Podcast:

Don’t stress about the news

In this weekly video:

00:21 – Decisions are based off the charts

01:05 - Look at the news announcements once a day

01:36 – The charts tell me all I need to know

01:52 – News is your opinion

02:48 – Should you straddle the news?

03:23 – Should I be watching the news channels on TV?

04:05 – H12 AUD/JPY Sell trade live on a webinar makes a +1.25% account gain

Hey Traders, Andrew Mitchem here, the owner of The Forex Trading Coach, video and podcast number 276.

Decisions are based off the charts

Now, as you know, I'm a technical trader, I look at the charts and I make my decisions based on what I see on the charts because as a technical trader, the price action tells me everything that I need to know. I'm not a news trader, I'm not a fundamental trader, and I know that when I mention that some people get upset, and there are certain people out there, and you know who you are, that say, "Hey Andrew, you can't be a trader purely technically." But, I've been doing this for 15 years and yes I am, and so are my coaching clients.

So, I'm not saying that news trading doesn't work, so don't get worried if you're a news trader. But, I'm saying they don't need to stress about news trading because to me there's a better way, and that's technical trading.

Look at the news announcements once a day

Now, I look at Forex factory once a day purely for my own interest and knowledge about what news announcements are coming up, and what will the announcements of some of the major impact news yesterday, just purely for my own global knowledge of what's happening. But it does not effect my trading.

You see, as a technical trader I believe that I see everything I need to know on the charts. And as mentioned, I've been doing this 15 years and it's worked over that time pretty well. So, it's unlikely not to work in the future.

The charts tell me all I need to know

Because the charts tell me everything I need to know. They tell me where I see certain candle patterns that I'm looking for, they tell me whether we're in an overbought, oversold area. I can look at strength and weakness with other bigger timeframes, and then use that to my advantage on shorter timeframes.

News is your opinion

Whereas to me news is quite opinionated. You see, when a news release comes out, is that better or worse than the anticipated level? And then it's like, well, how much better or worse has it? And what some people see as good news, others would see as very average or poor news. And that becomes the problem as a technical trader looking at the other side of fundamentals. It becomes too opinionated.

You may say, "Well, that employment rate was really good." I might go, "Well, it was okay, but it was nowhere near as good as expected or last months went down." Those kind of things. And then how does that affect the currency? Whereas, as a technical trader the charts tell me everything. I don't need to still be worrying about whether this is good or bad news. It doesn't matter. The fact is that the price is either moving up or down, and that's really how I benefit as a technical trader.

Should you straddle the news?

And you get a lot of people who may say, "Look why don't I just straddle the news." As in like take a buy stop, if the news moves the pair up and take a sell stop if the price moves down. Well that's okay, but that's basically just a technical way of trading a news item, because it's basically saying you've got no idea what's happening, it just means that if it moves up and breaks out upwards you're taking a buy trade and if it breaks that downwards you're taking the sell trade. Well that's not fundamental news trading. That's basically taking a punt each way. It's either going head up and get going or head down and keep going. And so that becomes the problem.

Should I be watching the news channels on TV?

You see, I had someone that contacted me,