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My broker shows Forex charts driven by the bid price. If I'm buying above a bar on this chart should I add the spread, so make my entry price the 'high of the bar' + spread?
Also for my short stop-loss orders which also get filled at the ask. If I want my stop above a prior swing high, should I place the stop-loss at 'swing high' + spread?
On later videos Al says to buy one pip above/below signal bars, but I'm having trouble rationalising this with the spread. If my spread is 1.5 pip and I sell 1 pip below the bid-chart bar that's where I get filled because I'm selling at the bid. But if I buy 1 pip above the bid chart bar and my spread is 1.5, the trade triggers half a pip below the high of the bar.
Yes, forex has this issue and yes you have to adapt your orders so they trigger when they should, but difficult to do in real-time if you can't anticipate the trades. Maybe you could try forex futures where the issue is gone.
Some brokers allow to change the chart and see also ASK candles. For example Oanda or Dukascopy. I just look at the ASK candles when playing a stop entry buy for example above a candle.
I use FXCM and on their software you can choose to view the chart in either 'bid' or 'ask' form. So when I am buying I select 'ask' and when selling I select 'bid'. This way your orders will always get triggered at the right price. For example, 1 pip above or below the close of a bar. I also execute trades on Tradingview, but the price is an average, so the trigger point isn't shown on the chart as well as in their own software.
Thanks all for the responses. Unfortunately my trading Platform (Ninjatrader) doesn't let me see the historical bid and ask (they present the bid bid price as the "last" price - NT is predominantly for Futures) so switching to the bid or ask chart doesn't work on a Forex Connection.
I use Ninjatrader because it lets me do a lot of the work programmatically so it's no problem to automatically add the spread.
I do question this one-pip above/below rule which Al claims to be needed for both buy and sell orders.
The bid is the best interbank price, the ask is the interbank price + broker's spread. Is it really necessary to place sell orders a pip below the interbank price?I feel like we're giving away a lot.
Oh and I wanted to point out that Al's trading course does detail the different types of brokers, and the different ways they present prices: bid/ask/mid.
But all subsequent advice is to sell a pip above and buy a pip below regardless I can't find any info about adding the spread for buy scenarios. As Al was originally using Trading view (mid price) would have resulted in trades half a pip above/below in both buy and sell cases.
So I feel a whole pip + the spread for buy orders and a whole pip - spread is excessive and should be half a pip when dealing directly with the bid chart.
I think the 1 pip above/below on a stop order is so that the market is going in your direction when your order is filled. Though technically you could put it half a pip I suppose if your software doesn’t show a bid/ask price.
