From my perspective, none of the currency pairs I follow has been trending with what I would characterize as a great deal of conviction this morning, so that what I finally had to do was just pick one and try to enter and exit positions at the extreme limits of its corresponding price ranges. Unfortunately, I couldn't even make that work for me, so that in the end, pretty much all I managed to do was not lose money.
Friday / December 10, 2021 No, it did not work as I'd imagined. So, the plan next week is to try a strategy that focuses on 5 to 10 minute binary options trading off a one-minute chart.
The plan for next week calls for me to enter short positions at the close of a given candlestick if and when the black and purple lower-panel histograms are below the center/middle of the channel and the black oscillator is at or above the top of the channel; and to enter long positions at the close of a give candlestick if and when the exact opposite set of conditions occur; with expiry set for the close of the very next candlestick (see the arrows). Consequently, I needed the server time (broker's time) displayed on my charts so I could time my trades precisely, which is why I have added this information (indicator) in the upper right-hand corner.
I transposed the general idea from the above post down to a lower timeframe, believing it might enable me to code better performing alerts than I was able to do in the previous context... It's always a challenge for me to come up with alert signals that faithfully replicate what I see on the charts in the exact same way my mind processes it. But in this case, I was finally able to come relatively close. Hopefully, this will allow me to let my indicators monitor the charts for me while I direct my attention elsewhere until and unless potential setups present themselves, at which point, I can come back to the corresponding chart after hearing the alert and rely on my own faculties (and indicators not pictured above) to make a final determination as to whether the opportunity suggested is legitimate or not. The advantage binary options have over, say...OANDA...is that, if a 50-pip rise or fall in my favor in the latter case results in a $50 return, it will mean that a rise or fall of a single pip would offer me only a single dollar. Whereas, when it comes to binary options, whether price moves in my favorite a single pip or a hundred pips doesn't matter. I could still make 50 bucks, regardless. And if I'm right 80% of the time (anything lower than this I find unacceptable) even if every $100 contract paid out only fifty cents on the dollar (which isn't likely), after 10 trades I would have made 8 × 50 = $400 profit and lost only 2 × 100 = $200 for a net gain of $200.
Right now, it's looking like a more reliable strategy than the five to ten minute tactic considered above might be to purchase 30-minute binary option contracts following the initiation of a fresh leg in the intraday trend as signaled by a reversal in the 12-minute baseline accompanied by a breach of the corresponding 30-minute temporal support or resistance level.
I made my first trade of the week with PocketOption using the above 30-minute strategy and this time at least, it's working out very well... With six minutes left to go, climbing back up to the strike price looks nearly impossible. I think I'm going to go ahead and code an alert for this strategy so I don't miss any opportunities as they are unfolding.
Looking back at the history of price action, I see signs that reversals in the 12-minute baseline accompanied by a breach of the corresponding 30-minute temporal support or resistance level is not a reliable tactic either. So, I made this next trade based on the six-hour baseline, the 60-minute price range, and deviation from the zero amplitude of the 30-minute temporal measures. This third trade was made based on the same set of parameters...
Neither of the two approaches above proved to be consistent. However, executing the second one pointed me in the direction of a third—a 30-minute strategy that is, this far, showing a degree promise... The key is to trade only when the slope of a key baseline meets a certain threshold. Unfortunately, I didn't think about trading my OANDA account at the same time that I purchased these five binary option contracts during the Sydney trading session. I'll have to try to remember to do so once the London session opens. If the methodology continues to work, I'll begin gradually increasing the amount risked per trade until typical daily returns become respectable.
Right now, it's looking like my "secret sauce," if you will, could just be a combination of the last two approaches, where I rely on the four-, six-, and eight-hour baselines for a consensus opinion as to where rates might ultimately be headed at the intraday level, with a certain minimum amount of deviation from the zero amplitude of the 60-minute price cycle on the "wrong side" of this agreed upon most likely trend qualifying as a possible trade opportunity. The next step is to home in on the appropriate length of time to set for expiry so as not to allow too much of a window of opportunity for things to unravel.