交易手冊：新手應以停損單入場

Source: Beginners should enter with stop orders

Beginners should only enter with stop orders. He often waits for many bars before he finally finds a trade that he is confident will make him money. He very often then watches the market reverse quickly and stop him out, and it occurs to him that he would have made a profit had he done the exact opposite of his trade.

Over time, he comes to accept that it is important to respect the institution taking the other side of every trade because 40-60% of the time, that institution will win and he will lose. That is the nature of trading. During strong breakouts, the probability of continuation can be 70% or higher, but the stop is then far away.

Remember, there always has to be a reason for an institution to take the other side. If you have high probability, then it has a big reward relative to risk. Other than during strong breakouts, the probability that the market will move 10 ticks (or any number) up before going down 10 ticks is between 40 and 60% (「the 40 – 60 rule」). If he always goes for a reward that is at least twice as big as his risk, he will have a positive Trader’s Equation. This means that he will make money over time if he manages his trades correctly.

Either stop order market or limit order market

In general, traders should look at any market as either a stop entry type of market or a limit order type of market. Also, traders should assume that every limit order is the opposite side of a stop order. If you buy on a stop at one tick above the high of the prior bar, you should assume that the institution taking the other side entered with a limit order.

If you shorted with a limit order at the high of the prior bar, you should assume that the institution that bought the other side of your trade entered with a stop order. Obviously, you never know who took the other side of your trade or how or why they did, but it does not matter. As a trader, you should look at every breakout, even a breakout above or below the prior bar, as likely to succeed or fail.

The entry bar is the bar when you enter a trade and the signal bar is the bar before, which gives you a reason to enter. An ioi pattern and an ii pattern are also signals. Depending on their location, they can sometimes be breakout mode setups, which means that traders will be willing to buy a breakout above or sell a breakout below the patterns.

Beginners should stick to entering with stop orders because the market is then going their way for at least one tick. However, more experienced traders recognize that there are times (like the area in red where the market is in a tight trading range and weak bear channel) when limit orders are more profitable.

They will then switch and buy below bars in the bottom half of a range or channel and scale in lower for scalps, and they will also sell with limit orders above bars in the top half of the range or channel and scale in higher for scalps.

Need to structure sensible trade

Once you have an opinion, if you can structure a trade that makes sense, then you can take the trade. For example, if there is a small bull flag at the top of a trading range, you know that most breakouts fail, and therefore the probability is that the sellers will overpower the buyers at the high of the prior bar.

This means that you can consider shorting with a limit order at the high of the prior bar. A bull might be willing to buy with a stop order above that bar, taking the opposite side of your trade. However, he knows that the probability of his trade is small. He is willing to take it because he also knows that if the breakout succeeds, the rally might go for at least a measured move up, based on the height of the trading range.

The result is that he took a low probability trade (one where he knew that he would probably lose), but since the reward was so much greater than the risk, he knew that the math was still good for him.

Beginning traders should enter with stop orders, for example, buying one tick above the high of the signal bar on a stop.

High probability is easier to manage

Although the math is good for either side of the trade, high probability trades are easier to manage. This is because low probability trades often look bad for many bars after entry, and the trader is constantly tempted to exit. If he exits too many before they reach their targets, he will not get those infrequent big wins that are needed to offset his frequent small losses, and he will lose money.

The high probability side is easier to manage because, by definition, you will probably make money on every trade. This means that you can mess up occasional trades and still end up profitable over time. This obviously sounds great, but it is not easy.

Remember, there has to be something in it for the other side. If you get high probability, he gets big reward relative to risk. This means that you get small reward relative to your risk. In the EURUSD, if you are buying a strong breakout on the 5 minute chart and you enter on the fourth bar of the breakout, your stop is below the low of this four bar rally, which might be 50 pips (ticks) away.

Also, since you are entering late, the profit that remains in the trade is less, and your reward might be only as big as your risk, instead of two or more times greater than your risk. Some traders prefer high probability trades, and that is mostly due to their personalities. Since they are going for high probability, the reward is small, and they are therefore scalpers.

Most traders swing trade and scalp

The best scalpers can win on 90% of their trades. However, most successful traders cannot trade this intensely long term and prefer to take trades where the reward is at least twice as big as the risk. This means that they win about 40% of the time. Their initial stops might get hit about 40% of the time, and the rest of the trades are small losers and winners that mostly offset each other. Since the reward is at least twice the risk, they have a solid mathematical approach to trading.

This is the type of approach that most traders should use. In general most of their entries should be with stops, buying at one tick above the high of the prior bar and putting a protective stop one tick below the bar, or shorting at one tick below the low of the prior bar and putting the protective stop one tick above that bar.

I always want to see how the market responds when it reaches support and resistance areas, and I devote a lot of time in the course explaining how to spot the areas that the institutional computers will calculate as potential support and resistance. In the example below, I highlighted several by drawing lines on the chart.. Traders will take partial or full profits around support and resistance orders and it is therefore important to know where they are.

I think that one of the most important skills to develop is the ability to assess the strength of buying and selling pressure. The highest probability trades usually occur during breakouts, and if you can learn how to determine the strength of a breakout and the likelihood of the trend continuing, you are giving yourself a strong edge.

For example, below is the same chart, but with green circles highlighting reasonable long entries on the close of bars and red circles highlight closes that are reasonable shorts as soon as the bar closes.