Fractals are used to identify the current momentum or direction bias of a forex/currency pair so that traders can get in sync with the current direction of price movement and profit from the What is a fractal in trading and how to develop a trading strategy based on fractals. A fractal is a pattern composed of five or more closed bars, where the middle bar is the highest 3/3/ · A Take Profit in the strategy is just two times larger than the potential risk. Positions are not followed, except for transferring them to the breakeven. Money management by Fractal The fractal flow strategy revolves around combining three key concepts: The overall market trend. Fractal pattern. And momentum divergence. When momentum divergence ... read more
Ignore everything to the right of the line. Focus only on that going on to its left - we are waiting for a lower fractal to form. After it is complete, draw a horizontal line over its border low and wait for the price to break through it. If this is not done, and new fractal forms, drag the line to its border and wait for a breakaway again. After the line is broken, find the last upper fractal and place a pending Buy Stop order at its border.
A Stop Loss should be placed at the previously drawn horizontal line. In the picture above, almost everything about Forex fractal-based trading is made clear. You need to draw a vertical line after a certain move. Then a lower fractal formed, and at its low, a horizontal red line was drawn.
Then it was broken, and at the high of the last upper fractal, a green Buy Stop order was placed with a Stop Loss at the high of the last lower fractal I highlighted it by a blue line.
Also, there are situations when you need to move pending orders. In the example above, you might need this if new upper fractal forms - then you will need to bring the pending order to its high. With shifting the SL, it is the same: if a new lower fractal forms, you will need to place an SL at its border. The new fractal can form either above or below the first one.
The main of following trades by the Forex fractal-based strategy is transferring positions to the breakeven. After the pending order gets triggered, and the price goes in the necessary direction, check for new fractals at the side of the SL.
In our example, we have a buying trade, the SL is at the border of the last lower fractal, and as soon as a new one forms, drag the SL to its border, and go on like this.
Also, you can use the pivot of the day as the goal; if an open trade is transferred to the next day, the next pivot becomes the goal. By Dmitriy Gurkovskiy, Chief Analyst at RoboForex. Select additional content:. GMT LON NY TKYO SYD Your email. First name. Last name. Trading offers from relevant providers. SIGN UP. Must Read Save The Date - Finance Magnates London Summit VIDEO: Seeing is believing.
How do you take yourself from a gambler to a trader. As seen in the examples above, risk in points differs a lot. In case you are more used to trading a certain lot size, ignore those trading signals that suggest a noticeably higher risk than average. To my mind, pay special attention to the signals that presume bounces off one of the Alligator lines. Unfortunately, there are no reliable statistics of the strategy except my own successful trading for 1. Hence, before relying on this strategy, I suggest lengthy backtests.
By Dmitriy Gurkovskiy, Chief Analyst at RoboForex. Select additional content:. GMT LON NY TKYO SYD Your email. First name. Last name. Trading offers from relevant providers.
LiteFinance Global LLC does not provide brokerage services in your country. org website, you confirm that access to all programs and services is provided to you for informational purposes only, without the offer of registration. In math, fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales.
Each part of this pattern repeats the whole formation. In trading, fractals are indicators on candlestick charts that identify reversal points in the market. A fractal is a pattern that is a price extreme featured in the period of five and more candlesticks.
It is used as a confirming signal for taking a trading decision. Based on the pattern, Bill Williams designed the indicator. From this article, you will learn how to employ fractals in complex forex trading strategies explained on practical examples. Fractal, in my opinion, is one of the most useful patterns that quite accurately signals a local trend reversal. Even if, in the real market, perfectly symmetrical construction of fractal candles is rare, beginner traders discover this pattern one of the first - it catches your eye almost immediately.
It is remarkable that this term was the first introduced as trading term by Bill Williams, but he used it incorrectly. It has nothing to do with the mathematical theory of fractals, it is rather a common price high or low used to enter the trades in trend during the correction. You will also see practical examples of how you can employ forex trading strategies based on fractals and fractals indicators. The bars must be closed, as there may be a price movement in the fifth bar that could mark a new extreme.
The difference between the price rise on the left of the fractal bar momentum and the price decline on the right pullback is called a lever. If the price at the moment of closing of the last bar returns to the level of the pattern beginning the level of the first bar , the lever is equal to zero, and the fractal is complete. n trading, the market concept of fractals forming on the price chart is like this: traders enter trades in the trend and push the price up.
At some point, there are no more buyers as everyone, who wanted to buy, have already opened their positions, that is how the fractal bar forms. Next, the price rolls back. The most impatient traders are exiting their trades; afterwards, the price is going up again, and, after the balance point is passed, there forms a new fractal. The fractals indicator itself is only an information indicator.
It is most commonly combined with the Alligator also developed by Bill Williams and with Fibonacci levels. The most popular strategy is using pending orders in a strategy based on the breakout of the level built according to at least three fractal peaks. So, before I deal with practical examples, I want to give few recommendations to beginner traders:.
Each of they strategies described below is based on the indicators that are not included into the set of standard tools. To launch a strategy, you need to download the template via the link the templates for the indicator and the strategy is designed only for the MT4 platform , past it into the corresponding file and restart the platform.
A detailed instruction is in the second part of this overview. Using fractals in scalping trading is convenient because the pattern is complete in a few minutes. You only need to discover a pattern and pick up a rather predictable inertial price movement that follows it. The zone of multiple fractal bars helps you identify strong support and resistance levels, based on which you can develop different trading strategies. The following strategy uses Bill Williams Fractals indicator , whose template can be downloaded via this link.
This tool is one of the five indicators of the trading system. An upward fractal is indicated in the chart if two bars on both sides of the signal bar have highs that are lower than the high of the muddle bar. Simply put, the middle signal bar must be the highest of all the five consecutive bars.
A downward fractal is indicated when the middle bar has the lowest close price. Please note that the fractal pattern matching process is not completed though an arrow can appear and disappear during the period until the period is finished, and the following one begins. Therefore, make no trading decisions till the period ends. Trading decisions can be based on the latest set of five complete bars only. The indicator looks for fractals. When a fractal pattern is detected, the middle bar is marked with an arrow above when the middle bar has the highest price value or below it when the middle bar has the lowest price value.
Strategy is based on the principle that the price will sooner or later break out the fractal zones by its inertial movement. At the breakout moment, you enter a trade. Timeframe is M1 1 minute. The strategy suggests putting pending orders in case of the levels breakout. If both conditions are met, you put a Buy Stop pending order at the level of one of the upward fractals. A perfect point is the level of the first or the highest fractal in the fractals zone.
The level to out a take profit is calculated like this: estimate in pips the distance between two oppositely directed fractals that is the distance between the upper and the lower part of the fractal zone, which, according to the second condition, should at least 7 or 8 pips.
The above figure displays the zone of multiple fractals in a narrow price range. The fractals themselves and their directions are displayed by arrows relatively small, but this is an indicator property. Six of them shown by red arrows are almost at the same price level, which is a narrow range.
The blue arrow points to the first downward fractal. The distance between it and the first upward fractal is the distance required to calculate the levels to put orders.
Red horizontal lines from top to bottom are Take Profit, Buy Stop set at the highest level from the fractal zone , Stop Loss. The purple arrow points to the bar on which trade on the pending order opened, the yellow circle is the approximate place for exiting the trade. You put a Sell Stop order at the level of the lowest or the first downward fractal bar.
Stop Loss is put at the same distance above the Sell Stop. There are four fractals formed in a narrow price range, and the same purple arrow points to the level where the pending order worked out. Red circle marks the fractal that has almost met the stop order. Yellow circle marks the place where the trade was exited by a pending order. The Fractals indicator facilitates the detection of such zones. By marking fractal signal bars, it helps to set other orders as well.
As an additional filter, you can add the Alligator indicator to the chart the strategy to trade with Alligator is described here.
It is another strategy based on the Fractals indicator, but it is designed for a longer timeframe. The ZigZag indicator is used as a filter that analyzes extremes and selects the greatest ones. The ZigZag indicator is basic tool. If you attach the indicator lines, you will filter off market noise and corrections, and the chart will display only real strong trends. It identifies main highs and lows and connects them directly with straight lines.
You can download the template of the indicator and the strategy here. You put a buy limit at the level of a confirmed bar at the level of shadow. Target profit is 10 pips, stop loss is at the same distance in the opposite direction. ZigZag indicates the highs with blue, and the lows are marked with red. The figure presents a downward fractal red arrow that coincided with the red dot of the ZigZag.
Let's put the orders their levels are shown on the screen from up to down in this orderTake Profit, Buy Limit, Stop Loss. After placing orders, the price went up and caught the order only a few candles later. The transaction opening point on the order is indicated by a blue arrow. On the same candle, the take-profit position was automatically closed.
The stop was not hooked. You put an order according to the same rule, with the only difference that you put a Sell Limit order. It is clear that on bar marked with the red arrow all conditions are satisfied: the ZigZag dot appears together with the upward arrow of the Fractals indicator.
On bar that is pointed щut by the blue arrow, Sell Limit will work out and the trade will be exited automatically at the same bar. This strategy is not standard as you put the orders contrary to the trend here. Fractals theory, in general, suggests trading a breakout. Market-makers also trade against the majority, and this strategy suggests entering trades with small target profits. The strategy is relatively universal, but you should define the size of a stop loss and a take profit for each pair.
Fractals theory may seem too complex for beginner traders. Although the pattern is quite easy to detect, it rarely has a perfect shape. That is why, traders often take false signals for valid ones. The fractals theory and its application to the cryptocurrency trading is described in detail in the series of articles that you can read here. I hope that the strategies offered in the article will be interesting for you. If you have any questions concerning trading fractals in forex, write them in the comments, I will do my best to help you!
Did you like my article? Ask me questions and comment below. I'll be glad to answer your questions and give necessary explanations. Your country is identified as United States LiteFinance Global LLC does not provide brokerage services in your country. Stay on LiteFinance Global LLC site. Home Blog Beginners Forex Fractals strategy. Rate this article:. Need to ask the author a question?
The fractal flow strategy revolves around combining three key concepts: The overall market trend. Fractal pattern. And momentum divergence. When momentum divergence 3/3/ · A Take Profit in the strategy is just two times larger than the potential risk. Positions are not followed, except for transferring them to the breakeven. Money management by Fractal Fractals are used to identify the current momentum or direction bias of a forex/currency pair so that traders can get in sync with the current direction of price movement and profit from the What is a fractal in trading and how to develop a trading strategy based on fractals. A fractal is a pattern composed of five or more closed bars, where the middle bar is the highest ... read more
A Stop Loss should be placed at the previously drawn horizontal line. Current price movement 1 point higher the level of the fractal up is the breakthrough of the sellers, while if it is 1 point below the fractal down, it is a breakthrough of the buyers. Facebook Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Youtube Telegram RSS Feed MQL5. Of course, you need to open a live account sr says:. You can also use fractals to enable you to place stop losses.
Of course, you need to open a live fractal forex trading strategy If you are looking for some inspiration, please feel free to browse my best forex brokers. Accordingly, if the middle candle is lower than the other four, a down arrow appears under it. Leave a Reply: Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Also, read about Scaling in and Scaling out in Forex. Session expired Please log in again, fractal forex trading strategy.