My Day Trading/Scalping Routine

My Day Trading/Scalping Routine

The world of currencies is a meticulously planned field. The markets are not random, there are cycles, patterns, structures, waves, etc. Understanding this, devolving strategies and planning trades around market behavioral patterns is what makes the difference between the top 5% that are successful and the 95% crowd. One group’s trading is random while the others is well planned with well crafted strategies, trading routine, and a professional approach that ensures their success in the markets.

 

Losses are inevitable and happen to all, however losers lose even with a high win rate while winners win even with a low win rate. Why? success doesn’t just happen, its planned. Of course the only exception to this is the lottery

 

Someone asked me about my approach to the markets on any given day. I decided to take them through a brief routine particularly focused on my scalping and day trading approach. Of course i have other trading methods that take a swing trading approach but this time I wanted one where one could find opportunities on a daily basis

 

First things first, and this is uncompromisable, is the fundamental factors affecting the market on any particular day. There will always be events that impact the market in some way on any given day.

 

 

This is usually the norm. But there’s the exception which is just occasional or odd – the bank holidays, when the markets especially pairs related to economies with bank holidays are mostly quiet with virtually no volatility.

 

 

On such days, many a time the markets will be ranging. As such it might not be the wisest of decisions taking trades as a day trader or scalper since such trading styles thrive on volatility, unless you’re focusing on currency pairs that are completely unrelated to such economies with bank holidays.

 

Back to the fundamental factors or commonly referred to as news events;  their impact is categorised as Low, Medium or intermediate, and High depending on how strongly they move the market prices.  My main focus is on the High impact news events. My primary source of such news is the Bloomberg channel and the Forex Factory economic calendar. Occasionally I will check out Investing.com, DailyFX , and Fxstreet.com economic calendars to see if a news event is categorised the same on all the four news calendar sites. I came to this after realising certain events classed as ‘medium impact’ on forex factory would sometimes create extreme volatility in the markets as strongly as those regarded as High impact, and hence the need for a second and third opinion. But just one of those calendars, especially Forex Factory should suffice

 

Then also, for my fundamental analysis, I will check and analyze the Commitment of Traders report (COT data) to give me a general picture of where the big money players are headed. It’s not too far fetched to say the News is always factored into the COT data report. You can read my in-depth comprehensive teaching on the Commitment of Traders here

 

Once I’m done with the fundamental aspect, I will then focus on to the technical trading aspect, but biased by the fundamentals.

 

 

 

You usually need the two telling the same thing for the closest to a ‘perfect’ trading scenario you can get if there’s any such thing as perfect in trading in the context of results, otherwise the only perfect trading there is is one of execution and management according to one’s playbook and trading plan

 

When doing my technical analysis, I take a top-down approach. The higher time frames are stronger than the lower ones and so the higher timeframes will control my directional bias for either the session or the day – depending on whether I’m scalping or day trading.

 

 

The monthly, weekly and Daily timeframes will determine the direction my trading will take during the session when longing or shorting, 4hr will determine my session bias, the 1hr will map out short-term areas of threat against the higher time frame direction, while the 30minutes and 15minutes timeframes are for snipper execution

 

 

I will analyze price behavior and patterns, and dissect the market structure. whilst doing this, at the back of my mind I’m minding the time of day as I’m interested in high volatility times, and hence session focus is important to me. The biggest trading volumes come arounds London and New York session. My best trading window is an hour or two both pre and post market session open for both London and New York sessions. Of course there the COMEX factor (NYSE open) that further spices up the New York volume.

 

 

 

 

I take a top-down look,  analyzing the Weekly, Daily, 4hour, 1hour, 30minutes, and 15minutes timeframes. In doing this I’m checking for trends and direction, session bias, market structure and patterns. This is very detailed and can be accessed in my training course and mentorship program.

 

 

I then look at the 4hr for my session bias. Talking of session, I focus almost exclusively on the London and New York/NYSE sessions. And even then, preference is on a given time window during these sessions. This is usually from an hour or two before London open to an hour or two after the open. This means some hours of the European session (Frankfurt open) are captured within this time window. The rationale behind this is of course catching the earliest and highest volume coming into the market because as a scalper you thrive on momentum and volume, and as a day trader you want in and out quickly to call it a day and go focus on other areas of life that help improve your life and trading experience.

 

Remember I quit my fulltime employment as a banker several years ago to focus on trading for freedom, and so there’s no need for me sitting Infront of a computer screen the entire day for that defeats my purpose as it makes me a slave to the markets as a fulltime employee to it. I like it parttime – 2 to 3 hours of trading daily. – that’s it!

 

Back to the charts, for session bias I will look at the four hour timeframe. Once the bias is determined, I will then zoom in to the one hourly, to see if the market structure is lining with the session bias and the market direction of the higher timeframes

 

Once that is done, I will drop further down to the 30minutes timeframe for setups and 15mins for a microscopic view of the markets.

 

Once that is done, its now about patience waiting for the market to come to me. I will sit on my hands waiting for the right setups for my execution. I have different setups graded as A+, A, B and C setups. The grading is determined by the win rate of the setups based on their probability to win. My main focus for trading are the ‘A+’ and ‘A’ book setups.

 

I will then take 1 or 2 trades and call it a day. Many times, not to mean always though, I’m done trading within the first or second hour of trading, which is pre-London open or 1hr after London open. My trading is hinged on two important aspects –  Discipline and Patience – the two fundamental ingredients for successful trading.

 

Once this is done, my trading plan comes into play. I will play the waiting game, looking out for setups that fit my plan and suit my trading criteria. The rests is patience for the right setups, discipline in execution, as well as risk and trade management

 

Godfrey Kakulu

Your Forex Trading Coach and Mentor

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Godfrey Kakulu

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