A Pullback is a pause, retracement, or consolidation of a price from the most recent peak during an ongoing trend. The pullback is widely seen as a trading opportunity after the underlying asset experienced a large upside or downside move. For example – Any forex pair is in a strong uptrend, and some healthy news came, and price action dropped back to the most recent support area that indicates the professional traders are booking the profits.
Pullbacks happen all the time, and if you learn how to trade them successfully, it can be a great skill as a trader. Trading the pullback is the easiest way to trade the market, sometimes you will recognize the high probability pullback trades and sometimes extreme volatile pullbacks, and you can enhance your repertoire and find many higher probability trades. If you are new in the market, then pullback trading is a fantastic and easy way to find superior risk-to-reward ratio trades. In this article, we will explore five trading strategies that provide excellent pullback trades.
Pullback Trading Strategies
Two-Legged Pullback To The MA
Al Brooks popularized the concept of two legs pullback in his price action books. He explained most of the time, price action print two legs to reach the moving average. We backtested his strategy and found out that his techniques work very well in the trending market, but sometimes in the strong trending market, you will only witness one leg.
This is because most market operators are in a hurry to move the market; this may be because of any fundamental news. To filter out all the low probability trades, it is advisable to find a trending market and then wait for the price action to print the two legs towards the moving average, and when all the moves complete, take the buy entry.
The image below represents the buying trade in the EURGBP forex pair. The moving average indicates the buying trend in the currency. Price action pulled back to the moving average, prices responded from the moving average and goes a bit higher and end up printing the second leg. The second leg goes down to the moving average, but the strong buyers smack back up and close above the moving average. Furthermore, the price slows down a bit, and we took buying entry with the stops below the entry, and for taking profit, we choose the brand new higher high.
Candlestick Pattern + MA
This method will use the bullish engulfing candlestick pattern with a moving average to successfully trade the market.
Here we need two ingredients.
- Price action pullback to the moving average.
- The market forms a bullish engulfing pattern.
First of all, look for the strong trending market and wait for price action to approach the moving average. At this stage, if the price action prints the engulfing pattern, it’s the right time for you to go for a buy entry. Otherwise, no entries are allowed for you. An Engulfing Pattern indicates the sellers try to print the brand new lower low, but because of dynamic support of moving average prices pulled back and buyers end up eating all the sellers. As a result, we witnessed the Bullish Engulfing pattern.
The image below represents the buying trade in the EURNZD forex pair. As you can see, at the end of the downtrend, price action goes above the moving average, and we witnessed the engulfing pattern. The trading pattern closed above the moving average, which was a confirmation of buyers came back to the show and were expecting the brand new higher high.
Trendlines + Channel Trading
This one is the simple trading approach, which is not much popular, but it often generates wonderful trading results. First of all, you must draw the trend line to the ongoing trend, and when the price action pulls back enough, then draw the price channel to identify the oversold and overbought area. When price action approaches the trend line as well as the lower line of the price channel, it is an indication to go long.
The image below represents the buying entry in the AUDCHF forex pair. The trend line was the indication that the buyers are leading the show. During the pullback phase, when enough sellers approach the trend line and the lower channel line, it gave the strong buying candle. The reason we got the strong candle is because for the support and resistance trader, the zone was a dynamic support area to go long.
RSI + Stochastic Indicator
In this approach, we are using the two oscillators to trade the pullbacks. Stochastic and RSI both are oscillators, and they both oscillate between the significant levels. In an uptrend, wait for the price action to pull back. When the stochastic and RSI gave the oversold signal, it is a perfect time to go for a brand new higher high.
The image below indicates the buying trade in the AUDCHF forex pair. The pair was overall in an uptrend, and during the pullback, both of the indicators were showing the oversold signals, and the reversal at the oversold area was a great sign to go long. When both oscillators indicate the same sign, there is no point in going for more significant stops. When both oscillators gave the reversal signal at the significant resistance level, that’s a perfect time to close your trade.
Conclusion
All the pullback strategies share the same goal, which is to time the market. The better you master the skill of timing before the take-off, the more profits you will make. If you are a newbie trader, then master these strategies first on the demo and then apply to the live market because trying any of these strategies in the live market is dangerous without having any experience.
So never try anything on the live account. Instead, practice them on demo first and then make a profit on a live account. When you master these strategies, then you can very easily design a pullback strategy for yourself. Whichever strategy fits nicely into your trading approach, master it.
