Price action trading

Overview

Price action trading is about reading what the market is doing, so you can deploy the right trading strategy to reap the maximum benefits. In simple words, price action is a trading technique in which a trader reads the market and makes subjective trading decisions based on the price movements, rather than relying on technical indicators or other factors. At its most simplistic, it attempts to describe the human thought processes invoked by experienced, non-disciplinary traders as they observe and trade their markets. Price action is simply how prices change - the action of price. It is most noticeable in markets with high liquidity and price volatility, but anything that is traded freely (in price) in a market will per se demonstrate price action. Price action trading can be considered a part of the technical analysis, but it is highly complex compared to most forms of technical analysis, and it incorporates the behavioural analysis of market participants as a crowd from evidence displayed in price action - a type of analysis whose academic coverage isn't focused in any one area, rather is widely described and commented on in the literature on trading, speculation, gambling and competition generally, and therefore, requires a separate article. It includes a large part of the methodology employed by floor traders and tape readers. It can also optionally include analysis of volume and level 2 quotes. A price action trader typically observes the relative size, shape, position, growth (when watching the current real-time price) and volume (optionally) of bars on an OHLC bar or candlestick chart (although simple line charts also work), starting as simple as a single bar, most often combined with chart formations found in broader technical analysis such as moving averages, trend lines and trading ranges. The use of price action analysis for financial speculation doesn't exclude the simultaneous use of other techniques of analysis, although many minimalist price action traders choose to rely completely on the behavioural interpretation of price action to build a trading strategy. Various authors who write about price action, e.g. Brooks, Duddella, assign names to many common price action chart bar formations and behavioral patterns they observe, which introduces a discrepancy in naming of similar chart formations between many authors, or definition of two different formations of the same name. Some patterns can often only be described subjectively, and a textbook pattern formation may occur in reality with great variations.

Credibility

There is no evidence that these explanations are correct even if the price action trader who makes such statements is profitable and appears to be correct. Since the disappearance of most pit-based financial exchanges, the financial markets have become anonymous, buyers do not meet sellers, and so the feasibility of verifying any proposed explanation for the other market participants' actions during the occurrence of a particular price action pattern is exceedingly small. Also, price action analysis can be subject to survivorship bias for failed traders do not gain visibility. Hence, for these reasons, the explanations should only be viewed as subjective rationalisations and may quite possibly be wrong, but at any point in time they offer the only available logical analysis with which the price action trader can work. The implementation of price action analysis is difficult, requiring the gaining of experience under live market conditions and prior knowledge of "market states." There is every reason to assume that the percentage of price action speculators who fail, give up or lose their trading capital will be similar to the percentage failure rate across all fields of speculation. It is commonly thought to be 90%, although analysis of data from US forex brokers' regulatory disclosures since 2010 puts the figure for failed accounts at around 75% and suggests this is typical. Some skeptical authors dismiss the financial success of individuals using technical analysis such as price action and state that the occurrence of individuals who appear to be able to profit in the markets can be attributed solely to the Survivorship bias.

Analytical process

A price action trader's analysis may start with classical price action technical analysis, e.g. Edwards and Magee patterns including trend lines, break-outs and pullbacks, which are broken down further and supplemented with extra bar-by-bar analysis, sometimes including volume. This observed price action gives the trader clues about the current and likely future behaviour of other market participants. The trader can explain why a particular pattern is predictive, in terms of bulls (buyers in the market), bears (sellers), the crowd mentality of other traders, change in volume and other factors. A good knowledge of the market's make-up is required. Price action patterns occur with every bar and the trader watches for multiple patterns to coincide or occur in a particular order, creating a set-up that results in a signal to enter or exit. Individual traders can have widely varying preferences for the type of setup that they concentrate on in their trading.

Implementation of trades

The price action trader will use setups to determine entries and exits for positions. Each setup has its optimal entry point. Some traders also use price action signals to exit, simply entering at one setup and then exiting the whole position on the appearance of a negative setup. Alternatively, the trader might simply exit instead at a profit target of a specific cash amount or at a predetermined level of loss. This style of exit is often based on the previous support and resistance levels of the chart. A more experienced trader will have their own well-defined entry and exit criteria, built from experience. An experienced price action trader are adept at spotting multiple bars, patterns, formations and setups during real-time market observation. However, a chart can be interpreted in multiple different ways, which may lead to discrepancy of interpretations between two traders, despite using the same method of analysis. Most price action authors state that a simple setup on its own is rarely enough to signal a trade. There should be strength in the direction of the trade that a trader is thinking of taking and at least two reasons to enter the trade. When the trader finds that the price action signals are strong enough, the trader tends to continue to wait for the appropriate entry point or exit point. During real-time trading, signals can be observed frequently while the bar is forming, and they are not considered ultimate until the bar closes at the end of the chart's time frame. An entrance of a trade based on signals that have not been finalized is known as an early entrance and is considered to be risky since there is a possibility that the market may move in the adverse direction, and when the bar has formed, the ultimate signal does not agree with the trade direction.

Behavioural observation

A price action trader generally sets great store in human fallibility and the tendency for traders in the market to behave as a crowd. For instance, a trader who is bullish about a certain stock might observe that this stock is moving in a range from $20 to $30, but that trader expects the stock to rise to at least $50. Many other traders would simply buy the stock, but then every time that it fell to the low of its trading range, would become disheartened and lose faith in their prediction and sell. A price action trader would wait until the stock hit $31. The above example is one by Livermore from the 1940s. In a modern-day market, the price action trader would first be alerted to the stock once the price has broken out to $31, but knowing the counter-intuitiveness of the market and having picked up other signals from the price action, would expect the stock to pull-back from there and would only buy when the pull-back finished and the stock moved up again. Support, Resistance, and Fibonacci levels are all important areas where human behavior may affect price action. Brooks claim that these levels, along with other price history levels (such as swing highs and lows, gap high or low, the 20-bar exponential moving average value), serve as magnets that attract the price. "Psychological levels", such as levels ending in .00, are a very common order trigger location. Several strategies use these levels as a means to plot out where to secure profit or place a Stop Loss. These levels are purely the result of human behavior as they interpret said levels to be important. However, in recent years, most trading volume is generated by computers, and psychological levels have become less reliable.

Two attempts rule

An observation of many price action traders and authors is that the market often revisits price levels where it reversed or consolidated. If the market reverses at a certain level, then on returning to that level, which is referred to as a magnet, the trader expects the market to either carry on past the reversal point or to reverse again. The trader takes no action until the market has done one or the other. Many traders only consider price movements when trading diverges or trend changes. Most traders will not trade unless there is a signal to show high probability of a reversal, because they want to see the close of a major reversal, but this is very rare. The objective of this technique is to gain a probabilistic edge that should let the trader earn in the long run. It is considered to bring higher probability trade entries, once this point has passed and the market is either continuing or reversing again. The traders do not take the first opportunity but rather wait for a second entry to make their trade. For instance the second attempt by bears to force the market down to new lows represents, if it fails, a double bottom and the point at which many bears will abandon their bearish opinions and start buying, joining the bulls and generating a strong move upwards. Also as an example, after a break-out of a trading range or a trend line, the market may return to the level of the break-out and then instead of rejoining the trading range or the trend, will reverse and continue the break-out. This is also known as 'confirmation'.

Trapped

"Trapped traders" is a common price action term referring to traders who have entered the market on weak signals, or before signals were triggered, or without waiting for confirmation and who find themselves in losing positions because the market turns against them. Any price action pattern that the traders used for a signal to enter the market is considered 'failed' and that failure becomes a signal in itself to price action traders, e.g. failed breakout, failed trend line break, failed reversal. It is assumed that the trapped traders will be forced to exit the market and if in sufficient numbers, this will cause the market to accelerate away from them, thus providing an opportunity for the more patient traders to benefit from their duress. "Trapped traders" is therefore used to describe traders in a position that will be stopped out if price action hits their stop loss limit. The term is closely linked to the idea of a "trap" which Brooks defines as "an entry that immediately reverses to the opposite direction before a scalper’s profit target is reached, trapping traders in their new position, ultimately forcing them to cover at a loss. It can also scare traders out of a good trade." Since many traders place protective stop orders to exit from positions that go wrong, all the stop orders placed by trapped traders will provide the orders that boost the market in the direction that the more patient traders bet on. The phrase "the stops were run" refers to the execution of these stop orders. Since 2009, the use of the term "trapped traders" has grown in popularity and is now a generic term used by price actions traders and applied in different markets – stocks, futures, forex, commodities, cryptocurrencies, etc. All trapped trader strategies are essentially variations of Brooks pioneering work.

Trend and range definition

The concept of a trend is one of the primary concepts in technical analysis. A trend is either up or down and for the complete neophyte observing a market, an upwards trend can be described simply as a period of time over which the price has moved up. An upwards trend is also known as a bull trend, or a rally. A bear trend or downwards trend or sell-off (or crash) is where the market moves downwards. The definition is as simple as the analysis is varied and complex. The assumption is of serial correlation, i.e. once in a trend, the market is likely to continue in that direction. On any chart, the price action trader tend to check to see whether the market is trending up or down, or confined to a trading range first.

The market is described to be in a range when there is no discernible trend. It is defined by its floor and its ceiling, but this perception is always subject to debate. A range can also be referred to as a horizontal channel.

OHLC bar or candlestick structure

A candlestick or OHLC bar consists of:

Open: the price of the first trade of the bar Close: the price of the last trade of the bar High: the highest trade price of the bar Low: the lowest trade price of the bar Body: the part of the bar between the open and the close Tail (upper or lower): the parts of the bar not between the open and the close

Range bar

A range bar is a bar with virtually no body, i.e. the open and the close are at virtually the same price and therefore there has been no net change over the time period. This is also known in Japanese Candlestick terminology as a Doji. Japanese Candlesticks show demand with more precision and only a Doji is a Doji, whereas a price action trader might consider a bar with a small body to be a range bar. It is termed 'range bar' because the price during the period of the bar moved between a floor (the low) and a ceiling (the high) and ended more or less where it began. If the trader looks at the chart at a lower time frame and check the price movement during that bar, it would appear similar to a range.

Trend bar

There are bull and bear trend bars - bars with bodies - where the bar has ended with a net change from the beginning of the bar. Bull trend bars are trend bars where the close is higher than the open (although some define bull trend bars as trend bars where the close is higher than the previous close), whereas bear trend bars are the opposite. Trend bars are often referred to for short as bull bars or bear bars.

With-trend bar

A trend bar with movement in the same direction as the chart's trend is known as 'with trend', i.e. a bull trend bar in a bull market is a "with trend bull" bar. In a downwards market, a bear trend bar is a "with trend bear" bar.