One kind of strategy that I've pondered with over the years is one that centers around failed trade setups. By this I mean stop loss trigger events on price action trades, then market just keeps going.
I've been trying to figure out a strategic way to capitalize on these counter trade breakouts.
Generally
where I advise to place a stop loss in the price action protocol course is the 'threshold' for a price action signal - once it's breached, price has the potential to explode in the opposite direction, which we've seen it do many times.
Just like electricity, price likes to moves along the path of least resistance.
Once our stops are hit, price has generally overpowered a critical level in the market - once that area has been overcome, there is little resistance for price to blow up in the other direction.
Some other War Room traders have started to also raise the question: "Why don't we just place an order in the opposing direction".
I've thought deeply about this many times, but
the idea of just blinding going in the other direction does not seem very strategic, and is more of an impulsive action - "feeling of missing out" "chasing price" kind of knee jerk reaction.
Here is something else I've thought about a lot - hedging.
The other day I sat back and thought to myself, maybe hedging could be the work around solution to working around failed trade setups. So I will pitch my idea to you guys and see what you think.
First an example of a failed trade setup...
View attachment 1374
This GBPJPY rejection candle trade is a very good example of how failed trades can be a trade opportunity within themselves.
The Hedging Idea
For those who don't know, hedging means to open up other positions that mitigate the risk of others. In the stock market hedging is a little more complicated, where hedge funds will buy stocks that will help reduce the risk of others.
In Forex, generally hedging just means to open an opposing trade to your current position. You can hedge a AUDUSD sell position by opening a AUDUSD buy position.
I know there are some wild, and overly complicated hedging strategies in Forex but as usual
I like to keep things as simple and logical as I can.
Even though I am aiming to keep things simple here, it's still going to have the next level of complexity than our normal trading with a little bit of math involved.
I mentioned before, I don't feel great about ...
The reason is,
you run the risk of just being stopped out by a few pips then the trade continues as planned. A problem which a lot of traders run into on the USDCAD.
So if you opened a trade in opposite direction,
you would have taken two quick full losses.
My proposed hedging strategy is to
utilize the split money management system with hedging.
I will use this gbpjpy example to share my idea to you...
So we're looking at a rejection candle sell trade with hedge risk mitigation.
The sell trade is setup using the 50% retracement entry including split money management like normal, but we don't set the stop loss for the sell trade at the normal price.
Instead, where we would normally place a stop loss for the sell trade - we set up a bullish breakout order, also setup with split money management setup.
Is your mind blown?
Before this gets any more confusing, I will draw out the structure of the trade setup.
View attachment 1375
Take a moment to study the trade above and see if you can get you can work out how it all works.
Situation 1: Trade Plays out as Planned
Your trade plan plays out as anticipated. Your 1:1 R 'risk free' split target is hit. No hedging needed, all hedge trades are canceled and the stop loss level is adjusted on your trade to it's classic position.
In the case above.
- The retracement entry is hit, the market sells off and hits your 1:1 target.
- The buy hedge trade order is removed
- Your sell order stop loss is adjusted back to its classic position - above the signal candle high.
This ends up just being business as usual, with a split money management trade playing out in it's mimimal ideal scenario - a risk free trade.
Situation 2: Trade Idea Fails - Hedge Trade Triggered
Your trade didn't work out as planned, and normally your stop loss would have been triggered.
But in this case, a trade is opened in the opposite direction, with the split money management system also applied.
Now you have a buy and a sell trade open at the same time.
- Your buy trade's stop loss is set at your sell trade's 1:1 'risk free' target
- Your sell trade's stop loss is set at your buy trade's 1:1 'risk free' target
Situation 2A - Sell trade knock out
View attachment 1376
Here we have the situation for when our trade setup fails and the hedge trade kicks in.
- The hedge trade hits it's 'risk free' 1:1 target
- The original trade idea is completely stopped out and taken out of the equation.
This leaves you with an open trade with 0.5 R left to potentially make a return for you.
Situation 2B - Buy trade knock out
View attachment 1377
In this situation, the hedge trade is triggered, but the hedge trade never hits its 1:1 'risk free' target.
The original trade idea is back in the money again, and comes back to hit it's 1:1 risk free target. At this point in time, the hedge trade is taken out of the equation and the sell trade's stop loss is moved back to the classical position.
Once the hedge trade is triggered, either Scenario 2A or 2B MUST become true.
So instead of taking a full loss (-1R) on your original trade idea, you're left with a floating 0.5R trade in either the buy or sell direction which has the potential to make you money.
To break even you will need your final floating trade to reach 1:2, and beyond that you will make money on what otherwise would have been a loss.
Situation 3: The Worse Case Scenario
View attachment 1378
This is the worst case scenario - which all good traders plan for.
The worse case scenario is when both the original trade idea & the hedge trade fail. This will generally be caused by choppy markets.
Even in this 'doomsday' stop out scenario here - you're only going to walk away with a total loss of -1R... which you would have walked away with if your trade failed without the hedge trade setup.
The advantage of this hedging strategy is to give you a chance to avoid a loss, and actually make some returns on a failed trade.
The disadvantage is the hedge trade needs to move more to turn the over all scenario into a profit, and will probably need to be a longer term trade.
Because the hedging strategy has a lot of moving parts, it would be idea to have a script, or an Expert Adviser to control the whole thing.
The War Room money management tool for MT4 could be upgraded to control this hedging strategy.
First I am looking forward to other war room trader's thoughts on this.
P.S US traders, I don't think you are allowed to open hedge trades under US broker regulations. Sorry to dangle the carrot in front of you.