How To Trade The Parabolic SAR in MT4

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Hi, this is Shaun Overton with ForexNews.com and OneStepRemoved.com. In this 3 minute video, I’m going to introduce you to the Parabolic SAR indicator for MetaTrader 4. If you don’t already have a demo account, you can follow along for free with an OANDA account by clicking the link below this video.

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The Parabolic SAR is far and away the most popular indicator that doesn’t use lines on the chart. It’s used by range traders and trend traders alike, although it’s widely used by trend traders. The indicator provides long term opportunities by spotting entry and exit signals.

The Parabolic SAR starts with a dot underneath the price. The longer that the dot remains underneath the price, the dots move exponentially races to catch up with the individual bar lows formed in the market.

If the Parabolic SAR started only 5 bars ago, the rate of change between the dots is very small. But as you get 20-30 bars into an opportunity, as you see here, the space between each successive dot increases rapidly. It’s like the PSAR is saying this trend has got to end soon. It’s waiting for the final bit of confirmation to flip direction.

The dots on this chart are either above the price or below the price. When they start below the price, the moment that they flip is when this low touches the dot formed on the last bar. At the precise moment when the bar’s low touches the PSAR value on the last bar, the dot flips.

The dot is now above the price. That is a valid sell signal. The sell signals work in the opposite way to the long signals. You’re waiting for a bar high to touch the dot and create a new buy signal.

The indicator gives you an always in the market reading, either long or short. All of the signals alternate purely back and forth between buy and sell signals.

The way to use this in a trending strategy is as basic as the indicator. Buy when the dot flips below the price. Sell when the dot flips above the price.

The best Parabolic SAR strategy that I’ve seen historically is the GBPJPY H4 chart. That currency pair is prone enough to trends to generate signals with substantial volatility. But, the four hour time frame is short enough that it’s able to exit trades, both good ones and bad ones, in relatively short order.

You do give up substantial ranges on profitable trend trades by waiting for the dots to catch up. There’s not much that can be done about that except by playing with the PSAR acceleration values. You can do that by left clicking on the chart and choosing indicators, then Parabolic SAR. The inputs window shows the step and acceleration, which you can play with to suit your trading style.

Click the link below the video if you’d like to try the Parabolic SAR and need a free demo account for MetaTrader. That will take you straight to OANDA’s site where you can get one immediately.

EURUSD heads into tonight’s US jobs data with its chart interestingly placed

As the Daily chart above shows, yesterday’s peak was neatly at the support of the recent major triangle pattern. If the Euro starts to fall away from here, it will constitute a classic pattern “retest” where old support acts as new resistance.

4 Hour Chart

Non-Farm Payrolls are notorious for creating market volatility so caution is required. However, a typical chart strategy is to use shorter term charts to create entry strategies for a longer term setup.

In this case, the 4 hour chart is showing signs of a potential head and shoulder pattern. The slow stochastic below the chart is also making lower highs.

A move back above the right shoulder would negate the head and shoulder. However a situation where price stays below this level and then breaks clearly below the 20 day moving average might indicate lower prices to come.

About Ric Spooner

Oil prices were mixed on Monday, supported by easing concerns over the economy after news that U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will not face charges over her emails, but prices were pressured by a rallying dollar and doubts over OPEC’s planned production cuts.

U.S. crude futures were also supported by a weekly drop of 442,077 barrels of oil at the U.S. delivery hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, according to data to the week ending Nov. 4 from energy monitoring service Genscape, cited by traders.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 traded at $44.21 per barrel at 10:56 a.m. (1556 GMT), up 14 cents, or 0.3 percent.Brent crude LCOc1 was down 20 cents, or 0.09 percent, at $45.49 a barrel.

“There’s a little bit less of a concern about the economy falling apart,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it would not press charges against Clinton over her using a private email server. That indicated worse prospects for Republican candidate Donald Trump, whose stance on foreign policy, trade and immigration have unnerved the market.