Could ORB strategy be a beginners 1st?

[MattfromNZ 55]

New trader here.

I work 3 weeks on 3 weeks off. On days that I work I have only 15mins of time after market opens to trade. I have read that new traders should stick to a single strategy at first until they master it before moving on to something else, so because of my situation I thought that an ORB strategy would be good to start with, however I have also heard that ORB strategies can be more difficult than others.

Another reason I like the idea of starting with an ORB strategy is that to me it seems like it would be easier to be more efficient for practice and simulation when I'm not working: I can practice with past days on the simulator and watch the pre-market YouTube videos for my watch list. Then spend about 15mins each watching and practicing on pairs of stocks. If I spend a few hours a day doing this it seems like it wouldn't take long to have many practice trades under my belt, more than I might for other strategies that require a lot more watching and waiting.

What are your thoughts and recommendations on this?

[mhileman 21]

ORB strategy is IMO, one of the harder strategies for a new trader to learn mainly due to the amount of volume and price that a stock can move in a fast amount of time.  It takes more time to learn what to do for this strategy since you are pretty much playing the open and don't know the direction of the stock.  There is a ORB video or 2 in the Education Center that you can watch to try to understand it as well as Andrew has put a couple of recap videos on Youtube.  I've noticed that if you wait until after the first couple of minutes you will have a better understanding of where the stock might go but again it could be a false breakout but you need to keep an eye on the volume as that is the tell all of what is happening.  

Edited December 23, 2020 by mhileman

[mhileman 21]

Check out the below link:

https://bearbulltraders.com/course/strategy/

Go down to the below section:

ABCD's and ORB's

 

[Alastair 110]

Since u asked directly.

If it appeals to ur eyes and mind, YES learn it in SIM and master it b4 going live . Could take u 6 - 8 mths of daily screen time.

With ORB u need to understand....

1. Levels.....premarket and higher levels.....

2. Tape reading....L2 and T & S.............

3. Candle stick patterns .....read patterns on D, 60M, 15M, 5M, 1M.  If u can see a 10 sec or 15sec chart tht can be helpful to an advanced trader.

4. Risk Management.....

5.  Hotkeys........makes u faster and reduces the stress

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by Alastair

[MattfromNZ 55]

41 minutes ago, mhileman said:

Check out the below link:

https://bearbulltraders.com/course/strategy/

Go down to the below section:

ABCD's and ORB's

 

I have watched one of the videos on 1-min ORB, and it was very useful. In theory it seems straightforward, but of course I believe people when they say it's hard. Maybe I could start learning 2 strategies, I practice the ORB at market open and then maybe I practice ABCD after that?

[MattfromNZ 55]

38 minutes ago, Alastair said:

Since u asked directly.

If it appeals to ur eyes and mind, YES learn it in SIM and master it b4 going live . Could take u 6 - 8 mths of daily screen time.

With ORB u need to understand....

1. Levels.....premarket and higher levels.....

2. Tape reading....L2 and T & S.............

3. Candle stick patterns .....read patterns on D, 60M, 15M, 5M, 1M.  If u can see a 10 sec or 15sec chart tht can be helpful to an advanced trader.

4. Risk Management.....

5.  Hotkeys........makes u faster and reduces the stress

 

Hmm, it does appeal, but so far that's only from watching someone else do it! The list above is roughly what I had in my mind, although how many of those timeframes do you really need to watch to trade ORB? Wouldn't too many just complicate things and make quick decisions harder to make? I suggested to Mhileman above that maybe I could practice learning 2 strategies - ORB at the open, and then another such as ABCD: Anticipate being able to trade the ABCD sooner, but start learning ORB now to master it later.

[Martin D 27]

Welcome Matt,

I'm in Australia so in a similar situation as the market opens at 1:30am at the moment so can only trade for the first hour or so on a consistent basis during the Australian summer.

I think it depends on who you are, if you listen to the moderators they will tell you to find your edge or in other words what suits you. All the moderators trade differently and have different strategies because they all have different strengths. For example Andrew trades the open but Peter says it's not his strength despite wanting to do it better, they are both consistently profitable traders, you don't need to be able to trade every situation/strategy in every minute of the day to be an excellent trader. So while ORB will be difficult for some it's childs play to Andrew and a favoured strategy for many.

It might be you like the idea of the open but it might not be your trading edge so try out different things before you settle on a style to try and nail down. We all have different characteristics and abilities in life, I'm in finance by trade, if I'd decided to be an artist, author, tradie or something like that I wouldn't have been very successful, I'm not good at it and was never good at it whereas numbers came relatively easy to me. If you're suited to later in the day then it's better to spend the 3 weeks trading strategies that your good at rather than all 6 weeks on stuff you're not. If you are more suited to the open then great it's suits your availability more.

Personally I'm not very good outside the first 30 minutes, I've tried and I don't have the attention span to sit for hours waiting for a setup, I get bored and start taking bad trades to cure the boredom. The fast pace of the open suits me but for others it's chaos and they can't process the information and make decisions fast enough, luckily that works with the time I have available to spend in the market at the moment or I would've had to undertake a much slower process.

In terms of strategy I didn't want to limit myself to one specific strategy so I focussed on time of day, for me that's the first 30 minutes and so my trade book is ORB (1&5 minute), Fallen Angel/Rising Devil and ABCD predominately. 

I don't think there's one best approach for everyone but the advice I took while learning was to spend time overtrading in Sim, investigate and try out different strategies at different times of the day and find out what works for you, develop your edge and trade book, once developed treat the Sim as if it was live (while refining your trade book) and become consistently profitable in Sim before going live. 

As others have said the education centre is an excellent place to find resources on strategies, trade books, risk management, psychology and all other different aspects of trading, it's a great place to start your journey by working your way through that. Spend time in the chat room listening to the pre market show and during the trading day even if you're not trading, the moderators will often give out nuggets of information about what they're looking at so it's great to just sit and look at what they're looking at to help your development.

[Angela Kuzeva 23]

I am 8th month in SIM. My advise is  study, start with the foundation section and give yourself time to learn DAS, just get super familiar with the platform. Watch risk management, position sizing webinars. Get some screen time and practice hot keys and execution. Meanwhile learn the strategies and patterns and try to see them on the chart and in real time. You can go trough Ayman's replays and practice them as he has the entry time and the strategy. It is very useful to study market structure to keep you on the right side of the trade. Don't limit yourself to one strategy, practice all and see which one suits your personality. Once you are familiar with the strategies start journaling your trades to find out which strategies, what time of the day, which type of stocks you are doing  better. Focus on these strategies  only and perfect them. Start building your playbook. My advise is to practice in SIM  during the real session as much as possible to recreate a real feeling for the market and make it as real as possible. Something super important is to practice in SIM every day with the size of the account you are planning to go live. 

It's a journey and takes time to find your edge.  There is  lots of valuable information from the moderators in the room, education center is amazing, ton of valuable webinars, Thor's mentorship session are great.

As to ORBs, focus on price action,  Level 2 and executing precise entries. You must be able to analyze a lot of data in a second,  and quickly take a decision to place a trade or no. You also have to look at your internet latency at the open. The open is violate  sometimes you don't get filled or you are filled at a very high price. In my opinion to make good money with ORBs, you need quite large account to put on size. And bigger size comes with experience and mental resilience. 

Wish you success!

 

 

[MattfromNZ 55]

9 hours ago, Martin D said:

Welcome Matt,

I'm in Australia so in a similar situation as the market opens at 1:30am at the moment so can only trade for the first hour or so on a consistent basis during the Australian summer.

I think it depends on who you are, if you listen to the moderators they will tell you to find your edge or in other words what suits you. All the moderators trade differently and have different strategies because they all have different strengths. For example Andrew trades the open but Peter says it's not his strength despite wanting to do it better, they are both consistently profitable traders, you don't need to be able to trade every situation/strategy in every minute of the day to be an excellent trader. So while ORB will be difficult for some it's childs play to Andrew and a favoured strategy for many.

It might be you like the idea of the open but it might not be your trading edge so try out different things before you settle on a style to try and nail down. We all have different characteristics and abilities in life, I'm in finance by trade, if I'd decided to be an artist, author, tradie or something like that I wouldn't have been very successful, I'm not good at it and was never good at it whereas numbers came relatively easy to me. If you're suited to later in the day then it's better to spend the 3 weeks trading strategies that your good at rather than all 6 weeks on stuff you're not. If you are more suited to the open then great it's suits your availability more.

Personally I'm not very good outside the first 30 minutes, I've tried and I don't have the attention span to sit for hours waiting for a setup, I get bored and start taking bad trades to cure the boredom. The fast pace of the open suits me but for others it's chaos and they can't process the information and make decisions fast enough, luckily that works with the time I have available to spend in the market at the moment or I would've had to undertake a much slower process.

In terms of strategy I didn't want to limit myself to one specific strategy so I focussed on time of day, for me that's the first 30 minutes and so my trade book is ORB (1&5 minute), Fallen Angel/Rising Devil and ABCD predominately. 

I don't think there's one best approach for everyone but the advice I took while learning was to spend time overtrading in Sim, investigate and try out different strategies at different times of the day and find out what works for you, develop your edge and trade book, once developed treat the Sim as if it was live (while refining your trade book) and become consistently profitable in Sim before going live. 

As others have said the education centre is an excellent place to find resources on strategies, trade books, risk management, psychology and all other different aspects of trading, it's a great place to start your journey by working your way through that. Spend time in the chat room listening to the pre market show and during the trading day even if you're not trading, the moderators will often give out nuggets of information about what they're looking at so it's great to just sit and look at what they're looking at to help your development.

Hi Martin, I like your profile picture, where was that taken? I really appreciate you putting the time in to write this. The main takeaway i'm getting is that I shouldn't pigeon hole myself into doing things a specific way at this this early stage in my trading career, but rather take the time to experiment and see what what works for me first before I hone my skills. 

[MattfromNZ 55]

4 hours ago, Angela Kuzeva said:

I am 8th month in SIM. My advise is  study, start with the foundation section and give yourself time to learn DAS, just get super familiar with the platform. Watch risk management, position sizing webinars. Get some screen time and practice hot keys and execution. Meanwhile learn the strategies and patterns and try to see them on the chart and in real time. You can go trough Ayman's replays and practice them as he has the entry time and the strategy. It is very useful to study market structure to keep you on the right side of the trade. Don't limit yourself to one strategy, practice all and see which one suits your personality. Once you are familiar with the strategies start journaling your trades to find out which strategies, what time of the day, which type of stocks you are doing  better. Focus on these strategies  only and perfect them. Start building your playbook. My advise is to practice in SIM  during the real session as much as possible to recreate a real feeling for the market and make it as real as possible. Something super important is to practice in SIM every day with the size of the account you are planning to go live. 

It's a journey and takes time to find your edge.  There is  lots of valuable information from the moderators in the room, education center is amazing, ton of valuable webinars, Thor's mentorship session are great.

As to ORBs, focus on price action,  Level 2 and executing precise entries. You must be able to analyze a lot of data in a second,  and quickly take a decision to place a trade or no. You also have to look at your internet latency at the open. The open is violate  sometimes you don't get filled or you are filled at a very high price. In my opinion to make good money with ORBs, you need quite large account to put on size. And bigger size comes with experience and mental resilience. 

Wish you success!

 

 

Thank you for your advice Angela, what you are saying makes a lot of sense. Seems like I should work on getting a good overall base of skills and familiarity with many strategies before I can find my edge and specialize in that. How if your journey going? How close are you to going live?

[Martin D 27]

1 hour ago, MattfromNZ said:

Hi Martin, I like your profile picture, where was that taken? I really appreciate you putting the time in to write this. The main takeaway i'm getting is that I shouldn't pigeon hole myself into doing things a specific way at this this early stage in my trading career, but rather take the time to experiment and see what what works for me first before I hone my skills. 

In NZ actually, tangariro crossing on the north island.

Yeah exactly and really focus on the other areas of trading outside specific strategy, risk management and psychology are essential for example. If you don't master those even if you're good at the strategy you'll still blow up your account.

[MattfromNZ 55]

59 minutes ago, Martin D said:

In NZ actually, tangariro crossing on the north island.

Yeah exactly and really focus on the other areas of trading outside specific strategy, risk management and psychology are essential for example. If you don't master those even if you're good at the strategy you'll still blow up your account.

The Tongariro Crossing is spectacular, my wife and I did it several years ago.

I have already read Andrews new book on trading psychology so think I am off to a good start with that. I start my next 3 weeks off work soon. Thinking of spending the first week focusing on learning the DAS platform, then the next 2 weeks focusing on learning and identifying different strategies, with practice trades focusing mainly on execution and risk management. Sound good?

[Angela Kuzeva 23]

17 hours ago, MattfromNZ said:

Thank you for your advice Angela, what you are saying makes a lot of sense. Seems like I should work on getting a good overall base of skills and familiarity with many strategies before I can find my edge and specialize in that. How if your journey going? How close are you to going live?

That correct Matt, the best approach in my opinion is to work on building skills, growth mindset, proper risk management. Strategies are only small part of the game. The edge is not in the strategy itself, it is you who execute the strategy and here many things come to deal with - emotions, risk, stress, decision making, uncertainty, randomness. Once you start understanding the price action start building your mental capital which is as important as your account capital. There are wonderful materials in BBT Education center on the topic of trading psychology to help you with this part of the journey. 

Thanks for asking, I have been progressing slowly. First few months were disaster, I just couldn't understand anything although I spend 3 months watching all the lessons and webinars in BBT, read books, taking notes and studying. I went back to the basics and started over and this time slowly the things become more clear. I have embraced Aiman's approach. I trade with 5 $ risk in simulator which is hilarious as many times I will trade 2 shares of Tesla but when I look back it makes sense to me. The goal in this game is to preserve your money and mental capital to trade another day while building your skill and finding your edge. I am consistently green the last 2 months and making 4- 5 R average a day.  Now I am increasing my risk to 10$ and planning to add another 5 $ risk every two weeks if I am green. My plan is to slowly transition to live next year, maybe in March. Also considering the option to trade 2 days live in a week and 3 days in SIM for a couple of months and see how it goes before completely go live trading.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[Alastair 110]

Not sure how comfortable u r with TAPE READING.

Here is a thread about Tape Reading (L2 and T&S) which I think could help ur learning process. Feedback from other readers was positive.

https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/1916-bookmap-for-learning-level-2-and-ts/?tab=comments#comment-14463

This is just one of the components required/would be helpful in ur trading journey.

[MattfromNZ 55]

5 hours ago, Angela Kuzeva said:

That correct Matt, the best approach in my opinion is to work on building skills, growth mindset, proper risk management. Strategies are only small part of the game. The edge is not in the strategy itself, it is you who execute the strategy and here many things come to deal with - emotions, risk, stress, decision making, uncertainty, randomness. Once you start understanding the price action start building your mental capital which is as important as your account capital. There are wonderful materials in BBT Education center on the topic of trading psychology to help you with this part of the journey. 

Thanks for asking, I have been progressing slowly. First few months were disaster, I just couldn't understand anything although I spend 3 months watching all the lessons and webinars in BBT, read books, taking notes and studying. I went back to the basics and started over and this time slowly the things become more clear. I have embraced Aiman's approach. I trade with 5 $ risk in simulator which is hilarious as many times I will trade 2 shares of Tesla but when I look back it makes sense to me. The goal in this game is to preserve your money and mental capital to trade another day while building your skill and finding your edge. I am consistently green the last 2 months and making 4- 5 R average a day.  Now I am increasing my risk to 10$ and planning to add another 5 $ risk every two weeks if I am green. My plan is to slowly transition to live next year, maybe in March. Also considering the option to trade 2 days live in a week and 3 days in SIM for a couple of months and see how it goes before completely go live trading.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It sounds like you are crushing it Angela!  I commend your patience and perseverance! I like the idea of "preserving your mental capital" as well as your financial - don't want to burn yourself out. Good luck for going live in the near future. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too!