Using higher time frames for hunting reversals
I've been looking at how to spot the good opportunities, and longer term opportunities and whilst I imagine a lot of people out there know this, it's taking me a minute to get my head around it all.
What I've started doing is watching the higher time frame charts, 30min & 1hr, and using the EMA - MA crossover created by Hpotter. The good thing about this is that it changes the candles from all green when in a bullish trend to all red when in a bearish trend.
So what I've done is, wait for the first 30min or 1hr candle to change colour and close, go from red to green or green to red and then drop down to a lower time frame, usually 5min, but sometimes 15 depending.
If the candle on the higher time frame changed from green to red, what you are now looking for is the next setup for a short using the MACD and EMA - MA crossover. In the 5 minute chart, the conditions would then be, price action below the 200MA, crossover of MACD and Signal line above the zero line heading down, and the last piece of the puzzle, candles on the shorter time frame changing from green to red AFTER all the other conditions have been met.
For a long it's all the other way round.
Higher time frame candles closes green from being red before, drop down to the lower time frame, MACD crosses signal line below the zero line heading up, Price action is above the 200MA, and finally the next candles changing from red to green to show bullish move.
What I've also found interesting in doing this is that when you have your setup sorted, Stop loss at the MA of the EMA -MA crossover or 2x ATR, which ever your more comfortable with, when the price action hits your target of 1.5xR, I then let the rest run, because we started this set up on the 1hr timeframe, it tends to be a long run but can mean that you capture the larger swing rather than the smaller moves on the lower timeframe.
Last piece of advice would be to obviously move your stop loss from it's original position to your break even point once you've got a candle thats opened and closed above the 1.5xR threshold, so that whatever happens next you're stop loss doesn't eat up the profit you made but the rest can run until everything crosses back over on the 30min or 1hr chart.
Using this method while backtesting turned what would have been a $200 day into a $1,500 day with a lot less work.
What I've started doing is watching the higher time frame charts, 30min & 1hr, and using the EMA - MA crossover created by Hpotter. The good thing about this is that it changes the candles from all green when in a bullish trend to all red when in a bearish trend.
So what I've done is, wait for the first 30min or 1hr candle to change colour and close, go from red to green or green to red and then drop down to a lower time frame, usually 5min, but sometimes 15 depending.
If the candle on the higher time frame changed from green to red, what you are now looking for is the next setup for a short using the MACD and EMA - MA crossover. In the 5 minute chart, the conditions would then be, price action below the 200MA, crossover of MACD and Signal line above the zero line heading down, and the last piece of the puzzle, candles on the shorter time frame changing from green to red AFTER all the other conditions have been met.
For a long it's all the other way round.
Higher time frame candles closes green from being red before, drop down to the lower time frame, MACD crosses signal line below the zero line heading up, Price action is above the 200MA, and finally the next candles changing from red to green to show bullish move.
What I've also found interesting in doing this is that when you have your setup sorted, Stop loss at the MA of the EMA -MA crossover or 2x ATR, which ever your more comfortable with, when the price action hits your target of 1.5xR, I then let the rest run, because we started this set up on the 1hr timeframe, it tends to be a long run but can mean that you capture the larger swing rather than the smaller moves on the lower timeframe.
Last piece of advice would be to obviously move your stop loss from it's original position to your break even point once you've got a candle thats opened and closed above the 1.5xR threshold, so that whatever happens next you're stop loss doesn't eat up the profit you made but the rest can run until everything crosses back over on the 30min or 1hr chart.
Using this method while backtesting turned what would have been a $200 day into a $1,500 day with a lot less work.
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