Waiting for Update
Trade Context is Busy
Bid – Ask
MT4 charts are bid charts
Margin

Waiting for Update
“Waiting for Update” is a common message with a new account or when switching between a mini
and a standard accounts. There is an easy solution. Go to the Market Watch window, left click
and hold down the mouse key on the pair you want to see in the chart and drag that pair onto
the chart that says “Waiting for Update”.  Release the mouse key and this will automatically
update the chart.

Trade Context is Busy
You receive “Trade context is busy” when you try to process two or more orders at the same time.
If you have placed a trade and do not wait until it processes completely and then try to place
the same trade or a different trade, the commands go into a loop and you get “Tread context is busy”.
The only solution is to close down the platform and restart it.

Bid – Ask
All Forex quotes have two parts, the BID and the ASK.
The Bid is the price at which you (as the trader) will open a sell.
The Ask is the price at which you will open a buy.
The difference between the bid and the ask price is known as the spread.

MT4 charts are bid charts
The current price shown on an MT4 chart is the bid price. When looking at a price bar or candle,
you must add the spread to the high bid price to know what the high ask price would have been,
or add the spread to the low bid price to know what the low ask would have been.

If you are in a sell (in at the Bid out at the Ask), you would not see the candle reach your stop
loss if you are taken out of the trade. For example with a stop loss of 1.45800 on the EURUSD once
the chart reached 1.45780 (2 pip spread) you would be taken out of the trade at 1.45800. Your take
profit would not trigger until the ask price hits.  For example with a take profit of 1.45400 on
the EURUSD once the chart reached 1.45380 (2 pip spread) you would be taken out of the trade at
1.45400. These examples are based on our spread shown under normal market conditions. Our spreads
are not fixed and will fluctuate with news or other high / low volume conditions.
If you are in a buy (in at the Ask and out at the Bid), you will see the bid price on the chart.

Margin
Margin is the amount of necessary money needed to place/maintain a position.
Margin Level Percentage is calculated by taking:
Equity/Margin x 100 = Margin Level Percentage
Equity (your true Account Value) is your Balance +/- any open positions.
In normally leveraged accounts.

When a margin call occurs, all open positions are subject to liquidation at the prevailing market
prices without prior notice to customer.

This is the way we like to take the higher probability trades.  When we get a signal on
the 15 min or 30 min time frame then we look at every thing up to the 4 hour and see if
the signal is going in the direction of the trend on each of the larger time frames.
If they all give confirmation then you have a better chance of getting a high probability trade.
If you do not have confirmation of the trend on all time frames the strength of that trade is weakened.

You need to learn to use all of the indicators in our courses so you can determine what to look for.
If you have patience, and follow your trading plan then you can become successful at trading.
Once you have a solid understanding of how to trade manually and can read all the signals then
you can use the alerts to bring the trades to you rather than having to spend time looking for
the trades.

The Alerts are based on the entry signals in our courses.  They save you time looking for trades.
You can watch many currency pairs at one time and only take the best trades.  You will always know
which pairs are moving on any given day because the alerts will give you heads up.

If a trader is looking at the smaller time frames like the 1- and 5- minute they will get more signals.  They will be getting in and out of the market more often because the smaller move seem to be important but in the big picture they are not.  If you look at the smaller time frames you may get 10 to 12 signals a day while on a 1-hour time frame you might only get 1 or 2 a day.  By trading the larger time frame will find that you will not get whipsawed as much and you will not have to spend as much time in front of the computer.  This will reduce your emotion and you will find that you will make better trading decisions.  You will not be trying to over think the trade.  You will just see a signal and take.

The following chart is 7 hours on a five-minute chart; you would have made about 180 pips if you had taken each of these signals.  Over the course of the 24 hours you could have made about the same Number of pips as the following chart on the one hour but you would have to be in front of the computer for the 24 hours and this can get old fast.  You get caught up in one of the health issues you should try and avoid, being overly tired.  Then you start to second guess yourself and make mistakes.  We can assure you that you would have missed some of the moves causing your self more frustration and emotion.

This is a 1-hour chart for 2 days; if you had taken the two trades on the first day you would have made over 400 pips. 

You would also be rested and alert for more trades on other currency pairs which in turn would make you even more pips.

When you get the larger picture, you can easily see that going long had a low probability of succeeding because the market was in a downtrend.  By taking a long trade on the 5 minute you were taking a trade that has a low probability of being successful.  If it does turn out to be profitable it was for a small profit. 

Look at the charts below and see what the trade looks like on a 5 minute then on a 1-hour and a 4-hour chart.  This is why we always say trade in the direction of the trend of a larger time frame.  There are some good trades on this 5-minute chart if you are trading in the direction of the trend.

We have pointed out some reverse or counter trend trades they are not as good as the trades in the direction of the trend.
 

When the market has been trending for a while and a trader has been going with the trend then the market stops for a while and looks like it will make a quick retracement.  The trader jumps in for a few quick pips and get right back out again only to find that the market did not give the quick pips and continued on with the trend.  Not having set a stop loss he is now looking for the next bounce to minimize the loss to only end up losing even more.    The risk reward ratio is not good either.  With a Large stop loss if there is a stop loss at all and only a small profit target.    At times like these it is better to stick with the trend.  More money will be made, less stress will be involved and the trader’s focus and connection with the market can more easily be maintains. 

A trader that is going to practice countertrend trading will have to be quick and willing to take many small losses.  In the long run it is better to wait out the countertrend rather than trying to make some extra pips on it.

When the trend is over get out.  Even if you cannot get out at the top or even if you have lost a little money you still need to get out.   By fighting the fact that the trade is over and hoping it will continue will only hurt you both financially and emotionally. 

You can see on this 15-minute chart that the trend is over.  There are two good exit signals the arrow on the left is point where the Norwood Stop or manual trailing stop would take you out.  The other is when the candle closed below the purple line.  In either case it was a good trade of either 150 to 170 pips.   All trades and trends come to an end.  Get in tune with what the market is doing and make your trading life easier.

There are a couple of ways this can be done; One way is to spot the makings of a trend on a larger time frame then move to a smaller time frame and time the entry.  Whenever another signal presents its self add another position. 

In the 4-hour chart it can be seen that there was a candle that closed lower than the previous candle.  This is heads up that there is something changing in the market.  By looking at the 15-minute chart there were signs of a trade but not great signals when the time the 4-hour started to show something. By being patient and watching the indicators on the 15-minute the trade could be timed with a great entry and good add on signals.

4-hour                                          15-minute                                                                                                    15-minute add on

              

Two when an entry signal presents it’s self on a smaller time frame enter a position and when another signal develops on the next larger time frame enter another position.  Repeat this on each larger time frame until there is an exit signal and the trade is coming to a close.

15-minute chart first signal                                                     30-minute chart second signal                   1-hour chart third signal
            

By starting out with a small number of lots if the trade doesn’t work out only a small amount would be lost. Once all the time frames start to line up there will be a larger low risk trade in the works.  This technique works out great when there is a break out because the smaller time frames will show the breakout first than work up to the larger time frames.

We have heard it said that in the beginning of your trading career you should become good at trading one or two currency pairs.  We feel that this approach only limits your trading.  You might go for a day or two and not see a trade.  If you can read indicators than you can look at any chart and if it is setting up for a good trade you will be able to take it. 

Take a look at the following charts and see if you can tell which time frame and which currency pair you are looking at:

CHART 1

CHART 2

CHART 3

CHART 4

 
Chart 1 EURJPY  4 HR
Chart 2 GBPUSD 15 MIN
Chart 3 EURAUD 5 MIN
Chart 4 USDCHF 1 DAY

Become good at reading chart and indicators.  Then you can trade any time frame and any currency pair.  This will develop your trading skills faster so you will be able to start making money sooner.

Here are some examples of how to find a trend and make a trade in the direction of the trend.

On this 4-hour chart you will see signals that indicate that you should look at a smaller time frame for an entry point.  The two types of signals to look for are when the candles close lower or higher than the previous candle, and when the candles close below or above the purple line.
When you see one of these signals then look at a smaller time frame for entry signals.

Both of the entry signals on this 30-minute chart come from the first two arrows on the left of the 4-hour chart.

               
The first move was for 20 pips the second was for 50 pips and the third was for 70 pips for a total of 140 pips.  If you had entered the first  trade and stayed in the complete trend you would have made 250 pips. 

We were using moving averages here along with an oscillator.  We like to have two confirm signals to enter but just the moving averages are good enough to get a heads up, to go look at an entry point.