Doji Candlestick Binary Options Winning Strategies

Doji Candlesticks

In this article, we will be talking more on Doji candlesticks, hereon referred to as just Doji, an invariant noun which means it can also denote a plural. We have touched on Doji in our introduction to candlesticks. It is quite important to revisit that tutorial to know what we are to talk about here. We also has a number of helpful pieces that will get you well on your way in trading binary options. Let us go on with Doji then.

Doji are important market indicators that are in the form of candlesticks. On their own, they are able to provide information that is important for the binary options trader. As a component in a consolidated graph, they can indicate important patterns. Doji can be seen when an asset’s price opens and closes at virtually the same price. Because of this, it is usually just their shadows that can be seen.

Doji have longer upper and lower wicks relative to their real bodies which is usually small. They can have bodies or small bodies. The wicks or shadows can be of equal length, but some traders call other variants with the same label as doki, or as a pinbar. Doji usually mean traders are indecisive on which direction they want to go. That is, there is an almost equal amount of buyers and sellers for both sides.

Kinds of Doji

As we mentioned earlier, Doji can be interpreted as a candle, or as a consolidated pattern with its immediate candlesticks. Alone, Doji are neutral patterns. Here are some of the interpretations if a binary options trader is to look at a Doji in itself. Some of the items here have been briefly touched in a previous article on candlesticks, but this time, we’ll take a look at what they really mean and what to make of it in order to make an accurate forecast.

A long can be found when the price of a certain asset opens at a level, trades in a considerable trading range only to close at the same level as it opened. Long become more useful to the trader when this type of candlestick is preceded by small candles. This means that because a sudden burst of volatility in a relatively stock is imminent, a trend change is also very likely to happen.

Dragonfly Doji

Dragonfly Doji are candlesticks that formed at the height of the trading session. During the time period, the trade had a considerable drop, then it eventually found the support it needs to rally itself back to close at the same price level as when it open. Dragonfly Doji are often seen after a moderate decline, and are bottom reversal indicators when confirmed with a bullish engulfing.

A Dragonfly Doji

Gravestone Doji

Gravestone Doji are the opposite of the Dragonfly Doji. This candlestick indicates a low opening price of an asset relative to the trade. During the trade period, it has reached a very high level but encountered a resistance that caused it to plummet back down to its opening price level where the price finally closes. A Gravestone Doji looks like a gravestone, and its name and function can easily be related as an impending doom for a stock. They are good reversal indicators when confirmed with bearish engulfings.

A Gravestone Doji

There are different scenarios where one can encounter Doji. The most general indicator that traders look into are Doji that are found at the top or a bottom of a trend which usually indicate direction change or reversal. During consolidation periods, Doji usually make up the sideways channel, and so, precede any big movement to form a new trend.

The doji being a key trend reversal indicator, is such when there is a high trading volume following an extended move in either direction. When a market has been in an uptrend and trades to a higher high than the previous three trading days, fails to hold that high, and closes in the lower 10% of that day’s trading range, there is a high probability of a downtrend in the ensuing days. Likewise, when the market has been in a downtrend and trades to a new low that’s lower than the three previous trading days, fails to hold that low, and closes in the upper 10% of that day’s trading range, there is a high probability of an uptrend in the ensuing days.

You can already read more about doji combinations. Additoinally, our list of recommended binary trading brokers can surely help you get started with trading binary options.

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Binary options trading involve risk. Although the risk of executing a binary options open is fixed for each individual trade, it is possible to lose all of the initial investment in a course of several trades or in a single trade if the entire capital is used to place it. It is not recommended to base your investment decisions on any information presented on or originating from BinaryTrading.com. By browsing this website you express your acceptance of the terms of this disclaimer and that BinaryTrading.com cannot be deemed responsible for any losses that may occur as a result of your binary option trading. BinaryTrading.com is not licensed or registered as a financial consultant or adviser. BinaryTrading.com is neither a broker, nor funds manager. The website does not provide any paid services. All content of BinaryTrading.com is presented for educational or entertainment purposes only.

General Risk Warning: Trading in Binary Options carries a high level of risk and can result in the loss of your investment. As such, Binary Options may not be appropriate for you. You should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. Before deciding to trade, you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience and risk appetite. Under no circumstances shall we have any liability to any person or entity for (a) any loss or damage in whole or part caused by, resulting from, or relating to any transactions related to Binary Options or (b) any direct, indirect, special, consequential or incidental damages whatsoever.

Binary options strategies

A binary options trader is only as good as the strategy he follows. Finding a strategy that works, and fine-tuning it as you go, will focus your trading, build discipline and help ensure that you win more often than you lose.

In this lesson we will introduce you to three of the most popular and potentially rewarding binary options trading strategies.

We will talk you through how and why they work as well as what kinds of assets, time frames and expirations to use. We’ll also provide you with a concrete trading example for each to show you what a trade looks like.

Strategy No. 1: Short-term Boundary In options before big news events

One way binary options can be used is to predict whether the price of an underlying asset will remain within a specified range for a certain period of time or break outside its boundaries. This approach is known as boundary trading, tunnel trading or range trading.

The strategy we will introduce you to now involves making a short-term bet that prices will remain inside a specified range during a time when you think markets will be quiet and asset prices will trade sideways – for example in the ‘quiet before the storm’ often experienced ahead of a major event or news announcement that the market is waiting for.

How it works

In the run-up to major events like the monthly publication of US Nonfarm Payroll figures, the Federal Reserve’s FOMC meetings and press conferences or interest-rate decisions by central banks, many traders choose to keep out of markets, either because they are nervous of the volatility the event will trigger or are waiting to place trades on its outcome.

This often creates a lull in activity and creates a small range of price action that binary options traders can take advantage of.

How to trade the strategy

• First, choose an underlying asset to trade. Currencies tend to work best with this strategy. It’s also possible with other assets like indices or stocks, in which case you might choose to trade in the run-up to company reports, for example.
• Next, try and identify an upcoming event that you think will have a major impact on the underlying asset you have chosen. Our Economic Calendar outlines some of the biggest.
• Double-check which other factors could also affect that market and make sure there isn’t another major new event happening at the same time. This could seriously blow your strategy off course.
• If you are trading currencies, also remember that you are effectively trading two individual assets, each with a life of their own. So apply the step above to each currency in the pair you trade.
• Look for confirmation that the asset is entering or looks likely to remain within a range and form a view on where you think the upper and lower boundaries of this range will lie. Technical analysis offers a number of patterns or indicators that will help. For example, Bollinger bands or the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicators can help you identify a range-bound market. The appearance of certain kinds of doji candlesticks meanwhile can indicate a trend is about to reverse or that volatility will pick up and the price will break its range, in which case it might be best to avoid this strategy and try another.
• Next, identify the contract type that you will use. You’re looking for a ‘Boundary In’ option – also sometimes called an ‘In Range’ option – with a duration of no longer than 20 minutes and which will expire before the event starts. Not all brokers offer boundary options so make sure you’re using a company that does.
• Price ranges for boundary trades are usually determined by the broker, but occasionally you can choose your own range – pick one strike price above the current price and one below. Make sure the range allows the price plenty of room to move within the anticipated boundaries you identified earlier – you want some leeway. Remember, the tighter the range, the higher the potential payout if you are proved correct, but also the higher the risk that your trade will fail.
• Decide how much capital you want to risk on your trade. Our lesson on money management for binary options will help.

Example trade

US Nonfarm payroll figures are set to be announced in 30 minutes’ time. The EUR/USD currency pair will be very sensitive to the result and you notice that volatility is low. It’s currently trading at 1.11. Your binary options broker is offering Boundary In options on EUR/USD with a range of 1.109 and 1.113. You buy one that expires in 20 minutes. The market then moves sideways and your option expires with EUR/USD at 1.112 – comfortably inside the range. Your option pays out.

Strategy No. 2: Long-term High/Low options following surprise events

This is a long-term strategy in which you use High/Low options to predict whether an asset price will be higher or lower than a specified level within a pre-determined time period (usually a number of weeks).

It tends to work well following a major, unexpected news event that you think will have long-term repercussions. This could be a pioneering decision by a central bank, surprisingly good or bad corporate results or even a natural disaster.

How it works

When an important news event takes markets by surprise it can trigger some big price moves in underlying assets that are directly affected by the event. If the event looks likely to have a real, fundamental impact on assets that will last for some time it can trigger the start of a long-term price trend.

For example, if war broke out in a major oil-producing region and threatened a big chunk of global crude production, this would usually be positive for oil prices. While crude oil prices would probably jump straight after the news as the market priced in the shock, they may continue to rise – albeit more slowly and steadily – for several weeks as production was actually taken offline and the conflict perhaps even escalated.

Similarly, if the central bank of a major economy announced a big or unexpected interest-rate cut, the currency of that country could enter a prolonged downward trend.

Binary options traders can take advantage of these longer-term trends by forming a view on how far they think prices will rise or fall and how long the trend will continue. They can then use a High/Low option to bet that prices will be higher or lower than a certain point on expiry.

How to prep the strategy

• Unlike Strategy 1, this isn’t a strategy where you can pick an event in advance and plan your trade around it. Rather, you have to act fast in the aftermath of an unexpected event.
• Your first job therefore is to pick one or two underlying assets to specialise in and really get to understand them well. It can help to choose underlying assets that you have some special interest in. For example, if you have worked in a specific industry you might choose to trade shares of companies in that industry or one of the commodities it produces. If you have lived abroad or have family ties with a different country, you may have a more indepth understanding of what affects its currency.
• Because this strategy is long term and involves a simple directional bet, a solid grounding in fundamental analysis is essential before you place your first trade. Apply fundamental analysis to the assets you have chosen to trade so that you understand in advance what are the biggest drivers behind its price, what other assets it is correlated to and what kind of events would be negative or positive for its price.
• Some basic chart work is also essential. Dig out charts that show you how markets behaved following a range of major events in the past. Study what happened to the price of the asset you trade.
• Before you place your first ‘real’ trade, it is also advisable to practise a few times with a demo account. Surprise events aren’t uncommon in financial markets, so simply wait for the next one and then place some dummy High/Low binary trades to experiment with the strategy. Even trending prices experience some volatility that could throw an otherwise winning trade out of the money if you don’t allow enough wiggle room for the price. Practice will help you learn how much to give.

How to trade the strategy

• This strategy relies on a high degree of certainty that an event will create the directional move you are betting on. So as soon as an interesting event occurs, double-check that it is strongly correlated with the asset you trade and big enough to produce the long-term move you need.
• Double-check also which other factors could affect the asset you will trade and make sure it isn’t simultaneously being impacted by another major news event or other head-winds.
• Although fundamental analysis is your best friend with this strategy, you might also want to apply some technical analysis to confirm that a trend is underway before you enter your trade.
• Next, identify the contract type you will use. You’re looking for a High binary option if you think the event will trigger an upward move or a Low binary option if you think it will trigger a downward move. Most brokers offer High/Low options.
• Now choose the maturity and strike price you want. Your broker will probably determine for you which are available. This is a long-term strategy so go for an expiry of at least a week or two, making sure that the trend has time to develop but not leaving so much time that it fizzles out. As with Strategy 1, you also have to leave room for unexpected volatility that could knock an otherwise successful trade out of the money right at expiry. This is perhaps the hardest part of the strategy to master.
• Decide how much capital you want to risk on your trade, remembering that the trade is generally higher risk – with a higher potential payout – the further the strike price from current prices. Our lesson on money management for binary options will help.

Example trade

Japan’s central bank makes a surprise announcement that it will act to weaken the yen in the long term, for example by selling the currency or lowering interest rates. You now try to identify a currency pair comprising the yen and another currency that is currently fairly strong. You opt for EUR/JPY and buy a High option that expires in three weeks. When the option expires three weeks later, the yen has weakened against the euro and your trade pays out.

Strategy No. 3: Short-term Breakout strategy using previous day’s highs and lows

With this strategy, we again use High/Low options. This time however we are betting that if an asset price breaks through its previous day’s high or low, the price will then experience a large short-term push in the same direction.

How it works

The strategy hinges on the concept of support and resistance. These are levels that, in the case of support, a price struggles to fall below or, in the case of resistance, it struggles to rise above.

Technical analysts have observed that when a price does breach either of these levels, it often suddenly picks up momentum and moves further and faster in the direction of the break.

This is usually because a lot of other traders – range traders in particular – use support and resistance levels to set stop losses so they can automatically exit trades as they move out of the money. A surge of fresh orders often also enters the market at this point, pushing the price further in the same direction.

Binary options can take advantage of this phenomenon by keeping track of the highest and lowest points a price reaches within a single day. The following day they then wait for it to touch these levels again.

If, for example, the price breaks through the previous day’s high (its resistance level), a binary options trader would buy a High option with a short maturity of typically five minutes to bet that the price will be higher when the option expires.

If the price breaches the previous day’s low (its support level), the trader would buy a Low option, again with a short maturity, to bet that the price will be lower when the option expires.

How to trade the strategy

• First, choose an underlying asset to trade. Because this strategy depends on trading having paused overnight, avoid 24-hour markets like foreign exchange. Indices, shares or commodities tend to work well with this strategy.
• Next, identify the previous day’s high and low. You don’t usually need any complex indicators for this – it should be clear from a simple price chart.
• If prices have ‘gapped’ overnight and the opening price on the morning of the day you will trade has already broken through the previous day’s support or resistance levels, do not use this strategy.
• This strategy relies on fast action, so prepare in advance what option you will use. It tends to work best with short time frames, so you want a short-term option with a five-minute expiry. Use a High option if the previous day’s High/Resistance level is breached, and a Low option if the Low/Support level is breached. If you use Japanese candlestick charts, it’s a good idea to wait for a second candle to form that confirms the breach and lets you know there is decent momentum forming.
• As before, decide how much capital you want to risk on your trade. Our lesson on money management for binary options will help.

Example trade

Germany’s DAX30 index achieves a high of 10.800 and a low of 10.680 on Monday. On Tuesday morning at 10.30am, it breaks the 10.800 level and quotes at 10.803. You buy a short-term High option with a five-minute expiry.

At 10.35am, the DAX30 quotes at 10.823 and your option expires in the money.

Summary

So far you have learned that:

• there are 3 common strategies to trade binary options: a short term ‘Boundary In’, a long-term, surprise event, and a short-term Breakout strategy that uses the previous day’s high and low
• these strategies are based on real market dynamics and they repeat over again across different markets
• you can apply any of these strategies with the right practice and preparation

The Doji Candlestick Formation

What is A Doji?

• Doji form when the open and close of a candlestick are equal, or very close to equal.
• Considered a neutral formation suggesting indecision between buyers and sellers–bullish or bearish bias depends on previous price swing, or trend.
• Length of upper and lower shadows (wicks and tails) may vary giving the appearance of a plus sign, cross, or inverted cross.

Why are Doji important?

• Completed doji may help to either confirm, or negate, a potential significant high or low has occurred.
• May act as a leading indicator suggesting a short-term price swing/trend reversal may be in progress.
• Doji may also help confirm, or strengthen, other reversal indicators especially when found at support or resistance, after long trend or wide-ranging candlestick.
  • Long-legged doji represent a more significant amount of indecision as neither buyers nor sellers take control.
  • Gravestone doji indicate that buyers initially pushed prices higher, but by the end of the session sellers take control driving prices back down to the session low.
  • Dragonfly doji indicate that sellers initially drove prices higher, but by the end of the session buyers take control driving prices back up to the session high.
• Failed doji suggest a continuation move may occur.

Daily EUR/USD

4hr USD/CHF

The following example illustrates what that single 4hr doji candlestick looks like when broken down to 5 min sessions, or periods… (Note: it would be great to better visually display the zoom from this 4hr USD/CHF candlestick to the below 5 min breakdown, and also to do a scroll animation (from left to write) showing how the candles developed)

So how do I use doji’s to place trades?

Doji are neutral indicators that simply represent a “tie” in the never-ending battle between buyers (bulls) and sellers (bears). On their own, doji are not much help in making sound, high probability trading decisions— as is the case with any single indicator. This is mainly due to the fact that even if a doji does signal the beginning of a price swing reversal, it will not give any indication as to how far the reversal my go or how long it may last.

High probability trades are identified through a convergence of trading signals that help identify and confirm both entries and exits based on two key components: (1) trend (2) support & resistance. Without having identified those two components in advance a doji, as is the case with any other solo indicator, is nothing more than a coin-toss in terms of determining probabilities.

But when used in conjunction with other forms of analysis, doji can be helpful in confirming or negating significant high/lows, which in turn helps a trader determine whether a short-term trend is likely to reverse, or continue. In other words, a single doji is a just a small piece of the puzzle in helping a trader determine a higher probability point at which to either or enter, and/or exit a position.

Let’s take a look at how doji can be used with other basic technical indicators to make a high probability trading decision. The first things we want to do is determine support & resistance, and trend. The idea is to sell near resistance, and buy near support. Trend helps tell a trader which direction to enter, and which to exit. (enter the market shot with a sell order, or enter the market long with a buy order), and which to exit.

The most basic ways to determine support & resistance is based off previously established highs and lows…

Another way to identify more significant levels of support and resistance in terms of trend reversals is based off previously established significant highs (peaks) and lows (valleys). These peaks and valleys help a trader identify the beginning and ending points of price swings, or trends.

Based off these significant highs and lows, a widely recognized form of technical analysis referred to as Fibonacci retracements may be used to identify support or resistance. These Fibonacci retracement levels represent percentage corrections of previously established price swings, or trends. The most common Fibonacci retracement levels are 38.2%, 50%, 61.8%, and 78.6% of the previous swing, or trend.

In the above example, we see the completed doji (point C) has also occurred at the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level of resistance based on the previous downtrend. In other words, the swing from the low up to the completed doji (B-to-C) is approximately 78.6% of the previous downtrend (A-to-B). In this case, a trader may interpret this doji as confirmation of the Fibonacci resistance and in turn anticipate an forthcoming reversal, or downswing. If the doji fails (a new high is make above the high of the doji), then this would negate the reversal and suggest a potential continuation.

Based on this basic idea, a trader may then decide to enter the market short (place a sell order) with a stop (or sometimes referred to as a stop-loss) placed above the high of the doji and the Fibonacci level of resistance. Since this stop-loss order is meant to close-out a sell entry order, then a stop buy order must be place.

What is very important to remember is that the highs, lows, opens and closes seen on a price chart reflect the bid prices of that particular market— in other words, the price at which a trader may sell. When placing a buy order it is extremely important to account for the spread for that particular market because the buy (ask) price is always slightly higher than the sell (bid) price. In this example, let’s assume the spread on the USD/CHF at the time of this trade is 4 pips.

In order to close the short, or sell, entry order the trader must place a buy order to either control the amount the trader is willing to lose with a stop-loss, or where to take profit with a limit order (or multiple limit orders if multiple profits targets are established). The size of each stop or limit order is based on the size of the entry order, or what is referred to as the traders open position. Although it is not uncommon for traders to have multiple profit targets, it is generally good practice to have one stop order that matches the size of the total open position thus taking the trader completely out of that position.

At this point only half, if that, of the battle is over. What about the profit targets? Well, much like our entries and stops, our limit also should typically be based on support or resistance. This gives a trader a logical point at which to exit the market. In this example, we will use the same Fibonacci analysis based on the rally (swing, or trend) prior to our completed doji to calculate potential levels of support where the projected reversal may stop and change directions. It’s important to remember that levels of support and resistance act a “zones” where prices may fall just a bit short, or just pierce, the levels. In other words, traders may want to allow for a “cushion” just above or below Fibonacci levels. Since in this example, we’re anticipating the market to move down we may want to set profit targets just above the Fibonacci levels in case the market doesn’t quite reach the actual line we see on the chart. (when setting stops, traders will typically allow for a cushion just beyond a levels of support or resistance allowing a bit of room in which the market may pierce that exact level)

No one no matter how experienced a trader, no one knows with any degree of certainty what the market will do next or how far the market will go. This explains why some traders may choose to have multiple profit targets. One age old trading mantra says, “cut your losses quickly, and let your profits run.” Although this, for good reason, is an excellent piece of advice it is often misinterpreted by both new and veteran traders alike. A trader must “let profits run” only to logical profit objects, which generally reflect levels of support and resistance. This is where trend analysis, plays a significant role in helping to determine which profit targets, or how many, a specific trade calls for.

The mistake for most traders is not wanting to “get out too early” and as a consequence greed oftentimes takes over. This almost always leads to giving those profits back, and in many cases turning a winning trade into a losing trade. Multiple profit targets tend to lead to more complicated exit strategies in which stop management becomes essential. One key aspect of successful trading that will help to determine the quality and probability of a trade is the risk vs. reward ratio. In my opinion, this is without question the single most important factor of a high quality trade.

For now, let’s just keep it simple and see what this trade setup looks like using the same USD/CHF example. We will assume the most conservative profit target (set just above the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level adding 4 pips for the spread).

Now that we have determined out exits BEFORE entering into the market, we will be able to perform the 2 absolutely essential/crucial components of proper risk/money management, and trading in general. Depending on exactly where we enter the market we are able to determine 1) the risk vs. reward ratio, and 2) the amount of risk on the trade. The risk vs. reward ratio in many cases will be the determining factor based on a traders’ winning percentage. The risk itself will help determine the appropriate size trade to place. Let’s assume we entered this short trade just after the doji completed, the sop-loss order was placed 1 pip above the high of the completed doji adding 4 pips for the spread, and the limit order was placed 5 pips above the first profit target, or T1 (just above 38.2% retracement of B-to-C, plus the 4 pip spread).

Total risk: 35 pips (difference between entry and stop)

Total reward: 75 pips (difference between entry and profit target)

Risk vs. Reward ratio: 1 vs. 2.14 (reward divided by risk)

Assuming the risk vs. reward ratio is acceptable, you may then determine the appropriate size trade to place based on your percentage risk per trade. As a general rule of thumb most traders do not risk more than 1-3% of their total trading capital (1-3% account balance).

Total risk: 35 pips

Pip value: $9.60 USD (approximate pip value at time of this particular

Account balance: $10,000 USD

Max risk per trade: 2% or $200 USD

In this scenario, the trader has two options….

1. Pass on the trade since 35 pips of risk x $9.60 /pip = $336 total risk on trade (over pre-determined $200 max risk per trade)
2. Adjust lot size to fit within max risk per trade allotment. This would require mini lots….5 mini lots ($4.80 per pip) x 35 pips of risk = $168.00 total risk on trade (within pre-determined max risk per trade)

4hr USD/CHF

This particular trade resulted in a win for a total of $360 USD. Obviously, this is just one example and in no way suggests or constitutes a standalone trading strategy or methodology. However, the real point here is that profitable trading is not about complex indicators or systems. Above all is good risk and money management. If a trader was disciplined enough to only take trades that offer maximum risk to reward ratio, then it’s easy to see that profitable trading is not about being right, it’s about discipline and ability to control your emotions.

Extra rambling from excreted from different point in the above

This example demonstrated an opportunity with just over a 1:2 risk vs. reward ratio. If that ratio was one of a traders minimum criteria for placing a trade, then that trader would only need to maintain a 33% winning ratio to break even in terms of profitability. Even when losing, or being “wrong”, happens more frequently than winning, or being “right,” a trader can be profitable. Understanding this in and of itself gives you and edge or advantage against a majority of traders out there. Let go of you ego, play the numbers game, and you have a good chance of reaching your goals.

The market may turn at these at these predetermined logical profit targets, or in many cases move way beyond them. A trader will never know this information in advance. What tends to happen in the instances where the market continues to move in a profitable direction after the trader has already closed the trade for profit, the “shoulda, coulda, woulda’s” start to take hole, and greed starts to blind the trader to the truth. The truth is, you made a PROFIT!. But when the market continues to move in a profitable direction after the trade has been closed, most traders will no longer look at that trade and think, “who cares! I made money on the trade, and I’m happy with that.” Most traders forget about the profit they’ve taken and start to think, “Damn! I got out too early! Look at how much I could have made, or should be making.” This leads to emotions. Emotions lead to irrational, illogical decisions—especially when money is in the equation. Over time, making trading decisions based on emotion leads to trading suicide (i.e. a zero balance).

So all a trader can do is decide what is logical, understand why those levels are logical, and never look back. One of the worst and most destructive habits of nearly all traders is to look back after a trade has completed to “see what happened.”

7 Binary Options

Binary Options Trading Requires Very Little Experience

The common misconception is that binary options trading and forex trading can only be done by one that has a certain amount of experience in the area. There is no requirement to have any previous experience in financial trading and with a little time, any skill level can grasp the concept of binary options trading.

The basic requirement is to predict the direction in which the price of an asset will take. The price will either increase (call) or fall (put). Successful binary options traders often gain great success utilizing simple methods and strategies as well as using reliable brokers such as IQ Option or 24Option.

From this page you will find all the relevant strategies for binary options trading.

Get started with 3 easy steps:

Choose a broker from the list below

General Risk Warning:

Binary options trading carries a high level of risk and can result in the loss of all your funds

Binary and digital options are prohibited in EEA

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. The financial products offered by the company carry a high level of risk and can result in the loss of all your funds. You should never invest money that you cannot afford to lose.

(*Amount will be credited to account in case of successful investment)

Register a broker account

I personally use six different brokers for trading and would recommend all serious traders to open a few accounts with different brokers in order to build up a good variety of assets.

Start trading with four easy steps:

How to minimize the risks

Our goal is to provide you with effective strategies that will help you to capitalize on your returns. These are simple techniques that will help to identify certain signals in the market that guide you make the proper moves in binary options trading. Risk minimizing is important for every trader and there are a few important principles that aim to help in this area. Binary options trading can present several risks but to decrease them, take the following into consideration.

• Never invest the entirety of your capital at once
• Review the dynamics of your trading asset prior to investing
• Exercise the strategy by investing only 5 to 10 percent of your equity per placement

Reasons for Having a Binary Options Strategy

You don’t need a strategy to trade binary options. You could simply go with your gut, making decisions in the moment and on instinct. However, you won’t make any money with this approach. In fact, you will probably lose a lot. So, while it is not essential to have a strategy in order to trade binary options, to be successful and profitable you must have a binary options strategy.

To be more precise, you need three different types of strategy. Below is an introduction to each.

1. Trading Strategies – What They Are and Why You Need One

There are two main reasons for having a trading strategy and sticking to it. The first is that it removes the possibility of you making emotional or irrational decisions. Instead, decisions are based on pre-defined parameters that are developed with clear thinking. The second reason for having a trading strategy is that it makes it possible to benefit from repetition. Without this type of strategy, you probably won’t know what worked or why. Even if you did, it would be hard to repeat it.

In other words, a trading strategy ensures your trades are based on clear and logical thinking while also ensuring there is a pattern that can be repeated, analyzed, tweaked, and adjusted.

For example, you can analyze your strategy after a set number of trades or a set time period. Is it making you money? Is it making you enough money? Maybe it is making you money but not as much as you hoped. In this situation you may decide to let it continue knowing it will be profitable in the long term. Or you might decide to make carefully considered and structured changes to improve profitability. This is all possible, but only if you have a trading strategy in the first place.

The alternative is haphazard and impossible to optimize. Imagine you looked at your performance after a set number of trades or a set period of time but did not have a trading strategy to judge it against. What would you do if you lost money? All you could really do is hope you make better decisions in the future. However, you would have nothing concrete to base your adjustments on. The same applies if you were making money but not as much as you had hoped. In fact, the same also applies if you did make money – you would have no way of knowing for sure that you could replicate the performance again, as each transaction is a standalone trade and is not part of an overall strategy.

It is a completely impractical way of trading. Look at a scenario where you don’t use a trading strategy. In the scenario, you make a 50 percent profit one month and then a 50 percent loss the next month. How would you ever know why one month was successful and the other wasn’t? How would you know what to change, if anything?

You simply wouldn’t. The best you can probably hope for is break even, and that is no use to anyone. In reality, you will probably lose money because you have to win more than you lose. Without a trading strategy, that is almost impossible.

1. Money Management Strategies – What They Are and Why You Need One

Many people make the mistake of only developing a trading strategy – i.e., a strategy that determines the type of asset they want to trade and the level of risk they want to be exposed to. Little thought is given to the money management strategy. That is a mistake because a money management strategy will help you manage your balance so you can get through bad patches and maximize winning streaks.

To illustrate this further, let’s look at an example of someone who doesn’t have a money management strategy. Because of this they invest 10 percent of their balance on a single trade. If that trade loses, they will need a 20 percent gain on their account balance just to break even. If they lose three trades in a row, they will need a 30 percent gain on their account balance just to break even. You can see how this can easily creep up – a common losing streak of three in a row could see the account balance of that trader drop by 30 percent. When you consider the fact that many losing streaks are much longer than three-in-a-row, you will appreciate how important a money management strategy is.

Without one, your account balance is at risk of hitting zero, even if you have a good trading strategy in place. Losing streaks and unprofitable trades are a part of life, so you must have a strategy in place that deals with these inevitabilities. This means managing your money to maximize profits, limit losses, and, crucially, get back to a profitable position after a bad patch.

1. Analysis and Improvement Strategies – What They Are and Why You Need One

There is no such thing as the holy grail of binary options trading strategies. Markets change, and every successful trader constantly works to improve, update, enhance, and make better. Even traders with many years of experience and large profits in their bank accounts still work hard to analyze and improve how they trade. It applies even more to new traders and those with minimal experience.

An analysis and improvement strategy gives you a structured way of maximizing the good parts of your trading and money management strategies while simultaneously fixing or removing the parts of your strategies that are not working. This helps you become more profitable in the long term, and it helps you adjust to changing market conditions.

Without an analysis and improvement strategy, you will plod along. If you have good strategies in place you might make money, but nothing is guaranteed. In addition, you might not be making as much money as you could. Why leave these profits behind when there is a way of getting them? That way is through analysis and improvement.

Types of Binary Options Strategy

Binary options strategies are all different, but they have three common elements:

1. Creation of a binary option signal and getting an indication of how to trade this signal
2. How much you should trade
3. Improving your strategy

The precise strategy can vary on each step, so there are a huge number of possibilities. The most important part of developing a successful strategy is understanding as much as possible about each element. This will be covered in the next section, starting with the creation of signals.

Step 1 – Creation of Signals

A signal is basically an indication that the price of an asset is about to move in a particular direction. Of course, prices of assets move all the time. What you need is something that predicts that move before it happens. That is what a signal does.

There are two ways that signals are created. The first is to use news events, and the second is to use technical analysis.

Generating signals from news events is probably the most common approach, particularly for new or inexperienced binary options traders. It involves looking at what is happening in the news, such as an announcement by a company, an industry announcement, and the release of government inflation figures. In many simple cases, positive news means prices are likely to rise while negative news is likely to lead to a fall in prices.

The starting point for making this strategy work is knowing what news events to expect and when. This is why you will find economic calendars on most good binary options trading platforms. If you know that a company’s earnings report is due in two days’ time you can plan your analysis and trading activities around this.

The best platforms will also tell you what to expect from the news event. For example, it is helpful to know that a company’s earnings report is due in two days’ time, but it is even more helpful if you also know what the market expects to see in that report. You can then make decisions in advance of the report in an attempt to predict its contents and the subsequent market movements. You can also make decisions after it is published based on market expectations and reactions.

There are positives to a news events approach to trading. In particular, it is easy to understand and learn. There are disadvantages to the approach too. The biggest problem is unpredictable markets. For example, a company might release an earnings statement that shows an increase in profits. This is a positive news event that you would expect on first reading to cause the market to react positively. However, within the report there might be additional information that spooks the market, such as profits not being as high as expected. This could mean the market moves less than you anticipated and, in some cases, can even move in the wrong direction – prices falling even though the news event is categorized as positive.

It is also difficult to predict how long a movement will last and how far it will go. If you go back to the example of the company earnings report, it is a positive report so prices in the company’s shares are likely to rise; but how long will the rising price situation last and when will the price max out? These questions are unknowns.

Trading based on technical analysis offers an alternative. It is a strategy that seeks to predict the movement of asset prices regardless of what is happening in the wider market.

Essentially, the process involves looking at how the price of a particular asset moved in the past. From this, it is possible to establish patterns that can be used to predict price movements in the future.

It sounds complicated, but our brains are used to doing this on a daily basis. A good example is when you meet a new person. If that person greets you warmly, you are likely to predict positive things for the relationship. On the other hand, if the person is standoffish or unfriendly, you might anticipate difficulties in the relationship. You come to these conclusions based on your experiences in the past of meeting people and forming relationships.

Technical analysis does something similar. It looks at the current conditions of an asset and decides, based on past experience, if the price will remain largely unchanged or if it will rise or fall.

Once you get into the technical concepts and terms, it does, of course, get a bit more complicated. However, the overall concept is the same as the day-to-day task of making a prediction on future outcomes based on past events.

Now for the big question – should you use a news event approach to trading or a technical analysis approach? This comes down to a number of factors, and the answer will be different for everyone. The best advice is to try both to see which you are most comfortable with and which generates the most profits. Of course, you are probably not in a position to test strategies with your hard-earned money. Luckily there is another option – using a demo account. Most of the reputable binary options trading platforms on the market offer a demo account facility. This allows you to trade binary options with virtual money rather than real money. You can’t make any profits with a demo account, but you will not lose any real money either. What you can do is test strategies and trading styles without any risk.

One final point to remember when looking at signals and strategies is to focus on the short-term. There are investment strategies that aim to predict the price movement of an asset over a long period of time, such as 10 years. This type of information is of no use in binary options trading. Instead, you need to know if a price is going to move over the next couple of minutes, the next hour, the next day. A prediction of the price in 10 years’ time is not relevant.

To achieve that you need short-term signals and short-term strategies.

Step 2 – How Much You Should Trade

This is essentially a money management strategy. They vary in complexity and level of success, starting with a strategy that involves investing the same amount on each trade. Two other common strategies are the Martingale strategy and the percentage-based strategy. For long term success, the latter is the best option.

Investing the same amount of money on each trade is just like having no strategy at all. It is the riskiest strategy, as it does not take into account either your overall level of profitability or the amount of money you have in your account. Both of these are essential factors, and ignoring them can result in quickly depleted balances.

Let’s look at the other two common strategies now, starting with the Martingale money management strategy.

The core concept of the Martingale strategy is to recover losses as soon as possible. This means investing larger amounts of money in trades following a losing trade. For example, you could have a set value of money that you trade, which you then double when you have a loss. If that trade wins, then you are back in profit again rather than being somewhere around break even.

Problems with this strategy occur when you go on a losing streak with multiple losing trades in a row. Each losing trade in a Martingale strategy involves an increase in the investment on the following trade. This quickly adds up. For example, imagine you went on a 10-trade losing streak. That is a lot, but it is not an unrealistic or unreasonable situation. On a 10-trade losing streak, your 11th trade would have to be 1,024 times the value of your original trade in order to stay with the Martingale system. There are not many budgets that could withstand that sort of increase, even if the value of the original trade was low.

The question comes down to how accurate your predictions are and whether you can prevent or minimize losing streaks. It is always important to remember that nothing in binary options trading is a sure thing. Even trades that you are certain will be successful can end up as losses. Losing streaks are inevitable, regardless of how good a trader you are. It is simply impossible to be right enough times to prevent them. Therefore, for most people, a Martingale money management system is a risky option.

A percentage-based system is less risky, so it is usually the preferred choice for most traders, particularly those who are new to binary options trading. The concept is fairly simple – the amount invested on a trade is based on your account balance. If you lose a trade, your account balance will fall, so the amount of money invested on the next trade decreases. If, on the other hand, you win a trade, the amount of money invested on the next trade increases because your account balance has increased.

This strategy helps to keep your balance intact so you can realize steady profits over time.

The question then comes down to what percentage of your balance do you want to invest. As a guide, a trader who is comfortable with risk might choose a number somewhere around five percent, whereas a trader who doesn’t like risk would select a value somewhere around two percent.

Let’s look at an example, assuming you invest five percent of your balance. If your account balance was $500, your trades would be $25. If your balance decreased to $300, your trades would decrease too – each investment would be $15. If, on the other hand, your balance increased to $800, your trades would each be $40.

This is a strategy that helps you only invest an amount that you can afford. It is a strategy that lets you increase your profits while also protecting your account balance during difficult periods and losing streaks.

Step 3 – Improving Your Strategy

One of the best ways to improve your trading strategy is to analyze your performance using a diary. This is a simple but highly effective concept. It involves keeping a diary where you note down every trade that you make. You can then look for patterns and trends to see what is working and what isn’t.

This is a particularly effective approach if you are a new trader and are still trying to establish a profitable strategy. A common approach in this scenario is to place trades using both technical analysis signals and news events signals. A diary will help you keep those trades separate so you can judge which performed better. For example, you might find you are getting double the profits from trades you make based on technical analysis. However, you know from experience that you spend more time on news event signals than you do on technical analysis. The information in your diary would indicate that you should consider a change of approach.

Basically, it is all about knowing what trades are working and which ones are not. The only way to do that is by keeping a record, so a trading diary is a highly effective tool.

A trading diary also lets you focus on the details to fine tune your overall trading strategy. After all, you will get to a point where you are seeking a one or two percentage point increase in your profitability. This is simply not possible to do in a sustained way if you don’t keep good records. On the other hand, doing it successfully could result in hundreds or even thousands in additional profits.

Remember to use your trading diary to check all parts of your trading approach, not just the trading strategy. This includes how you manage money and how you decide on the value of each trade. It also includes looking at the best assets for your trading approach and style.

You can then go into even deeper detail. For example, you can look at the best days of the week or the best times of the day. This information might lead you to adjust your approach. You can also look at things like which brokers work best for you and much more.

There are many things that a trading diary will tell you. One of the problems is trying to work on too many of them at the same time. If you do that you won’t know which changes are having a positive effect and which are not. The easy way to fix this is by focussing on single changes, analyzing their impact, and then moving on. Again, your trading diary is crucial to this process.

If you don’t keep a trading diary at the moment, start as soon as possible. It will become an indispensable tool.

Trading Strategy Examples

Let’s now look in more detail at some specific trading strategies. The strategies below are among the most common, but there are others you can use as well. Also, many traders adapt, alter, or combine strategies to suit their objectives, attitude to risk, and trading goals. There has to be a starting point somewhere, and the strategies below are a good place to start your learning about binary options trading strategies.

Before going on, it is important to remember that none of them will be effective if you don’t also combine them with a money management and improvement strategy, as explained above.

Trading Strategy Example 1 – Trading the Trends

The price of an asset generally moves according to a trend, i.e. it moves up in price for a period of time or it moves down in price. These price movements are never linear. Instead, they zig-zag, sometimes moving up in price and sometimes moving down, but overall moving in one general direction. As these zig-zag movements are predictable in particular situations, they present an opportunity for binary options trades.

In simple terms, you have two main options: you can trade the overall trend or you can trade each swing. Trading the overall trend means ignoring the minute-by-minute up and down movements in price to instead focus on the overall trend direction for a period of time. This gives you multiple opportunities to profit from the trend, particularly given the fact that most trends persist for medium to long periods of time, i.e. they are well within the boundaries of the short term trading style required to be successful in binary options trading.

Trading each swing involves placing more trades. It involves more risk as a result, but there is also the potential for greater rewards. This approach is based on thinking about the highs and lows in either an upward or a downward trend:

• Upward trend – New highs and new lows will generally be higher than previous highs and lows in an upward trend.
• Downward trend – New highs and new lows will generally be lower than previous highs and lows in a downward trend.

Remember the point made at the start of this section though – there is no reason why you can’t combine both so you use both approaches at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.

The most common way to trade trends is by using High / Low options. All binary options trading platforms offer this type of trade. Basically, you trade on whether an asset’s price is going to be higher than it is now after a set period of time (a high option) or lower than it is now (a low option).

A riskier but potentially more lucrative option is to go for a one-touch option. This is another popular binary options trading selection. Instead of simply predicting whether a price will finish higher or lower, you predict whether or not the price will reach a certain point. This is called the target price.

Again, you can use a combination of both to diversify your risk while increasing your chance of making higher profits.

Trading Strategy Example 2 – Trading Based on News Events

Trading on assets based on events in the news is one of the more popular styles of trading. The theory is fairly simple. Good news, such as a company reporting profit information that was above analyst expectations, would see the price of that asset go up. Similarly, profit information that was disappointing would see that company’s share price go down. You can make profitable binary options trades in these conditions.

It is not an exact science, however. Other styles of trading, such as technical analysis, produce parameters that are precise. Trading based on news events leaves a lot to chance, as there is no sure way of knowing how much an asset’s price will increase or decrease or how long the price movement will last.

You can adopt specific strategies and approaches to help increase your chances for success. Here are three you can work into your overall binary options strategy:

• Boundary options – This is the strategy to use when you know an asset’s price is going to move, but you are not sure which direction it will go. A good example of a situation where this is suitable is before a major news event, as you won’t know if it is going to be positive news or negative news. With a boundary option, two target prices are defined – one above the current price and one below. The difference between these two numbers is known as the price channel. If the price of the asset hits either of these two price targets, you win. If it stays within the channel, you lose. As you can see, it is a strategy that works best when you expect significant movement in the price of an asset.

• Trading the breakout – The breakout is the period of time immediately following the release of news that impacts the market. In binary options trading, this is a very short period of time – anything from 30 seconds to a few minutes. The theory behind the strategy is that the most significant movements in the price of the asset will occur during this breakout period as traders seek to adjust their positions to take make a profit or limit their exposure to risk. The type of binary options trade you would use in this scenario is a simple High / Low option, but you select a very short expiration time. This is sometimes known as a 60-second option.

• Intelligent High / Low trades – In simple terms, positive news means prices will rise, and negative news means prices will fall. As already explained, the market does not always react according to this rule. Sometimes news that is positive on the surface – falling unemployment figures, profit reports by a company, or inflation numbers that are within government targets for example – cause markets to react in a negative way. This comes down to expectation, i.e. the market expected the unemployment numbers, profit announcement, or inflation figures to be better and had already made adjustments before the news was released in anticipation. When the news isn’t as good as the market expects, it adjusts in the other direction, prompting prices to fall even though the news is generally positive. If you can predict when these events will happen, you can make good profits using High / Low trades.

Trading Strategy Example 3 – Using Candlestick Formations

For new traders, this might be the most difficult of the strategies to explain, but it is the easiest to implement and make money from once you understand it.

When you look at an asset’s price chart over time, it is typically a line chart showing the price at each point in time. For example, looking at the price over a month is likely to show you the price the asset closed at on each day. However, this is only one piece of price data. Candlesticks give you much more.

Candlesticks are represented on an asset’s chart over time, just like a line graph, but they are designed to give you much more information. The bottom of the candlestick represents the low price it reached during the specific time period, and the upper part of the candlestick represents the high price it achieved. In between, you will also see both the opening and closing price. In other words, a candlestick lets you see, at a glance, the price range that a particular asset fluctuated between during that specific period of time.

Using candlesticks as a trading strategy involves recognizing various candlestick formations that you can use to predict an asset’s price movement.

A Candlestick with a gap is one example. This occurs when the price of an asset moves from one price to another that is significantly higher or lower. The difference between these prices is the gap. It is an unusual occurrence because price movements are typically much more gradual, with the asset hitting all or most of the price points as it moves through the range.

So, what can you learn about an asset when you spot a gap in a candlestick, and how can you use this information to make a prediction?

• A gap that occurs during times when there isn’t much trading volume can be an indicator that a quick correction is likely to occur. One of the situations where this might happen is shortly before a market closes for the day when there are not many traders left placing trades. Large trades in these situations can produce the gap, but that is not necessarily reflective of the strength of the asset, i.e. if the trade had taken place when the market was more active, the gap would not have occurred. You can therefore predict the gap in the price of this asset and base your trades accordingly.

• Gaps that appear during periods of high trading activity but where the price is not generally moving very much can be an indication of a new breakout, i.e. that the asset’s price will start moving in that direction. You can use this information to predict the price and make a trade.

• If there is already a trend in a particular direction and the volume of trading is normal, the gap might indicate an acceleration of the trend. In other words, the movement of the price in a particular direction is likely to accelerate. You can use this information to base your next trade.

A candlestick formation with a gap is just one of many. However, knowing and having confidence in several will greatly improve your binary options strategy.

Developing a Binary Options Strategy Without Risking Money

As explained in detail throughout this article, a binary options strategy is essential if you want to trade profitably. It gives structure to your trading, removes emotion-led decision making, and lets you analyze and improve.

How do you test a strategy without risking your money? After all, how can you find out that a strategy doesn’t work without trying it? If you try a strategy that doesn’t work using your own money, you will lose it. That could result in you going through your available funds before the testing phase ends, leaving you with nothing to trade with.

There is a solution – a binary options demo account. All reputable and good quality brokers and trading platforms offer demo accounts. They let you test the platform, but, crucially, they also let you test your trading strategies using real market conditions. The testing is done using virtual money instead of your own, so there is no real money at risk. Of course, you can’t make any money either, but that is not the point. The point of a demo account is to solidify a binary options strategy that is profitable.

The Strategies

There are several assets to select from in binary options trading. However, the oldest and most effective approach to minimize risks is to focus on a single asset. Trade on those assets that are most familiar to you such as euro-dollar exchange rates. Consistently trading on it will help you to gain familiarity with it and the prediction of the direction of value will become easier. There are two types of strategies explained below that can be of great benefit in binary options trading.

1. Trend Strategy

A basic strategy most adopted by beginners as well as experienced traders. This strategy is often referred to as the bull bear strategy and focuses on monitoring, rising, declining and the flat trend line of the traded asset. If there is a flat trend line and a prediction that the asset price will go up, the No Touch Option is recommended.

If the trend line shows that the asset is going to rise, choose CALL.

If the trend line shows a decline in the price of the asset, choose PUT.

This method works the same as the CALL/PUT option except in this case, you select the price at which the asset must not reach before the selected period. For example, Google’s share price is $540 and the trading platform is on the No Touch price of $570 with percentage returns of 77%. If the price doesn’t reach $570 after the specified time, then there is a gain.

2. Pinocchio strategy

This strategy is utilized when the asset price is expected to rise or fall drastically in the opposite direction. If the value is expected to go up, select CALL and if it’s expected to drop, select PUT. This is best practiced on a free demo account from one of the brokers.

3. Straddle Strategy

This strategy is best applied during market volatility and just before the break of important news related to specific stock or when predictions of analysts seem to be afloat. This is a highly regarded strategy utilized throughout the global community of trading. This is a strategy best known for presenting an ability to the trader to avoid the CALL and PUT option selection, but instead putting both on a selected asset.

The overall idea is to utilize PUT when the value of the asset is increased, but there is an indication or belief that it will being to drop soon. Once the decline sets in, place the CALL option on it, expecting it to actually bounce back soon. This can also be done in the reverse direction, by placing CALL on a those assets priced low and PUT on the rising asset value. This greatly increases chances of success in at least one of the trade options by producing an “in the money” result. The straddle strategy is greatly admired by traders when the market is up and down or when a particular asset has a volatile value.

4. Risk Reversal Strategy

This is indeed one of the most highly regarded strategies among experienced binary options traders across the globe. It aims to lower the risk factor associated with trading and increase the chances of a successful outcome that results in positive profit gains. This strategy is executed by placing CALL and PUT options simultaneously on an individual underlying asset. This is especially beneficial when trading on assets with fluctuating values. Naturally, binary options can experience two possible outcomes and trading on a two for two opposite’s predictions over an individual asset at once, guarantees that at least one will generate a positive outcome.

5. Hedging Strategy

This strategy is commonly known as Pairing and most often used along with corporations in binary options traders, investors and traditional stock-exchanges, as a means of protection and to minimize the associated risks. This strategy is executed by placing both Call and Puts on the same asset at the same time. This assures that regardless of the direction of the asset value, the trade will generate a successful outcome. This provides the investor with profits of an “in the money” outcome. This is a great means of protecting yourself as an investor in whichever scenario is produced. It’s sort of an insurance method that prepares you for any scenario.

6. Fundamental Analysis

This strategy is mostly utilized during stock trading and primarily by traders to helm gain a better understanding of their selected asset. This increases their chances of accuracy in the prediction of future price changes. This approach involves conducting an in-depth review of all of the financial regards of the company. This info should include earnings reports, market share and financial statements.

This review helps the trader to better understand the previous activity of the asset and its reaction to certain financial or economic changes. This review helps the trader to make a strong prediction under familiar circumstances in future trading strategies. Keep in mind, that using a good binary trading robot can help you to skip these steps completely.

The best way to practice is to open a free demo account from one of the brokers.

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