aren't tempted to take lower probability trades which stand a higher chance of failure because of the erratic price action that often is part of summer trading. More to the point, I haven't hit many home runs during the summer months, but collecting a number of singles can be an effective trading technique.

· Scale back the number of contracts in your trading. This will help should you encounter some unexpected erratic price movement. Conservation of your trading capital should be more of a concern than high earnings.

· It is very difficult to find a trade that will run during the summer months, so you may want to take profits earlier than you might normally take. When you find yourself in profit be careful to manage the trade carefully and don't let the price backtrack and erase the profit.

· As I said earlier in this article, the price action tends to slow in velocity and the market tends to slowly drift higher or lower. Don't get caught in a drifting market on the wrong side of the trade. Exit a trade that slowly but surely moves against you to conserve capital. These slow drifts can last for quite some time and gradually take you right into your stop loss. Even the simplest trade can take 3 or 4 times longer to complete because of low volume. (If it is a low volume day)

I can't say that summer trading is a load of fun, but with some changes in your trading methodology and scaled back earnings expectations it can still be a moderately profitable time to trade.

The retail world is full of new "magic" programs that promise untold fortunes

with little or no effort. They generally don't work, which is an understatement.

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What Type Of Experience Do I Need To Have To Trade Binary Options?

People want to know what type of experience do you need to have to trade binary options. Simply, you predict if the market is going up or is it going down, and if you predict correctly, you will gain anywhere between 70%-90% profit. Easy, right? Because of the fast profits, and huge gains, binary options has a global audience wanting to cash in on all the action.

Every traders goal should be to capitalize on their returns. Implementing an effective strategy and applying straightforward techniques, will help to identify certain signals in the market that guide you in trading binary options. In order to do so, brokers will usually have demo accounts for you to practice trading.

1. Having A Strategy

Binary options trading can present several risk factors, and to decrease them, every successful trader has a master plan. Minimizing your risk is very important. As a new trader, it's highly recommend to focus on one asset. This will allow you to put your center of attention on building your strategy. Steadily trading will help you see the movement of your asset to help predict the direction and will become obvious.

2. Trend Strategy

This strategy is great for beginners. In your demo account, practice placing trades when you see a trend line forming. Basically, your asset is either going up or it's going down. Get comfortable placing your trades. For example, in demo mode, your broker might start you out with $10,000 to practice trading, but when you are ready to go live, you are going to start out with $1000. Practice using increments that our going to mirror your results with real money and see if you can profit. So if you start with $1000, then make sure your trades are between 2%-5% of your initial investment.

3. Straddle Strategy

During market volatility, traders can increase there chances for profit, but you need to keep your eye on the market to make great predictions. For example, the market has been declining, and it's about to go the other direction. Place your trade with a call option when it's down, and then when it is up, place your put option. This takes practice and is a strategy used by many.

Even though you don't need to have a degree in economics or have a license to trade binary options, you still need to practice your craft everyday. If this is something you are wanting to do, you need to take it serious. Do your research, practice on your demo account, and make realistic trades that reflect your trading when you go live.

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ANYONE CAN TRADE FOREX - STEP BY STEP LIVE TRADING

Bonds are an integral part of every Canadian's portfolio for good reason. Bonds carry the "promise" of fixed income with regular stable cash flows. But with interest rates hovering at all-time lows, the pressure to make every cent count has never been greater. Creating such exposure smartly can make all the difference in the returns.

A portfolio for the average Canadian probably contains fixed income securities, otherwise known as bonds. Bonds are particularly attractive to those investors at or near retirement as they look to replace their regular and stable salary with a similar certain stream of interest income.

Unfortunately purchasing bonds in Canada is not as easy or as cost effective as purchasing stocks. Unlike equities which trade on an open stock market exchange with fully transparent bid and ask prices, bonds in Canada have to be purchased through a 'dealer network' which effectively removes all the efficiency and transparency of a fully functional liquid market.

This is where it gets unpleasant for the retail investor. Compared to gigantic financial institutions who invest billions of dollars with pooled assets, it is extremely challenging for the retail investor to purchase a bond with the similar efficacy as these large behemoth financial institutions.

The only thing that might be worse than purchasing bonds through Canada's dealer network is purchasing a bond mutual fund. The average expense ratio on a Canadian bond mutual fund is close to 1.75%. In an interest rate environment where long term yields are hovering around 3.5%, that's like sharing my hamburger with a stranger and him taking half of it in one bite. I don't think so!

So how can the retail investor get the fixed income exposure with a handsome seniority and a tight bid ask spread? The average investor should consider Bond ETF's to create the fixed income exposure in their portfolios.

ETF's are managed by big financial institutions, and trade on any number of stock exchanges just like your favorite stock. The benefits to the average investor are numerous.

A bond ETF, is basically a bunch of different bonds bundled up in a portfolio and traded in the stock market. Unlike the individual bonds themselves, there is substantially more liquidity in bond ETFs, which makes for a tighter bid ask spread. Basically, investors can easily exit their position at any time without the cost of large transaction fees.

This advantage alone is all retail investors should need to convince themselves that bond ETFs are the most efficient way to gain exposure to the fixed income market. In addition, these Bond ETFs have huge amounts of assets under management and have superior purchasing power. For example, total assets under management for the major Canadian Bond ETFs is in excess of 2 trillion dollars. Guess what - that gives these ETF companies huge leverage in negotiating with the best bond issuers. Not only are they able to trade in and out of bonds at much better spreads than you or I could ever get, but they also have access to the best issuers.

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