Newbie question... Candlesticks and Price action

[magisana]

Can someone tell me is there a difference, probably a stupid question, but are they the same thing or different... Aren't candlesticks just PA?? I am confused...

What about chart patterns, are they focused on using Candlestick or both bars and candlesticks...

Also another thing... support and resistance..
Say the price has been moving up (4hr just for eg) so your in a up trend. Is a breakout strategy when price moves above a level of previous support/resistance? How do you establish your exact entries? I am starting to recognise different patterns, but I don't really know how I am supposed to judge my entries and how long to hold the position for until profit. Do I wait for a pull back before entering...
Can someone please recommend a book on this so I can get the clarfication I need.
Also I am not fussed on having various MA all over my prices as I find it to hard so I want to focus on maybe only a couple of indicators for confirmation, but mainly use PA ... Anyone doing this?

 

[Ricex]

WOW!!! a newbie asking about price action! fantastic..... are you sure your not after a price action robot?......

There are many books and many more opinions on which are good or bad. Try having a look here, Steve Nison has written some interesting stuff :Amazon.com: Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques

I'll try to answer your questions soon if nobody else finds the time...... I must try and sleep......

 

[magisana]

thanks for the imput and no I am not a pa robot, lol! I have just tried some indicators and found no success with them. I am trying to find my way and so far I have discovered the PA matters as does Support and Resistance and there seem to be many ways of looking at these. For example I've seen people using various MA for support and resistance, I've noticed Fib's are used for support and resistance... personally I think I just like to use trendlines and horizontal lines as I can already see those area's... I am really struggling with my entries and the best method of confirming this... any advice I would really appreciate.

 

[Eric Alyea]

See ya when you wake up and have a smoke.

Shucks Rice, ask a good question get a good answer.
It doesn't get better than that.
See ya when you wake up and have a smoke.

 

[Ricex]

Hi guys,
so price action what is it? well again you'll probably find a million and one different answers, so here's the one million and second..... take it or leave it....

Open up a tick chart of any currency and there you will see pure price action, this movement of price is the heart and soul, the essence if you will of forex and an understanding of that visual trace of buyers and sellers behaviour is all you need.

In this arena we are but dust, we have no influence, we do not make the tick go up or down. We are are the parasites who hitch a ride with the elephants..... lol

Ok, so this price action now needs to make some sense so we can make some money. This is where a lot of people bail out and start looking for miracles because this part needs to be worked at, and it is not easy and it will take time. What we need to learn to recognise are the patterns that repeat over and over again in these markets, you can use bars, candlesticks whatever you feel comfortable with. There are many kinds of patterns, I recommend that you keep it simple and study 2-3 really obvious ones that again you feel comfortable with and that you can consistently recognise.... and then you need to go find yourself an elephant!

It's the big boys who change the price so we now need to align our knowledge of chart patterns with the times of day when there is volume and movement in your currency, when the elephants are on the move! Without volume your just wasting time.

You ask about S/R which of course is very important because everybody uses it,and the more people that use it the more effective it becomes, Fibonacci is the same. Trendlines also very important tool, although you have to know how to draw them correctly for it to work. I personally do use MA's in some of my trading, I like them, I know not everybody does, it depends on how you use them and on what time frames.

Keep your charts clean and uncluttered so you can clearly see whats going on, and never try to swim upstream.

If you want me to clarify anything I will try.....

 

[D-Trader]

You need experience. You will get it by asking questions, reading books & aricles, watching carefully charts. You will get many answers and you will get many good ideas and chart reading techniques by reading books and articles. But main thing is experience. You cannot be a master by asking questions and reading books. You need practice. This will bring you experience and you need hard work on it. Forex trading is not too easy as it is. Watch the display how prices going up and down and put questions to himself why it is so and search for answer.

 

[forexsolutions01]

hi magisana,

this is a good question. as you are new in forex trading. i will help you definitely. firstly i want to tel that forex trading is not so easy as people think. but you don't worry i will help you at every step. firstly you need to understand the charts which are being created with the help of excel via meta trader 4. this will make your task easy and dont go with scripting languages . it may occurs so many problems to you. take your step rest of step will b easy come 2 ur mind


All the best!!!!!

Regards,
Ivan

 

[cowmadagan]

You need experience. You will get it by asking questions, reading books & aricles, watching carefully charts. You will get many answers and you will get many good ideas and chart reading techniques by reading books and articles. But main thing is experience. You cannot be a master by asking questions and reading books. You need practice. This will bring you experience and you need hard work on it. Forex trading is not too easy as it is. Watch the display how prices going up and down and put questions to himself why it is so and search for answer.

your interpretation of the word 'experience' seems to differ from mine, or at least is unclear.
Experience paired with what shrinks call 'egoic projections' won't help. What I mean by
'egoic projections' are when some one sees what they want to see, and not what's there.
Two examples:
1. If interest rates go up, that currency will go up...and if they don't then 'something weird happened.'
2. The Dec. 4 2009 Non Farm Payroll Report and its effect on the Euro.

The retort for number one is that nothing in the market happens without a reason, but sometimes it didn't happen for the reason the news tells you...I've spent some time as a '1 min, 5 min, 10 min, 30 min, 1 hr' chart trader (that means fast) and I've been able to see the proof that many news reports are pre-written and obsolete by the time they're published..that's why I'm sure. This means that if you go off of too simple of a generalization for forex market activity, you'll lose out (without patience and money management).
My point for number two is that it was one of the few instances where you could pinpoint a substantial change in cause-effect tendencies in the market. (For posterity, for '09 it was good US news means bad USD, bad US news means good USD)
If you held the opinion that...'No...good US economy, good EUR..so this is just a phase'...you'd either have to wait and be seriously bankrolled and unexposed, or you'd lose big time on the drop of about seven big figures.