Impulsive Move Trading: Capitalizing Market Momentum

This guide is all about a simple forex strategy with impulsive move trading. We are going to take some time to focus on impulsive and corrective moves in an attempt to explain the market behavior of a trading week. We will cover currency patterns, strategy implications, the trader’s goal, and when impulsive moves start.

If this is your first time on the Trading Strategy Guides website, our team at Trading Strategy Guides welcomes you. Make sure you subscribe, so you can get your Free Trading Strategy every week directly into your email box.

If you want to learn how to trade forex, there are some things that you should know before you risk any of your hard-earned money. Learn more about forex trading by reading this guide: Forex Trading for Beginners, or this one, Forex Trading.

Thanks for your patience, let’s continue learning Impulsive Move Trading.

Introduction: Impulsive Move Trading

Currency Patterns

It is not a secret that the currency market has two distinct patterns of movement:

1) Impulsive moves
2) Corrective moves

Impulsive Moves

The impulsive moves are 1 directional. These moves are fast and they tend to reach their targets in a quick timely fashion. These moves rock and there is hardly anything stopping them. All support and resistance have vanished and the currency is moving endlessly in one direction.

Make sure to also check out our guide to a simple day trading Forex strategy.

Corrective Moves

The corrective moves have no clear direction. They bounce up and down, and down and up. There is no clear direction. In these areas, we see currencies making flags, triangles, wedges, sideways consolidations, and many more corrective patterns. The net result is that the currency in fact hardly moves anywhere. It just oscillates back and forth.

Check out this article on Forex trading for beginners as well!

According to statistics, currencies spend at least 70% of their time in corrective trading. Then again, currencies only have an impulsive character for a maximum 30% of the time. Forex trading is simple, but not easy. That is why Trading Strategy Guides is here with valuable Forex advice daily on how to trade Forex. These stats have important consequences. Also, read about Best Forex Indicators.

Strategy Implications

Logically speaking, this fact has huge implications for any trader’s Forex trading strategy or strategies. Usually, speaking traders have Forex strategies that focus on either trend-following setups (impulsive) or range-bound setups (corrective).

Some attempt to trade both, but a high level of experience and a great skill set is definitely required. You can also read the article on how to check if the right strategy backs your investment.

For most traders, the best value for your money and your risk is catching impulsive moves. Why?

Impulsive moves have the following advantages:

• Impulsive moves reach their target quickly
• Impulsive moves have a better great reward to risk

There are multiple advantages of having your trade develop quickly:

• The trade can be moved to break-even status quicker, allowing a trader to get back their margin. This, in turn, gives a trader the opportunity to take a new trade. Also here you can learn about forex volume indicators.
• The trade will reach the target sooner, which lets the trading capital grow quicker.
• Impulsive moves create less psychological stress with traders because the trade is good to go and on its way. In some cases, the trade could even be at the Break-Even level and all risk off the board. Trades that are open and indecisive for lengthy periods of time create insecurity with many a trader.

Impulsive moves, however, are kind of rare. Not as a rare as a peril. But still, it is obvious that the currency likes to correct. Roughly speaking, in 3 out of 4 cases the Forex market is in such a corrective mode, so it is definitely a substantial period of time. Here you can read and get information on how to trade gold.

Trader’s Goal

The trader’s goal is, therefore, to identify impulsive opportunities and judge the likelihood of an impulsive move actually unfolding. A Forex trading strategy that incorporates this into the plan is pure gold. That is the best answer anyone can give to the question of how to trade the Forex market.

This is not an easy task and requires a keen and experienced eye. However, there are areas in which a currency has a higher likelihood of making an impulse.
Trading with the trend, for example, increases those probabilities.

This Forex strategy allows traders to focus on catching impulsive moves, as most of these moves occur in the same direction as the trend.

Of course, there are definitely impulsive corrections, just as there are trending movements that are slow-paced.

If a trader is skillful enough to catch a corrective wave, then that is an added bonus. But until a trader is consistently profitable, sticking to impulsive trending mode trades is a wise idea. On average, corrections are by far less predictable than impulses. Also, read trading discipline which is also a most important skill for successful trading.

When Do Impulse Moves Start?

The big question is: when do impulse moves actually start?

This is the most difficult question a trader can imagine. And the answer is not easy. However, here are some guidelines that can be used for identifying areas of corrections and areas of impulsive behavior.

The irony is that most traders try to chase an ongoing impulse. While this in itself might provide good opportunities for the experienced traders, for many traders this proves to be fatal. Why?

Many traders are lured into the market when seeing an impulse. This in part can be explained by the psychological elements of fear and greed. Here is another article on the best technical indicators for forex trading.

The trader sees action in the market and does not want to miss the boat with profit sailing away. Therefore the trader takes a leap of faith. Jumping into a rolling and ongoing move can, however, have adverse effects without sufficient preparations. In many cases the currencies retrace against the trader, just at the moment, the trader decides to take a trade. How many of the readers recognize this phenomenon? Please write a comment in the section down below if you do.

Corrections Vs Impulses – Key Takeaways

Because corrections are long and impulses are short, the statistical probability that the impulse will continue once it is on its way is decreasing.
Once a correction has lasted a substantial period of time, the chances of an impulse occurring sometime soon are actually increasing.

This is almost the opposite of what seems natural to a trader. But the biggest reward can be achieved if a trader can catch the turnaround just before the impulsive move starts. There lies the biggest potential a trader can ever wish for. Use this knowledge wisely.

Here is an example of the GBPUSD during a past trading week.

We hope that we have helped you with your quest on how to better understand impulsive move trading. What have you noticed about your own impulsive moves and currency patterns?

Thank you for sharing these articles, it is greatly appreciated.

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions about Forex Trading.

Don’t forget to add us on Twitter: @TradeGuidesTSG.

Have a great weekend!

Free EBOOK Download!Secure Consistent Cashflow: Download Our Prop Firm Strategy Ebook!

1. Unlock the Secrets of Prop Firm Trading
2. Gain Expert Insights from our prop firm’s top traders
3. Take Control of Your Finances Today!