[GBPUSD retrace trade]

is it my (a newbie's imagination, or I it a reality that this pair is heavily manipulated by someone other than traders?

 

[GBPUSD retrace trade]

12/1/2019  If I can close my shorts out without too much damage, I' gone and prolley won't return to the GBS as I don't think they are kind to newbies!

[GBPUSD retrace trade]

On 30/11/2019 at 11:11, Mercury said:

Not sure I fully understand your question @Trevbeats so if I have got the wrong end of the stick please let me know.  In terms of chartist patterns, this is well documented charting techniques (e.g. consolidations, retraces, Head & Shoulders, Double top/bottoms etc.).  In terms of other technical analysis that I overlay onto basic charting techniques (e.g. trend lines, Elliot Wave Theory -EWT- etc) that is partly a visualisation technique and, in the case of EWT and charting techniques, a means to map market participants sentiment as it expresses human nature (Fear and Greed).  People who use such techniques believe that while history may not actually repeat itself the circumstances impacting decision making do and human nature is largely unchanged over time.  Therefore market participants (people, even those who program the algos) react in similar ways to similar circumstances through the lens of the Fear/Greed seesaw, which itself is a form of fight or flight.  One reasons large financial institutions (and some smaller players too) attempt to deploy purely algorithmic trading mechanisms is to avoid this fight or flight emotional overlay.  Inr eality though the programmers are human and constantly adjusting the algo parameters and we are not talking about machines or AI making up their own mind here as Algos are not AI and in fact humans, some surmise, are also algorithmic machines, just biological ones.  This is at the heart of studies like Kahneman's Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow.

I cannot speak for the markets as a whole, except to say that there are many methods being deployed so I don't buy into the self fulfilling prophesy argument, at least not as a general rule.  At best I think all macro analysts and long term position takers have a road map in the sense that they have an entry and exit sketched out but not all will have it on a chart as I do.