u/Wave-Master-

The current dollar weakness looks bearish on lower timeframes, but structurally it’s still just a corrective phase within a larger bullish trend. We mapped this pullback in advance using Elliott Wave structure, identifying it as a temporary retracement and not a shift in direction. Price is now moving exactly within those expectations, which is why short term sentiment feels bearish while the higher timeframe context remains intact. Once this correction completes, continuation to the upside is the higher probability outcome.

markets feel messy right now a lot of liquidity grabs stops getting taken on both sides and moves that don’t look clean at all which is exactly where most people start forcing concepts like smc or trying to overexplain every move but the reality is this kind of price action has always been there it just becomes more obvious in certain phases what’s interesting is that even in this environment the overall direction is often still very predictable just not on the level most people are looking at if you zoom out from individual entries and start thinking more in terms of structure and probabilistic direction instead of single setups things start to look very different at that point it’s less about catching the perfect entry and more about understanding where the market is likely to resolve over time that’s also why a lot of people feel like nothing works right now while others are still able to stay aligned with the bigger move the difference is rarely the concept itself but how the information is processed

most traders are focused on winning trades better entries higher winrate not getting stopped out but that’s a very small way to look at it at some point you realize trading isn’t about individual outcomes at all it’s about building something that can operate consistently under uncertainty a process you can repeat rules you don’t question mid trade risk that is predefined before anything happens once that’s in place single trades stop mattering that much you can get stopped out and watch price run without you or take a clean win both are just outputs of the same system and the only thing that really matters is whether the system holds up over time most people never get to that point because they keep trying to improve outcomes instead of improving the structure that produces them

just got stopped out on my USDCHF trade. price literally tapped my stop and then moved exactly how I had it mapped out. would’ve been around 4.5R tbh stuff like this used to annoy me a lot more. Now it’s just part of being a trader. You can’t avoid every bad fill or random spike, especially in markets like this (Iran). We’re not here to catch every move anyway. Just execute, take the loss, move on

https://preview.redd.it/6mv7uz08m88h1.png?width=1634&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5e2b43f9551c8001d604cea1fd12f6bcc938e3b

Most people approach trading like it is a knowledge problem. They think if they just understand the market well enough, consistency will follow at some point. I used to think the same. But after a while it started to feel off. Because the gap was not really between knowing more and knowing less. It was between understanding something and being able to apply it the same way over and over again. Which is a completely different problem. You can understand a setup perfectly in a calm state of mind, and still fail to execute it once there is pressure attached to it. Not because the setup changed, but because your perception of it did. That part is easy to overlook. Trading is one of the few environments where your decisions are constantly influenced by what just happened, what you expect to happen, and what is currently at risk. So even if the situation looks identical on the chart, internally it rarely is. And that makes consistency less about finding better answers, and more about being able to rely on your own process. Which is much harder than it sounds.

I feel like I wasted a lot of time learning trading the wrong way

Not completely wasted, but… just inefficient.

I was constantly watching videos, reading about strategies, trying to understand concepts like Elliott Wave.

And I did understand it, at least in theory.

But every time I opened a chart and tried to apply it myself, I wasn’t confident at all.
It felt more like guessing than actual analysis.

I think that’s the part nobody really talks about.

There’s a big difference between understanding something and actually being able to do it consistently on your own.

For me, things only started to change when I stopped consuming so much and started focusing more on actually practicing — even if I was wrong most of the time.

Curious if anyone else experienced that?

Like feeling “educated” in trading, but still not really capable when it matters?

I feel like I wasted a lot of time learning trading the wrong way

Not completely wasted, but… just inefficient.

I was constantly watching videos, reading about strategies, trying to understand concepts like Elliott Wave.

And I did understand it, at least in theory.

But every time I opened a chart and tried to apply it myself, I wasn’t confident at all.
It felt more like guessing than actual analysis.

I think that’s the part nobody really talks about.

There’s a big difference between understanding something and actually being able to do it consistently on your own.

For me, things only started to change when I stopped consuming so much and started focusing more on actually practicing — even if I was wrong most of the time.

Curious if anyone else experienced that?

Like feeling “educated” in trading, but still not really capable when it matters?

Last Sunday I published my weekly outlook. EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, USDCHF and Gold.

Here's the honest recap — what played out and what didn't.

EURUSD: Primary scenario was bearish. Price dropped in our predicted direction all week. Bearish MACD cross on the 2D chart confirmed the wave count. Still below invalidation at 1.18488. Bearish structure intact.

GBPUSD: Leading diagonal completed on the daily. Called for Wave 3 down. Price moved in our direction. Bearish MACD cross on the 3D chart as confluence. Short setup still valid with entry at 1.35434 and invalidation at 1.36607.

AUDUSD: Called final Wave 5 forming as an ending diagonal. Brief bullish push played out as expected before structure completes. Watching for reversal.

USDCHF: Called a long setup at the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of Wave 2. Wave structure developed as expected. Bullish MACD cross on the daily as confluence.

Gold: Wave 4 WXY correction called. Price moved in our predicted direction. Bearish MACD cross on the 12H confirming the structure.

Every single MACD cross this week aligned with the Elliott Wave structure posted on Sunday.

I'm not saying Elliott Wave is perfect. No method is. But when structure and momentum confluence line up like this — it's hard to ignore.

Happy to answer questions on any of the setups.

Last Sunday I mapped out the weekly structure based on Elliott Wave. Nothing fancy, just the wave counts and what they were suggesting going into the week.

Here's how it played out:

Gold → −4.8% EUR/USD → −1.4% GBP/USD → −2.15% AUD/USD → −1.4% USD/CHF → +1.1%

Every move aligned with what the structure was showing before the week started. No adjustments, no hindsight.

I've been using Elliott Wave for a while now and the thing that keeps pulling me back to it is that it forces you to think in probabilities before the move happens — not after. You're not reacting, you're positioning.

This week the USD strength was already visible in the wave structure across multiple pairs. Once you see it, the bias becomes pretty obvious.

Next week I'm watching a few pairs where new entries could be forming. The broader structure hasn't changed so I'll be doing the same thing Sunday — mapping it out before the week starts and seeing how it goes.

Happy to talk through any of the wave counts in the comments if anyone's curious.

I see a lot of SMC traders in this community. Order blocks, fair value gaps, liquidity sweeps. I used the same framework for two years.

The shift that made the difference for me: adding Elliott Wave as the structural layer underneath.

Here is how the two frameworks actually relate.

SMC identifies where institutional orders are placed. An order block shows you a level where smart money acted. It answers the question: where did smart money act?

Elliott Wave describes the structure of the entire move. It answers a different question: where are we in the sequence? And therefore: what is the next most probable move from here?

The overlap is significant:

An SMC order block on the 4H often sits at the bottom of Wave 2 or Wave 4. The institutional entry zone and the Elliott Wave correction low are the same level — described in two different languages.

A liquidity sweep above a recent high often marks the end of Wave 5 in a bearish impulse. SMC sees the hunt for buy stops. Elliott Wave sees the final extension before reversal.

An SMC Fair Value Gap often forms during the vertical part of Wave 3 — the fastest, most impulsive leg of the move. The gap is not random. It is the structural signature of Wave 3 momentum.

Once I saw these connections, entries became more specific. I was using SMC levels to time entries into Elliott Wave positions. The confluence eliminated a lot of the "maybe" trades.

For funded account challenges specifically: Elliott Wave tells me which SMC level is worth acting on. Not every order block is equal. The one at the end of Wave 2, with the larger structure pointing to a Wave 3 extension — that is the one I take.

Happy to share specific chart examples if there is interest.

I have been trading forex for several years. The first few years followed the usual path: price action, then SMC, then indicators layered on top of indicators.

I always used Elliott Waves for long term investing, but after some time I switched fully to Elliott Wave and that was when I started to see progress

Here is the part that surprises most traders when I explain it.

The biggest shift was not finding better entries. It was knowing when not to enter.

With price action and SMC, every clean structure looked like a potential trade. There was always something to justify a position. The bias was toward action.

Elliott Wave removed that. If I could not answer "where are we in the wave structure?" with confidence — there was no trade. The framework forces patience in a way that other approaches do not.

Specifically: I only enter when the HTF and LTF fully support each other. Moreover, I trade if the trend has confirmed itself already, I do NOT look for potential trend reversal setups. Most of my setups are the start of the third wave in any impulse. It has the most momentum, the clearest structure, and my stop sits below Wave 2 — a level the market has already confirmed by not revisiting.

Wave 1 = I am guessing the impulse is starting. Often premature. Wave 5 = I am entering late into a move that is aging. Often a trap. Wave 3 = the structure confirms the move before I am in it.

For prop firm challenges where one bad week wipes the progress of three good weeks — that filter changed everything.

The result over the first 4 months of 2026: 12R, which I think is very solid.

Not every week has a clean setup. That is also information. Not trading an unclear week is a position.

Happy to talk about specific setups or the framework in general if anyone has questions.

This is my current Analysis of Xauusd and a few major Forex Pairs. Happy to hear thoughts...

Elliott Wave gets dismissed as "too subjective" by a lot of traders. I get it — I thought the same thing for years.

But there are 3 hard rules in Elliott Wave Theory that are completely objective. No interpretation needed. And they're some of the most useful filters I've ever used.

Rule 1: Wave 2 never retraces below the start of Wave 1.

Simple. If your wave count shows Wave 2 going below Wave 1's origin — your count is wrong. Start over. This rule alone has saved me from dozens of bad entries where I thought a pullback was a buying opportunity but the structure was already broken.

Rule 2: Wave 3 is never the shortest wave.

This one catches people off guard. Most traders focus on Wave 3 being the strongest. But the rule is actually about length — Wave 3 cannot be shorter than both Wave 1 and Wave 5. Why does this matter? Because if you think you're in Wave 3 and the move is smaller than Wave 1... you're probably not in Wave 3. Reassess.

Rule 3: Wave 4 cannot overlap Wave 1.

In a standard impulse, Wave 4 cannot enter the price territory of Wave 1. If it does, you're likely looking at a corrective structure, not an impulse. This tells you the trend is weaker than you thought.

These 3 rules work as filters. Before I enter any trend trade, I run through them. If my count violates any of them — I don't trade it.

Not saying Elliott Wave is the only way to trade. But these 3 rules have objective value regardless of your method.

I want to preface this by saying I'm not here to tell anyone their method is wrong. S&D worked for me. Until it didn't.

For 3 years I traded supply and demand zones. I understood the logic. I had decent results. But I kept running into the same problem: I never knew where I was in the bigger picture. I'd catch a move, then get chopped up trying to re-enter. I'd miss the continuation because I had no context for what the market was doing beyond "price is at a zone."

Then I started studying Elliott Wave.

The first thing that hit me was that S&D and Elliott Wave aren't opposites. Supply zones often form at the end of Wave 3. Demand zones often sit at Wave 2 or Wave 4 lows. The zones I was trading already had structure — I just couldn't see it.

What changed after learning Elliott Wave:

I stopped being surprised by moves. When you're in Wave 3, you expect expansion. When you're in Wave 4, you expect consolidation. The market stopped feeling random.

My stop losses got tighter. Elliott Wave gives you exact invalidation levels. Wave 2 cannot retrace below Wave 1's origin. Wave 4 cannot overlap Wave 1. Those aren't opinions — they're rules. My risk management improved immediately.

I started holding trades longer. Before, I'd take 1-2R and exit. Now I have a target. Wave 3 extensions to 1.618 are predictable. I started letting trades breathe.

The learning curve is real. Wave counting takes time and there's subjectivity involved, especially with corrections. But after 4 months of applying it seriously — 12R. On a funded account.

I'm still learning. But I'll never go back to trading without a wave count.

Happy to answer questions.

Honestly I tried a lot of different strategies. At the beginning of my trading journey I tried scalping, but it never worked and actually I dont think there are a lot of people who succesfully scalp on charts like the 1min... After that I did a supply and demand strategie combined with market structure... had very solid backtest stats but could never apply it in the real market. The only daytrading strategy I actually had success with was a Breakout strategy and made around 20R live trading. But still, I did not like it because I had to be in front of the chart all the time. What changed the game for me was swing trading. Just looking at the market once a day and let price do its thing... I actually think that is where most people can become successful with.

1. if I can’t clearly say what would prove me wrong, I don’t take the trade
2. if the higher timeframe doesn’t make sense, I ignore the lower timeframe completely
3. if I feel rushed, I’m probably about to force a trade

none of this made trading easy, but it stopped a lot of stupid mistakes

curious what small rules made the biggest difference for you guys