Hi Folks.

Yesterday (Monday) marked the last of the major holidays for the rest of the Spring/Summer trading season, until September (yes, we have the 4th of July holiday in the US but we seem to be the only ones who celebrate that holiday...in fact, I saw a t-shirt available in England that refers to July 4th as High Treason Day...I guess it all depends on your outlook).

But with the arrival of Summer we now have the typical slowing of the pairs, although given how slow the markets have been these last 5 months I'm not sure how they can slow down much further without risking going backwards in time.

But there have always been ways to accommodate slow markets, and I want to share a couple with you. right now.

The first way is to be ready to move out of your comfort zone and look at trading other sessions and other pairs than what you might be used to trading.

I tend to focus entirely on the GBPJPY to the exclusion of almost all of the remaining pairs.  In times where price action is active, I can afford to be selective.

But when things slow down as they have recently, the only way I can keep moving forward with my account is to start looking at the market like a sniper, only taking trades when there appears to be a better than 50/50 chance I will see some price action.

So I start by looking at the calendar at either Forex Factory or FXStreet and see what kind of major news is scheduled for the hours when I know I will be able to trade.  In my case, living in Florida, that means looking mostly at the New York and Asian sessions.  I will also consider any major news set for release at or after 6 a.m. my time as I am an early riser and can easily be ready for anything the markets throw at me just prior to the NY session.

I don't trade the news per se, but I'm looking for those reports that are considered High Impact as opposed to just any old report which has no history of moving prices around on a regular basis.

Next I look for the pairs most likely to be impacted by the major news.

That means the AUD, NZD and JPY pairs during the Asian Session, the GBP and EUR pairs during the London Session, and the USD and CAD pairs during the NY session.

Now obviously you are going to see some crossover involving various currencies, but you aren't likely to see a lot of activity in the AUD/NZD during the New York sesssion, as that pair typically sees most of it's movements start and end during the Asian session.

So keep that in mind.

Once I have a news release spotted and have the pairs figured out that I want to trade, I wait for the news to hit and watch to see how the pairs react.

A lot of time the "big" reports only generate a small move (what we might call a spike) where price moves one way for 1-2 minutes, then reverses and heads back to whatever price point it was sitting at before the news.  And there it stays until the next big news event breaks it out of its comatose state.

But occasionally the news is the catalyst for an even bigger move down the road a bit.

So for these trades I use a simple 5 Minute candlestick chart and NO indicators.

I wait for two 5 Minute candles to close.  The first 5M candle covers the time when the news was released.  The second candle covers the next 5 minute period after that.  So it's a 10 minute wait.

If both candles close in the same direction (both are moving up or both are moving down) I put in a trade going that same direction just as soon as Candle #2 closes.  So I buy when two bullish candles close and sell when 2 bearish candles close.  Exits are a matter of looking at nearby lines of support and resistance and closing out when a line is touched and price reverses, or I move my stop to the line of S&R if price breaks the line and keeps going.

If that second 5M candle closes inside the first 5M candle (including the tips of the wicks) I wait for price to break out from either the wick high or wick low on Candle #1 and then trade in that direction.  I use the nearby lines of S&R to exit or move my stop.

Initial stops are a matter of personal preference, but you need to consider nearby reversal points as the location of the original stop, with a move to break even or even to the next line of S&R as soon as possible in order to reduce your loss exposure.

The last setup would be when the second candle closes in the opposite direction of the first, and price has moved beyond the tips of either the high wick for a buy or low wick for a sell.

In that case I usually pass on the trade as I have not found there to be any consistency in future price action based on this particular setup.  But I also have not found that price action performs in this fashion very often, so 95+% of the time you will either be dealing with two candles in the same direction or the second candle closing inside the tips of the first.

Another way to find trades when no news is scheduled during the summer is to use a solid Currency Meter such as the one Cynthia Macy just put out.  You are looking for those currencies where one of the pair components is at the highest levels measured, while the other currency component is at the lowest levels. 

This signals a trade.

If you are looking at a pair where both currencies are sort of mired in the middle of the meter readings, it's a good idea to take a hard pass on the trade until you see some evidence that one currency is far superior in strength over the other.

Cynthia has done her typical outstanding job with this tool, and she has provided a substantial amount of video training to turn you into an expert in using this meter in a very short period of time.

Given we are now entering a period where typical price action is going to be slow for the next three months, having a tool that keeps you out of what would likely end up being a bad trade is just as important as having a tool that spots good trade setups.

Cynthia's Currency Meter does both.

She has a short training video up on her sales page if you want to see how the meter works in real time.  You can see it here:  https://jvz1.com/c/43106/330717

I know I've said in the past that anything Cynthia pus out is an automatic Buy for me, and this tool is no different.  It's a solid addition to your trading tool box and one I can recommend without hesitation.

Here is the link again if you need it:  https://jvz1.com/c/43106/330717

Jeff