Truth be told 61.8% and 161.8% are NOT fib numbers. Nor 38.2% or 78.6% or any other that typically shows on a fib price retracement/projection tool. The first two are the golden ratio or golden mean number, and its inverse. The others are derivatives. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and on and on ARE Fib series numbers. As for doing it "wrong", it is all a matter of what the poster is intended.
Naw .... he has been drawing too many fibs. he needs to know when to draw fibs, when not to draw fibs. It is very easy to detect who is a newbie and who is not. Do note that the OP lacks the macro, holistic, helicopter, fundamental view. This is extremely important so that you have the 6th ESP SENSE. Drawing thousands of fibs wouldn't improve the trading odds. He needs to spend thousands and thousands of hours analyzing and staring at charts, not trading books. There are simply too many newbies who have read lots of trading books . And they are very eager to teach others after reading those books. As mentioned, professional writers earn $$ from selling books, not from trading. anyway, all the best to the fibo users. all the best to fibo creators who studied sea shell dimensions and human arm / body length and those things. In conclusion, OP is spending too much time teaching, not learning. fibo is for fibo-ing here and there. you can't earn $$$ from it. Trading is more than fibo-ing here and there. those who cannot trade, write books or teach. thosewho can trade, only trade.
Fibs drawn randomly will most times get random results: Drawn from points where a move began or ended will get better results. Where did I learn this? LOL from a book - because I'm not a close-minded know-it-all and have no problem learning from someone else. Anyone else. Of course there is also a lot of nonsense in certain books as well as in certain posts hint, hint. "Wheat from the chaff".
Ok it works out neatly from some levels. The price moves down then retraces to or thru fib levels. So...when do you anchor the fib points. The top is clear but as the move down makes it journey anywhere along the way you could draw the bottom anchor point. In such a case you would get different retracement levels than yours if drawn on your chart. Or do you wait for a double bottom or for a retracement to start then draw the anchor point? And when would you short? Once you see a retracement has ended and the previous down move resumes or enter once it just touches a fib level line? In the later, if you have taken a short position but then it blows thru that fib level then what?
The point here is not to "guess" what will the price do ; it is IMPOSSIBLE, as markets are chaotic systems ; all you have to do is to have a set of rules taking account that prices will likely touch your Fibo levels. For example, I use a rule of trend direction : it is given by drawing the Fibo on the last leg everytime starting at the same point (00:00PM GMT)=> for my system, I postulate that the Fibo level 1.618 is giving the trend direction and the 0 level the reversal point. Then I use a rule of strict money management : when it touches one of the Fibo, I already know what I am supposed to do : TP and SL are already set well before you enter the trade, thanks to... the Fibo levels you have drawn before. No need to guess, you just rely on the great probability of your Fibo levels being reached.
And I agree when some guys are saying some of the levels are not Fibonacci levels ; for example you can see I use the 2 (200) and 4(400) levels ; in that regard, I should have called this thread "Remarquable levels for intraday trading", but the thing is all these levels are plotted in my Fibonacci mt4 indicator ; as a consequence, I called this thread "Fibo levels", but I agree it is not 100% accurate. And based on this assumption, someone could even say that in that case, any level (round numbers, random "grided" levels etc...) could work. I've never tested it, but I quite agree with this idea too. But the main hypothesis of the system I use is : "the leg I took for Fibo levels drawing will mostly extend to the 1.618 level, next to the 2.618 level, next to 4 before the reversal" and my short experience (less than 10years) is telling me that it's working better than an hypthesis like for example "the trend will reach 1.2300, then 1.2310, then 1.2320 and then reverse". We could say that Fibo levels and some round number extensions have more "magnetic" power toward the price, if my observations are correct. The only way to prove if these observations are correct or not, is to produce a track record that will validate them.
And here are the Fibo levels for today : EURUSD Current intraday trend likely : DOWN N1: 1.1892 N2: 1.1879 N3: 1.1864 See the following chart : ********* GBPJPY Current intraday trend likely : UP N1: 150.82 N2: 151.25 N3: 151.86 See the following chart :
Last thing I would like to point about Fibonacci levels, is that they natively take into account the volatility ; which, I think, is mandatory to optimise your TP and SL and in trading in general.
I previously said: "Drawn from points where a move began or ended will get better results.+ But I should have been clearer - drawn from where move began to where it ended. Most times that is the standard swing high to swing low. Sometimes not. Looking directly at candle bodies, not wicks, shows which to be the case. And looking back at previous candles how they line up with retracement grid - after it is placed properly. As for when price sails right on through - that is where a stop loss, if an entry is made, comes in handy as nothing obviously works 100% of the the time.