This is a Pin Bar trade that closed out this past week. I'll break it down so you can see how I traded it and what I learned from it.
Before We Start:
- This is for educational use only, it is not trading advice.
- Just because this trade worked out, it does not mean that all trades with this strategy will work out.
- You need to backtest any technical trading method before you ever trade it with real money.
- The standard Trading Heroes risk disclaimer always applies.
Now that we have that out of the way, here's the trade. If you want to see charts, they are provided after the video.
The Setup
This was a standard Pin Bar setup. I got an alert on my iPhone that looked like this.
…and my battery was running low.
You can buy this alert indicator for MT4 here.
Having an alert indicator like this makes it much easier to stay on top of opportunities. In my opinion, it's all about Incremental Automation. Most people cannot be in front of their computer all the time, myself included.
The Entry
I traded the GBPCAD off the 4 hour chart.
I actually entered this trade a little late. The Pin Bar printed near a former support level, turned resistance. I was also a long Pin Bar, relative to the previous bars. You can see this level at the left of this chart. I still decided to enter because I felt that there was enough room to make at least 1R.
The lines on the chart are as follows:
- Red: Stop Loss
- Blue: Entry
- Green: 1st Profit Target
The entry parameters are as follows:
- Risk: 0.5%
- Positions:
- 1st: 1R target, 80% of total position
- 2nd: no profit target, move stops as price moves in positive direction, 20% of total position
Trade Results
Once the trade was about 45 pips up, I moved the stop loss to +5 pips on both positions to make it a free trade. Price action looked choppy and with another bullish Pin Bar printing, I felt it was time to make sure I didn't lose anything.
The bullish Pin Bar didn't actually trigger the take profit because of the spread.
Price hit my first profit target and I bagged 132.5 pips, which was automatically tweeted out.
Closed Sell $GBPCAD 1.83831 for +132.5 pips, total for today +132.5 pips << https://t.co/FeiQErpBtN #TFALchallenge
— Hugh Kimura (@TradingHeroes) April 29, 2016
Then price snapped back and hit the +5 pip stop loss on my second position. The actual gain was +4.7 pips.
Closed Sell $GBPCAD 1.83831 for +4.7 pips, total for today +137.2 pips << https://t.co/FeiQEr80Cf #TFALchallenge
— Hugh Kimura (@TradingHeroes) April 29, 2016
Here is how price played out on the chart. Hit the “play” button to scroll the chart forward.
You can see more of my charts on TradingView.
The Final Result From MyFxBook is as Follows:
It was a total gain of 0.4% on the account or $3.59 in this small trading account.
I hope that this shows you that you can trade safely, even with a small account. It's all about using nano lots.
Post Trade Analysis
This was a good trade. I entered a lot later than I wanted to, but sometimes it cannot be helped. In this case, I was running an errand and could not sit down to analyze the alert signal properly.
Moving the stop to +5 pips was a good move because I was surfing in Hawaii when the trade closed. If didn't do that, I might have taken a loss on the second position, if price spiked higher.
Here's a short clip from Hawaii…
Learn Pin Bar Trading
Traders trade pin bars differently. It is up to you to backtest and find out what works the best for you.
If you want to learn some specific strategies that professional traders use, I recommend checking out:
- Walter Peters – Naked Forex Book
- Chris Capre – Advanced Price Action Course
Do you have any questions about this trade? Let me know in the comments below…
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