Trader Dale - Volume Profile Trading Blog

The S&P 500 index is in a crazy sell-off since this Monday . The growth from the last three months was blown away just in three days and there is still no sign of stopping. What caused the sell-off? One thing is fundamentals like the Coronavirus slowing down the global economy (-0.1 to -0.2% was the IMF optimistic estimate). The other thing is that when there is a strong uptrend there are always pullbacks and also “Long squeezes”. A Long squeeze is what I think we currently see on the S&P 500. Big trading institutions don’t want to be buying and adding to their long positions for too high prices. Big guys don’t want to buy expensive. What is best for them is simply manipulate the market into a sell-off like we see now and then buy for cheaper /lower prices later. What do the other market participants do when they see a sell-off? They start to panic and sell their longs. This helps to drive ...

There is now a lot of attention on the AUD/USD . The reason for this is that it has just hit it’s 11 year low! There are fundamental reasons for this (fires, Coronavirus,…) but I don’t really believe the AUD can fall indefinitely. Sooner or later it will bottom out and I think this moment is coming! Look back in the past When a trading instrument falls to its multi-year lows and you want to look for a place where it could bottom out, then it is best to load some historical data and check out if the price was as low or lower in the past. If you load enough of historical data, then chances are that you will find out that the price actually was as low or even lower at some point in the past. Check out the volumes The next thing you want to do is to use Volume Profile tool to look into volumes and their distribution. The important thing is how the volumes were distributed in the past, when the price was as low as...

Today I would like to do a swing trade analysis of the USD/JPY and show you some points that I think are pretty important there. Crazy USD/JPY buying There was some pretty aggressive buying on the USD/JPY recently. The price shot 240 pips upwards just in two days! What also happened here was that 10 months old gap got closed as a result of this buying activity. Gaps on forex are pretty important for two reasons. First, they tend to get closed soon . Second, if they don’t get closed, then there is likely to be a trend. This happened on the USD/JPY in 2019. There was a gap which did not close and this started a new strong downtrend. More about trading gaps here: How to trade gaps Sudden price reversal So, we have a gap closed and strong buying activity. Then the price suddenly turned. Why did that happen? One word – Volumes. Back in 2019, there was a Volume accumulation right before the new downtren...

*Disclaimer: Presented opinions, trades and trading ideas on the markets and charts is not advice nor a trading recommendation. It is general information and it is for educational purposes only. **You can learn more about my trading setups in my new book: VOLUME PROFILE: The insider’s guide to trading If you would like to learn to trade with Volume Profile and to trade with me every day, then join my Trading Course!

NZD/CAD: Intraday Analysis from A to Z Today, I am going to do a complete intraday analysis on NZD/CAD. I am going to show you the way I always do it from A to Z. Rotation vs. Trend The first thing I check is whether there is a trend or a rotation. If there is a rotation then I am looking for both buying and selling opportunities (longs and shorts). When there is a trend , then I am looking only for trades which are in line with the trend. NZD/CAD is clearly in a downtrend , so I will be looking for short trades only. NZD/CAD; 60 Minute chart: Weekly Volume Profiles After I decided whether I look for longs, shorts, or both I look into Weekly Volume Profiles. Those should point me to the strongest intraday supports and resistances. If an intraday support/resistance is clearly visible on the Weekly Volume Profile, then the chance...

All eyes are on the EUR/USD again. The reason is that it broke all significant supports and it is under strong and constant selling pressure since the beginning of this month. Is there a way to tell where this strong downtrend might stop and possibly turn? Yes, there is! But we need to have a look at higher time frames – weekly or monthly. Why? Because we need to see the price action and volumes that were in this area in the past. The last time EUR/USD was as low as it is now was in 2017. For that reason, we need to look into this area and try to find something to hold onto there. What happened in 2017… 2017 was a trend year. First, there was a few months of rotation from the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017. Then a massive uptrend started and lasted almost a whole year. Now, I am interested in how the volumes were distributed in this area. When I use my Flexible Volume profile on the 2017 uptrend ...

Today I would like to have a closer look at the EUR/GBP. I am interested in intraday trading levels, so I am going to start with a zoomed out 60 Minute chart which enables me to see the bigger picture. In the picture below you can see than there is a nicely visible downtrend . You can tell by looking at the simple Price Action. Another way how to tell whether there is a trend or no is the VWAP. I dare to say that VWAP is a faster and more reliable way. The reason is that VWAP is calculated using Price and Volumes. What you want to see in a downtrend is not only price going down, but also volumes shifting downwards. If there is downward movement without Volumes, then it lacks the strenght! How do you tell if there is a trend using VWAP? It is pretty simple. When the two grey lines ( 1st deviations of VWAP) start moving upwards or downwards, there is a trend. If they move horizontally, then there is a sideways ...

The previous week I wrote about the importance of the big picture analysis. I did a long – term analysis on Gold using Weekly charts and Volume Profile. You can read this analysis here: GOLD – The Big Picture Now, I would like to zoom in a bit and analyze Gold on a much lower time frame (30 Minute). This will point us to intraday supports/resistances which are currently there. Price Action analysis Let’s first start with simple Price Action. Currently there is an uptrend on Gold. It looks like this: When there is a trend development like this, then I like to use my Flexible Volume Profile on the trend area. My goal is to see significant Volume Clusters which got accumulated in the trend. Volume Clusters What does a Volume Cluster in a trend mean? Volume Cluster is an area, with heavy volumes . You should be able to spot them easily with Volume Profile. They should be visible at first sight. Nice a...

*Disclaimer: Presented opinions, trades and trading ideas on the markets and charts is not advice nor a trading recommendation. It is general information and it is for educational purposes only. **You can learn more about my trading setups in my new book: VOLUME PROFILE: The insider’s guide to trading If you would like to learn to trade with Volume Profile and to trade with me every day, then join my Trading Course!

I received quite a lot of emails from people asking me to do an analysis on Gold. I am not surprised by this. Gold prices are surging again and people are getting interested (again). Today I am going to do a big picture analysis and point out the most important support and resistance zones. The BIG picture If you want to do an analysis of any trading instrument, it is always best to start from the big picture . By the big picture, I mean THE BIG picture! In this case, I pulled 10 years of data and printed it on the Weekly time frame. This allows me to see the complete BIG picture. The next thing I did was that I draw my Flexible Volume Profile over the whole 10-year area. Result? A 10-year Volume profile with two really clear heavy volume zones . Those are the most crucial areas in the whole 10 year period! And the most important zones in those two heavy volume areas are the places where the volu...

The reality of trading is that there are not so many trades that would go exactly how you planned them. If somebody tells you that market always does what he predicts and that there are no ugly situations, then I would not really trust such a guy… Today, I am going to show you one pretty ugly trade which I had on USD/CAD. This trade did not go as I planned it! At least not at first… I would also like to show you how important is to stick to your strategy no matter what! USD/CAD Swing short The trade I am going to talk about is a swing short on USD/CAD. I published this level in my Member’s area a couple months in advance and since then we have been waiting for the price to hit it. The short entry was based on Volume Accumulation Setup and it was at 1.3282 . Standard SL was at 1.3321 and Take Profit at 1.3243. I trade all my swing trades using the Alternative SL . This means that I do not close my s...