Monday, May 13, 2013

THE PRACTICE OF BREAKOUT TRADING

The practice of trading breakouts in the Forex market is a strategy employed by investors through the ages. It has gained popularity due to its profitability for traders. Even though breakouts are good for trading it must be perfected in order to make profits from it.
A breakout occurs when a currency pair price movement has been trending within a certain range for some time and then it will break out from the previous support and resistance levels in either an upward direction or a downward direction. Most often the price movement will continue in the direction of the breakout. It is this knowledge that traders use to their advantage when trading with breakouts.
The first step in trading breakouts is to identify them. If a currency pair has been trending between certain parameters for a sustained period then the trader is able to place buy or sell orders slightly above or below the present range so that he is able to capitalize on the breakout when it occurs. The best way to find out the optimal positions is to use technical indicators. The trader can take a long position if the breakout occurs above the resistance level and a short position if it happens to be below the support level.  
Breakout trading is ideal as a strategy for more than one reason. This is mainly due to the fact that it can be applied to different time frames equally successfully. The longer the period of trending within limits the bigger the breakout will be and then it is all up to volatility to determine the trade.
The most opportune time has to be found to exit a trade after a breakout. This can be estimated with some level of accuracy by referring to the latest price movements for the currency pair. With the use of this information a trader is able to estimate the exit point fairly accurately. In the event that the trade fails the price movement can be seen to return to the previous price range. When a breakout occurs, the old support level becomes the new resistance level and in the same vein the old resistance level becomes the new support level. The trader can use the old parameters of the price movements to determine where to place the stop loss orders and safeguard his trade position.
Trading breakouts is fairly simple in its concept and understanding it correctly will ensure that a trader profits from it in substantial amounts.

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