The Forex Chronicles

Archives for December 2023

The5ers Offering $20K Bootcamp Challenge For Just $1

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Bootcamp Challenge

Prop firm challenges have become very popular in recent years because for a small one-off fee, traders can gain access to a fully funded account if they successfully pass the challenge.

One of the most popular challenges is the Bootcamp challenge offered by The5ers, one of the most popular prop firms, and I have some exciting news to report because for a limited time only, you can now buy one of these challenges for just $1 until midnight on 31 December 2023 (usual price is $95).

Simply click on this link and click on Bootcamp challenge to take advantage of this offer.

Please note that this has proven to be a very popular promotion according to The5ers’ feed on X, so it may take a few hours to receive your account credentials, and the server has gone down a few times, so you may need to be patient during this time.

Passing the Challenge

The Bootcamp challenge is a real test of your trading skill because you are required to pass three individual challenges without breaching the 5% drawdown limit on each one.

The profit target is 6% for each phase of the challenge, which is quite hard to achieve, but it is not too demanding in comparison to the drawdown, and you do have an unlimited amount of time to pass each challenge.

Therefore you do not have to take excessive risks to complete the bootcamp challenge. You can simply trade slowly and steadily using your existing trading strategy, managing your risk accordingly to ensure that you don’t fail the challenge with a couple of bad trades.

If you do pass the challenge, there are no other fees to pay as part of this special $1 promotion, unlike the regular bootcamp challenge that requires a one-off fee to gain access to the fully funded account after passing the challenge.

The Rewards

If you are successful in your quest to pass each phase and complete the bootcamp challenge, you will start off with a $20K fully funded account and will then need to hit a profit target of 5% to scale up to the next level, $30K in this case, without breaching the drawdown limit of 4%.

You will receive 50% of the profits on the first level only, and then it goes up to 75% on each of the higher levels, before increasing to 80% at $2m and finally up to 100% when you reach the $2.5m level, where it will remain until the final level of $4m.

There are certain trading conditions that you should be aware of before you start trading. For example, a stop loss needs to be entered on every trade, and you cannot risk more than 2% per trade.

However you are allowed to trade the news, for example, and there are many instruments that you can trade, including currency pairs, indices, metals, commodities and cryptocurrencies.

So there is no reason why a skillful trader cannot pass this challenge and obtain a funded account.

How to Buy This $1 Challenge

If you have a debit or credit card, you can buy this bootcamp challenge online for just $1 (or your local currency equivalent).

You will then receive your evaluation trading account within 24 hours and will be able to start entering trades once you have downloaded and logged in to the MT5 trading platform using your login details.

→ Click here to buy this $1 bootcamp challenge

If you do take up this offer, I wish you the best of luck!

Example of VWAP Bounce Trade on S&P 500 – 18 December 2023

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Introduction

I just uploaded a new article to this site a few days ago that took a closer look at the VWAP indicator, and how it can benefit stock, indices and forex traders, particularly those who like to day trade these markets on the lower timeframes.

In this article I pointed out that one of the best set-ups is when you get an initial move higher followed by a retracement back down to the VWAP indicator because this is where you will often see a strong level of support, and in many cases a nice bounce higher.

Well as it turned out, we got a textbook VWAP bounce on the S&P 500 only yesterday and it is this trade example that I want to walk you through today.

S&P 500 Trade Set-Up

As you are probably aware, the markets have been really strong in December and getting close to new all-time highs.

Subsequently, if you would have looked at the longer timeframes on the S&P 500 at the opening bell yesterday, you would have seen that the price was above the 10 and 20 exponential moving averages on the monthly timeframe all the way down to the 4-hour timeframe, and had just popped above them on the 1-hour chart as well.

Therefore the trend was ultra-bullish, and you should only really have been looking for opportunities to go long because you would really have been swimming against the tide if you had attempted to short this market.

One way of doing this is waiting for a retracement and then taking a long position when the price moves upwards through these moving averages on a lower timeframe, but VWAP bounces can be just as effective when they occur.

Obviously if you get a VWAP bounce and a move through the moving averages, that’s even better!

Trade Execution

In the case of yesterday’s price action on the S&P 500, we did see an initial move higher, but short-term traders will have noticed that the price started to retrace back towards the VWAP on the 5-minute chart after the first hour of trading.

As I mentioned earlier, with the underlying trend being so strong, this is the area where traders should consider going long if buyers started to step in, and the close of the highlighted candle was a good time to do so.

This is where we saw the first strong bounce off the VWAP, and we also saw the price break through the prior highs from the previous two candles as well. Plus it also closed at the high of the candle, which was another sign of strength.

You will also see that the price just about closed above both the 10 and 20-period exponential moving averages as well, so this was a really high probability set-up.

Your losses could be easily capped by placing a stop loss just underneath the most recent low, or somewhere just below the VWAP indicator, and your potential gains to the upside are essentially unlimited.

Closing Comments

It’s always important to point out that these and other similar set-ups are not completely foolproof.

There will be times when the price will look like it is bouncing back off the VWAP indicator, but then burst straight through it and continue moving lower, but if you manage your losses, this isn’t a problem and is just part of trading.

The key to successful trading is to find opportunities to put the odds of success in your favor, and trading VWAP bounces is one way of doing this if you wait for the right set-ups.

Multi-Timeframe and Divergence Oil Trade – 7 December 2023

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Introduction

I’ve been asked several times to document some trades that are based on multi-timeframe analysis because people seem to really resonate with this particular trading strategy, so in today’s article I want to discuss a very nice set-up that occurred on US crude oil yesterday afternoon.

With multi-timeframe analysis I like the weekly, daily and 4-hour charts to be trending in the same direction, with the price ideally above or below their 10 and 20-period moving averages on each one.

Then I want to see a pullback on the 1-hour chart followed by a trend resumption in alignment with the three longer term charts, which is where I will enter a position.

US Crude Oil Set-Up

In the case of US crude oil, the price has been trending downwards on the weekly and daily chart for a while now, and was showing a little more strength on the 4-hour chart. However it was still trading below my preferred moving averages (the 10 and 20 EMA) on this timeframe too, as you can see below:

This is exactly what I was hoping to see, and it was actually perfectly set-up for a 1-hour pull-back and entry on Wednesday, but I was reluctant to trade on that day because the crude oil inventories figure was due to be released later in the afternoon, and could have had a positive or a negative effect on the trade.

As it turned out, this would have been a very profitable trade as it moved strongly downwards prior to the data release, but luckily there was another nice set-up on Thursday where the price resumed its downward trend after a brief pullback.

Trade Entry

As you can see, there were actually two potential set-ups earlier in the day, at the close of the 5.00 and 11.00 candles, but these were low probability trades because they occurred during the quietest periods of the day when volume for US crude oil is very light. So there was unlikely to be any strong momentum behind any downward move even if the trend were to continue.

The close of the highlighted 3PM candle was a much better set-up even though it was a little late in the day because it was a bigger downward candle and there was a lot more volume behind the price drop because it occurred in the first few hours of the US session.

Furthermore, if you look at the stochastics indicator in the bottom panel of the chart, you will see that there was a nice double top divergence pattern that showed that this upward price move was running out of momentum. Plus it also dropped below the black VWAP indicator as well to give a very strong signal.

If you had entered a short position at the close of the 3 PM candle (at 4 PM) at 69.927, you would have watched it move against you initially, but then fall as low as 68.98, approximately 95 points in profit, before bouncing back slightly towards the end of the day.

Since then it has continued moving higher in the overnight Asian session, but that doesn’t really matter. It still gave you enough of a move to bank some nice profits, even if you closed half the position at 50 points and were stopped out at break-even with the other half, for example.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully I have now demonstrated that this multi-timeframe strategy works well on a variety of different instruments because I have now given trading examples of this strategy for oil, gold and the USD/JPY pair.

You do still need to be selective, as I highlighted above, because you don’t want to take an entry signal at the quieter periods of the day. If you have strong volume on your side and are trading in alignment with the prevailing trend on the higher time frames, your odds of success will be much higher.