
The
pin bar price action pattern is a very powerful trading signal and one
of my personal favourites. However, if you are simply trying to ‘learn
it by yourself’, you are probably experiencing ‘mixed results’, to say
the least. There are many subtleties to trading pin bars and my other
price action signals that you must understand and master before you can
really become a successful price action trader.
My trading style is all about waiting for the best price action trade
signals to form. I absolutely do not jump at every pin bar or every
price action signal that I see in the market. One of the things that I
teach my students in my trading courses, is how to filter out the
lower-probability trade setups so that you are only taking what I
consider ‘high-probability’ price action trades.
Whilst this is a skill and also an art that takes further education
and experience to really get good at, in today’s lesson I am going to
share with you three of my favourite ‘tricks’ for filtering out sub-par
pin bar signals so that you have an increased chance of improving your pin bar trading results…
I am reluctant to tell you to ‘only’ take pin bars in trending
markets, because there are times that pin bars in range-bound markets or
even counter-trend pin bars, can be worth trading. But, as a general
rule of thumb, such pins are few and far between and they are more
difficult to trade then pin bars in obviously trending markets.
So, my first ‘trick’ for improving your pin bar trading results, is
to focus only on pin bars in trending markets. This means, you will only
look for trending markets or
currency pairs, other (non-trending) charts you can just ignore for now.
Focusing only on trending markets is especially important whilst you are learning how to trade pin bars. The first step to becoming a master pin bar trader, is learning to trade trending markets on the
daily chart time frame
and then the 4 hour chart time frame. However, make sure if you are
trading the 4 hour chart, you take pin bars that are in-line with the
daily chart trend direction. To learn more about how to trade trending
markets, check out this tutorial on
how to trade trending markets.
2. Next, focus on pin bars at key chart levels
Often, markets aren’t in an obvious trend like in the example we saw
above. Whilst I do recommend focusing only on pin bars in trending
markets in the beginning, eventually you will want and need to know how
to trade pin bars in other market conditions because markets don’t
always trend.
After you have mastered pin bars in trending markets, you can look
for pin bars that simply form at key levels of support or resistance in
the market. Key chart levels add a powerful
factor of confluence
to a pin bar setup and you can look at key chart levels for pin bars in
trends, range-bound markets or even for counter-trend pin bars.
The ‘key’ with these types of pin bars (no pun intended), is to look
for them at key chart levels. Now, if you aren’t clear on what a key
chart level is, check out this link on
key chart levels and this one on
how to draw support and resistance levels, those lessons should clear it up for you.

Here’s another example of pin bars at key chart levels of support or
resistance, this time it’s an example of a trading range where price is
oscillating back and forth between key resistance and support levels…
3. Look for protrusion of the pin bar’s tail
Protrusion of the pin bar’s tail means that the tail is obviously
sticking out or ‘protruding’ out from the surrounding price action or
through a key chart level forming a
false break strategy of the level.
The pin bar at its core, is a reversal signal, and the more the tail
is protruding out from the surrounding price action or through a level,
the stronger the rejection and reversal at that price point is. The
stronger the reversal, the higher-probability the pin bar has of working
out, generally speaking.
I will admit, the issue of ‘is a pin bar protruding or is it not’, is
very much discretionary and can vary slightly depending on the
individual. But, there are those pin bars that are so clearly protruding
out from the surrounding price action or through a level that it’s
nearly impossible to argue with them, these are the pin bars I look for.
Conclusion
Pin bars are one of the most effective price action trade signals,
but trading them successfully isn’t as easy as just spotting a pin bar
on the chart. There are subtle differences in a good pin bar vs. one you
should avoid, and this article has introduced you to some of them. If
you’d like to get a more in-depth explanation of how I trade pin bar
signals and everything I look for when trading them, get my
price action trading course for further training.
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