Bob Volman Price Action Scalping

I just Bought Bob Volman's Book

Hi Guys!

I am a full-time forex swing trader, but I never used 5 minute charts before.

I just bought Bob Volman's book called "Understanding Price Action: practical analysis of the 5-minute time frame," after stumbling upon it while relaxing and looking up and studying fundamental analysis on the currency market, my weekly routine.

I am very interested trading lower time frame charts. I normally wait days for trades......weeks sometimes, but it works. It would be nice to add smaller set ups while waiting for the swings to work out.

Is it really true that you can trade 5 minute charts with Forex? How many pips do you normally extract from the market? 7 pips or 15 pips in one trade?


I am waiting for Bob's book to come in the mail. So, in the mean time.... I have nothing to do but read this.

Update: I went back to the beginning and read some of the pages, but I hope I do not have to use tick data. I've never used that before. It will be another world. Do they work the same as candles and bar charts?

Also, I use TradingView to trade and currently have Oanda and Interactive Brokers as my brokers (I like them both).
:idea:
 
My opinion is that you will be much better off trading his first book. You bought the wrong book maybe you can cancel and change to the 1st book. or just refuse delivery and send it back for the 1st book. you will be fine with 70 tick bars. they look just like any other bar. you can use candlestick bars of 70 tick bars. I have both books and only the 1st one is really tradable. that is why no one talks about book 2. it is not really tradable. It never gives any trades. forget it.

Just my opinion. Your opinion may vary.

Ninja Trader is free and will do the bars for you if TradingView does not do tick bars. Ninja Trader 8 is due out any moment now. it was suppose to be out the first 2 weeks of January. so it is now a little late. it may even be available now.
 
Jingles said:
My opinion is that you will be much better off trading his first book. You bought the wrong book maybe you can cancel and change to the 1st book. or just refuse delivery and send it back for the 1st book. you will be fine with 70 tick bars. they look just like any other bar. you can use candlestick bars of 70 tick bars. I have both books and only the 1st one is really tradable. that is why no one talks about book 2. it is not really tradable. It never gives any trades. forget it.

Just my opinion. Your opinion may vary.

Ninja Trader is free and will do the bars for you if TradingView does not do tick bars. Ninja Trader 8 is due out any moment now. it was suppose to be out the first 2 weeks of January. so it is now a little late. it may even be available now.
Click to expand...


Hi! thank you for your reply. Well, I just bought the other one called "Forex Price Action Scalping: an in-depth look into the field of professional scalping."

So, I will read both of them. how about that? :D
 
PipBarbarian said:
Hi! thank you for your reply. Well, I just bought the other one called "Forex Price Action Scalping: an in-depth look into the field of professional scalping."

So, I will read both of them. how about that? :D
Click to expand...

I think both books are great REGARDLESS of the time frame OR instrument you trade, I find the concepts apply just as well to tick and minute charts. I use Bob Volman's ideas from both books to day trade the stock indexes for example.

Tick charts work well during session opens and closes, as well as volatile markets because they make the volatility easier to parse. But minute bars are just as fine.

In the end you're going to have to take Bob's ideas and apply them to whatever market/timeframe you trade. Bob says it best in Forex PA Scalping: "Even when taking a serious liking to the method offered in this work, the necessity of countless hours of studying, testing and verifying on historical as well as current charts should be taken to heart."

The biggest mistake I made when reading the first book was to simply read it once and then start trading. At that time the currency market was not really trending, so some of the trend continuation setups were failing. Volman points out in his second book that during low volatility periods you should focus on breakouts more and be a bit faster with your take profits.

Somewhere else Bob mentions that you have to look at "hundreds, perhaps even thousands of charts" in order to get a proper feel for things. A thousand charts is 4 years of market data, a decent sample of several market regimes (though many argue that 10 years is really the most appropriate sample size).

So don't let anyone get you into this idea that you 'have to trade off a 70 tick chart' or anything else. Once you start studying the price action principles you will find how they apply no matter how you trade.
 
Hello guys! I have just discovered this thread and I´m so happy about this! I read Bob Volman´s first book and it seems to be very interesting. I think I´m going to be a regular guest here :D How are u doing with this method? I have to read the whole thread, so I can start to post as soon as possible!:smart:

Cheers

Andy
 
I have one more question =) I´m watching through bob´s charts of the last 3 weeks and noticed that he took about 45 profitable trades. It´s just amazing! So my question is. Does anyone do nearly as good as bob does? I See that BLS is here from the beginning and I´m very interested how u are doing? How many trades do u have per week? How many of them are profitable? Sorry if I´m too personal, just very curious and trying to get some motivation to study the charts haha.

Cheers

Andy
 
andy-gandi said:
I have one more question =) I´m watching through bob´s charts of the last 3 weeks and noticed that he took about 45 profitable trades. It´s just amazing! So my question is. Does anyone do nearly as good as bob does? I See that BLS is here from the beginning and I´m very interested how u are doing? How many trades do u have per week? How many of them are profitable? Sorry if I´m too personal, just very curious and trying to get some motivation to study the charts haha.

Cheers

Andy
Click to expand...

The issue Andy is that Bob does not really have a totally stand alone trading system per se, rather they are ideas that once you've tested them can be a backbone to your own trading system. The charts he posts are merely his view on the market given his technical guidelines that do, by the way, evolve if you look at all the charts. Also, keep in mind he does not say "I took this trade", he just offers you his analysis. It may be very well that he took those trades, and also took some that he did not mark on the chart.

I find Bob's ideas to lead to profitable trading setups that work for me (I trade stock indeces), but I also combine his ideas with some other concepts that work together well. The more you study technical trading the more you realize the ideas are fairly similar, it is simply a matter of applying them in a way that works with the given market environment, the use (or not) of certain tools of analysis, and your own personality. So even if I told you that I make X per month or year trading Bob's ideas, it's not accurate because you could never reproduce what I do 1:1, just like you can't reproduce exactly what Bob does.

If this was a system that could be entirely quantified and programmed, it would be a different matter. Even then, you could adjust it any number of ways and achieve different performance depending on market conditions.

My suggestion is to study Bob's concepts and then build your own method around his ideas based on your extensive research of many, many, many charts (and Bob's charts will be a help to develop your eye). As Bob says, you have to make this methodology your own, and that can only be achieved by repeated study of the charts of the market and time frame you trade as well as re-reading the book. I also suggest you get his second book, it works upon similar themes but introduces some more ideas.

In the end if you're a discretionary trader you end up developing your own style, the key is you know that it works by having done lots of market study and traded it live in current market conditions.
 
TonyIommich said:
The issue Andy is that Bob does not really have a totally stand alone trading system per se, rather they are ideas that once you've tested them can be a backbone to your own trading system. The charts he posts are merely his view on the market given his technical guidelines that do, by the way, evolve if you look at all the charts. Also, keep in mind he does not say "I took this trade", he just offers you his analysis. It may be very well that he took those trades, and also took some that he did not mark on the chart.

I find Bob's ideas to lead to profitable trading setups that work for me (I trade stock indeces), but I also combine his ideas with some other concepts that work together well. The more you study technical trading the more you realize the ideas are fairly similar, it is simply a matter of applying them in a way that works with the given market environment, the use (or not) of certain tools of analysis, and your own personality. So even if I told you that I make X per month or year trading Bob's ideas, it's not accurate because you could never reproduce what I do 1:1, just like you can't reproduce exactly what Bob does.

If this was a system that could be entirely quantified and programmed, it would be a different matter. Even then, you could adjust it any number of ways and achieve different performance depending on market conditions.

My suggestion is to study Bob's concepts and then build your own method around his ideas based on your extensive research of many, many, many charts (and Bob's charts will be a help to develop your eye). As Bob says, you have to make this methodology your own, and that can only be achieved by repeated study of the charts of the market and time frame you trade as well as re-reading the book. I also suggest you get his second book, it works upon similar themes but introduces some more ideas.

In the end if you're a discretionary trader you end up developing your own style, the key is you know that it works by having done lots of market study and traded it live in current market conditions.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your extensive answer! I know what you mean, because I have already 7 years experience of trading, but only on higher timeframes. I trade a strategy that I learned in another forum and after some time I also adjusted it to my style, so its a very similar situation. All the patterns from Bob aren´t new for me. flags, S&S, W- and M-pattern etc. But scalping is a little bit differnt. It happens very quickly and you don´t have much time to analyse a possible setup. On the other hand you may get some more opportunities every day and this is what makes scalping very attractive to me. So I just have to study the charts and test the ideas on a small account. I already read his second book, but I like the first much more. It´s more detailed and I start to like the tick-charts, because they aren´t based on time but ruther on volume. So thanks for your help again! I have a long way ahead and I will do my best to master it! I´m also very happy that here are soooo many charts with bob`s analysis. It will help me a lot! :smart::smart:

cheers
 
andy-gandi said:
On the other hand you may get some more opportunities every day and this is what makes scalping very attractive to me. So I just have to study the charts and test the ideas on a small account. I already read his second book, but I like the first much more. It´s more detailed and I start to like the tick-charts, because they aren´t based on time but ruther on volume.
Click to expand...

When you study the charts you'll get a good feel for how many opportunities come up, but as with anything there will be some high and dry times, esp. in the FX market. You have to ask yourself if its worth it to spend all that time in front of the screen because there will be cases where you may be lucky to get one good setup a day (and that is the entire span of the session which Bob trades on the tick, from the EUR open to the NY close).

Somewhere back in this thread I did a tabulation of how many opportunities a day Bob had on his 5 minute setups in EUR/USD based off his second book's charts, and someone else (toward the very beginning of this thread) did a calculation of how many setups Bob had on average in his initial chart postings off the 70 tick. It seems that much of the time, the meat happens in the European open and first few hrs thereafter with FX.

So whatever time zone you are located in you will have the best success most likely if you trade that time period, esp. with the 5 minute setups (you get a bit over 1 conservative setup a day on average, but if you just traded the NY-European overlap session off the 5 minute you got like 1 setup a week). This is especially the case during quiet markets.

Otherwise you may want to look into adapting the method to stock indexes (be it futures, etfs, options, cfds, etc). That is what I ended up doing because I just find that FX is really not that jumpy as when I started looking at it in 2009. Bob's method works particularly nicely with setting up breakouts or reversal IRB type trades in the PM session, with the AM session the market tends to make more angular moves that are tougher to trade using Bob's pattern breakout method, although if you use overnight data (which I highly suggest when using Bob's method) it can provide some great ideas there too.

Regarding tick charts, I am a big fan of them when markets are volatile, like around the open and close. But they are not strictly necessary, you can just switch to a faster time frame during the more volatile hrs and then pop to a higher time frame when things slow down (e.g. 1 minute and 3 minute, or whatever works for you).

Anyway, good luck!
 
TonyIommich said:
When you study the charts you'll get a good feel for how many opportunities come up, but as with anything there will be some high and dry times, esp. in the FX market. You have to ask yourself if its worth it to spend all that time in front of the screen because there will be cases where you may be lucky to get one good setup a day (and that is the entire span of the session which Bob trades on the tick, from the EUR open to the NY close).

Somewhere back in this thread I did a tabulation of how many opportunities a day Bob had on his 5 minute setups in EUR/USD based off his second book's charts, and someone else (toward the very beginning of this thread) did a calculation of how many setups Bob had on average in his initial chart postings off the 70 tick. It seems that much of the time, the meat happens in the European open and first few hrs thereafter with FX.

So whatever time zone you are located in you will have the best success most likely if you trade that time period, esp. with the 5 minute setups (you get a bit over 1 conservative setup a day on average, but if you just traded the NY-European overlap session off the 5 minute you got like 1 setup a week). This is especially the case during quiet markets.

Otherwise you may want to look into adapting the method to stock indexes (be it futures, etfs, options, cfds, etc). That is what I ended up doing because I just find that FX is really not that jumpy as when I started looking at it in 2009. Bob's method works particularly nicely with setting up breakouts or reversal IRB type trades in the PM session, with the AM session the market tends to make more angular moves that are tougher to trade using Bob's pattern breakout method, although if you use overnight data (which I highly suggest when using Bob's method) it can provide some great ideas there too.

Regarding tick charts, I am a big fan of them when markets are volatile, like around the open and close. But they are not strictly necessary, you can just switch to a faster time frame during the more volatile hrs and then pop to a higher time frame when things slow down (e.g. 1 minute and 3 minute, or whatever works for you).

Anyway, good luck!
Click to expand...

Yeah. I bought his second book 4 months ago and tested it some time and like u said, I had maybe 1-2 trades per day and the best ones came in UK morning session. So I decided to buy the first book and try it. Also I heard a lot good things about this. I live in Germany and can easily trade in the UK morning session and I dont have to spend all day in front of the screen. I don´t expect 10 trades per day. 1-2 profitable trades per day are all I need. They are enough to make you rich in the long term. What I didn´t like on the 5-minutes chart was, that if my first trade was good, so I felt good, but if the first trade was a loser, so often it was hard to cover the loss at the same day. I think I have more chances to do it on 70-tick chart. Thanks again for your help!
 
Here is a nice trade that I took a couple of minutes ago. Nice breakout of the range :clap:
nice range, nice build up and the RN magnet, trend was also up
 

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andy-gandi said:
What I didn´t like on the 5-minutes chart was, that if my first trade was good, so I felt good, but if the first trade was a loser, so often it was hard to cover the loss at the same day. I think I have more chances to do it on 70-tick chart. Thanks again for your help!
Click to expand...

I would argue that regardless what chart you trade, you should never think in terms of 'profitable for the day' because that is the road to problems. I know, I've been there myself. The big problem with day trading is that there is a big risk of over-trading and if you're not used to that, smaller time frames can be an invitation to problems. The best time to make money is in the most liquid hours, and as time moves on in the session the chances of a good move decrease, yet if you're upset over a loser earlier your judgement becomes more impaired and you feel an urge to trade.

The only traders IMHO who can look at their daily performance seriously are those who have strategies that offer 10 setups a day or more (super-scalper types).

Also, you need to consider that with a smaller chart, your targets are smaller and thus your commissions will eat more into your bottom line. This does add up to some serious coin if you do the math.
 
TonyIommich said:
I would argue that regardless what chart you trade, you should never think in terms of 'profitable for the day' because that is the road to problems. I know, I've been there myself. The big problem with day trading is that there is a big risk of over-trading and if you're not used to that, smaller time frames can be an invitation to problems. The best time to make money is in the most liquid hours, and as time moves on in the session the chances of a good move decrease, yet if you're upset over a loser earlier your judgement becomes more impaired and you feel an urge to trade.

The only traders IMHO who can look at their daily performance seriously are those who have strategies that offer 10 setups a day or more (super-scalper types).

Also, you need to consider that with a smaller chart, your targets are smaller and thus your commissions will eat more into your bottom line. This does add up to some serious coin if you do the math.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know this problem. I have tried to scalp some years ago. I had the same problem every single day. Overtrading can kill one´s account. It´s not a problem if I would get some loser days, it´s completely normal, but I think it´s still possible to bring them to the minimum with this kind of trading.

Of course you have to pay spreads and commisions, but I don´t think it´s a big problem. They both are already included in my risk, and TP ist most of the time bigger than SL+spread+commisions. I trade with IC markets and Spread + commisions are together still less than 1 pip.

In my opinion the biggest problem in scalping is the psychology. Like you said there is a risk of overtrading. Once you´re in a loser position, you want to cover your losses as fast as possible, but you have to stay disciplined. It´s business not a hobby.
 
guys what do u think about my last chart? seems to be under the rules. ok 20 min later were news, but still enough time till then.
 
Hello photize

Thanks for this information.
I was desperately looking for tick chart without paying too much.
I read your post also on "wallstreet2easystreet.com".
Did you purchased your tick bar licence or you are still using the 2 weeks free evaluation?

Thanks
Merka
 
Low forex spread broker

Hello guys

do you know any low forex spread broker to suggest?
Bob Volman suggests to find broker with 1 or 2 pip spread but till now I did't find any of them.

Thanks
 
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