Trading and Crypto

Trading With Price Action

Once You Learn Price Action, Trading Becomes Embarrassingly Simple

Video: Once You Learn Price Action, Trading Becomes Embarrassingly Simple

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· based on the channel TJR

Key takeaways

  • Price action trading reads raw candle structure — swing highs, swing lows and breaks of structure — instead of stacking indicators on the chart.
  • A break of structure (BOS) is only a signal once price confirms it; chasing the break itself is the most common beginner error.
  • The retrace after a BOS is where risk-to-reward improves: entry near the reclaimed level, stop beyond the swing that created the break.
  • One-minute scalping amplifies noise and costs; most blown accounts come from overtrading, not from a missing strategy.
  • A trade plan needs three fixed numbers before entry: risk per trade, stop distance and target — otherwise position size is guesswork.

Trading with price action means reading the chart from raw candles — swing highs, swing lows, breaks of structure and the retraces that follow them — instead of layering indicators over price. The method is simple to describe and hard to execute, because its edge comes from patience and from waiting for confirmation rather than chasing the first candle that moves. TJR's breakdown of this approach, and the free trader blueprint at the TJR Blueprint page, both start from the same premise: the chart already contains the information most traders try to buy in a subscription.

What price action actually measures

Price action is a method of reading supply and demand directly from the candle sequence, without converting price into a derived indicator. Every candle is a record of who won a short fight — buyers or sellers — and where they gave up. Structure comes from that record:

  1. Swing highs and swing lows. A swing high is a candle high with lower highs on both sides; a swing low is the mirror image. These are the only objective reference points on a naked chart.
  2. Trend from structure, not from a moving average. Higher highs and higher lows define an uptrend; lower highs and lower lows define a downtrend. Anything else is a range.
  3. Breaks of structure (BOS). A BOS is a close beyond the most recent swing point in the direction of the trend. It tells you the previous structure failed.
  4. Liquidity above and below those swings. Stops cluster just beyond obvious highs and lows. Price frequently trades through them before continuing, which is why the first break is often a trap.

None of this requires a proprietary indicator. It requires a clean chart, a fixed timeframe and the discipline to mark the same swings every session.

Why the break of structure is not the entry

The break of structure is a confirmation event, not a trigger — the entry usually comes on the pullback that follows it. This is the single point where most retail traders lose money on an otherwise correct read. They see the BOS, market-order into the move, and get stopped when price returns to the broken level to collect liquidity before continuing.

The sequence that repeats on almost every timeframe looks like this:

  • Price breaks a swing high, printing a BOS.
  • Instead of continuing, price retraces into the area it just broke — the order block or the origin of the impulse.
  • The retrace either holds (the level acts as support) or fails (the break was a liquidity sweep).
  • Only the hold gives a defined entry with a stop that is close enough to justify the trade.

That is why the most-liked comment under the video is a two-word instruction to wait for the retrace. Waiting costs you some moves. Chasing costs you the account.

A practical pre-trade checklist

A checklist converts price action from a feeling into a repeatable process, and it should be short enough to run in under a minute. Before any entry, answer four questions in order:

  1. What is the higher-timeframe structure? If the daily is making lower highs, longs on the one-minute chart are counter-trend trades and deserve smaller size or none at all.
  2. Where is the last confirmed BOS? Mark it. If price is in the middle of the range between the last swing high and swing low, there is no trade — the risk-to-reward is undefined.
  3. Has price returned to the broken level? The entry is at the retest, not at the break. Set an alert rather than staring at the screen.
  4. Where does the idea become wrong? The stop goes beyond the swing that created the setup. If that distance is too wide for your risk per trade, the trade is too big — skip it or size down.

Then write the numbers down: entry, stop, target, position size. If any of the four is missing, the trade is a guess.

Risk, sizing and the math behind a small account

Position sizing is the part of trading that price action cannot fix for you, and it is where most blown accounts actually die. Two traders can take the identical setup and get opposite outcomes purely from size.

A workable framework for a retail account:

  • Risk per trade: 0.5–1% of account equity. On a $10,000 account that is $50–$100 of risk, not $500.
  • Stop distance comes first. If your stop is 10 points away on an index future and one point is worth $2 per contract on a micro, your risk per contract is $20 — so a $100 risk budget allows five micros, not five minis.
  • Target at least 2R. With a 2:1 reward-to-risk ratio, a strategy that wins 40% of the time is still profitable before costs.
  • Costs are part of the edge. Commissions and spreads on one-minute scalping can consume a large share of a small average win; the faster the timeframe, the more the math punishes overtrading.

This is also why funded-account programs are popular: they let a trader access size without risking personal capital, in exchange for strict drawdown rules. TJR lists discounted evaluations from Alpha Futures, Lucid Trading and Tradeify in the video description, and the terms — daily loss limit, trailing drawdown, payout split — matter far more than the discount code.

Why one-minute scalping breaks beginners

One-minute scalping fails beginners because it compresses noise, costs and emotional pressure into the same few seconds, and no course fixes that without screen time. A trader who has bought four courses and still blows accounts is usually not missing a strategy; they are taking too many low-quality setups and sizing them too large.

The pattern is recognisable: stop out, re-enter immediately, tilt, repeat. Three fixes do more than another course:

  1. Move up a timeframe. Five-minute and fifteen-minute structure gives the same BOS-and-retrace logic with fewer false breaks and more time to think.
  2. Cap trades per session. Two or three quality setups a day, then stop. A hard cap removes the tilt loop mechanically.
  3. Journal every trade with a screenshot. The trading journal TJR recommends, Tradezella, is linked in the description; the point is not the tool but the record of which setup, which session and which mistake produced each loss.

A mentor can shorten the learning curve, but only if they show live logic while candles print rather than posting replays of winners. Ask any potential mentor for their losing trades and their rules, not their results.

Common questions traders ask about price action

Price action attracts the same doubts in every comment thread, and they deserve direct answers rather than motivational ones.

"I understand the concept but still can't read charts alone." Understanding and execution are separate skills. Pick one instrument, one timeframe and one setup — for example, BOS plus retrace on the five-minute — and mark it for twenty sessions without trading. Pattern recognition is built by repetition, not by watching more videos.

"The market does the opposite every time I enter." That is usually a location problem, not a strategy problem. Entries taken mid-range or immediately after a break sit exactly where stop hunts happen. Waiting for the retest moves the entry to a level where the stop is defined and the crowd's stops are already gone.

"Is price action enough without indicators?" For structure and entries, yes. Indicators are useful for context — volatility, session ranges, volume — but they lag price by construction. TJR's own indicator set is linked in the description as an optional aid, not a requirement.

"How long until it clicks?" There is no honest number, and anyone selling one is selling something else. What can be measured is process: number of journaled trades, percentage of trades that followed the checklist, and average risk per trade. Those improve before the equity curve does.

Final thoughts

Price action trading is embarrassingly simple on paper — mark structure, wait for the break, enter on the retrace, risk a fixed small percentage — and relentlessly difficult in practice because every step requires doing nothing while the chart moves. The traders who survive are not the ones with the most indicators or the most courses, but the ones who take fewer, better-located trades and record every one of them. TJR's breakdown makes that case with a naked chart and a short checklist, which is exactly the right starting point. If you want the structured version, start with the TJR blueprint and treat the first month as an audit of your own habits rather than a hunt for a new setup.

Day trading is risky and most day traders lose money; nothing here is financial advice, and any results shown by other traders are not typical.

Source: Once You Learn Price Action, Trading Becomes Embarrassingly Simple · Markdown version

Questions & answers

Is price action trading better than using indicators?

Price action is better for structure and entries because it does not lag: swing highs, swing lows and breaks of structure are visible on a naked chart in real time. Indicators remain useful for context such as volatility or volume, but they are derived from price and therefore confirm moves after they start. Most traders do best with clean structure plus one or two context tools.

Why does price reverse right after a break of structure?

Because obvious swing highs and lows attract stop orders, and price often trades through them to fill large orders before continuing in the original direction. That is why the break itself is a confirmation, not an entry, and why the retest of the broken level offers a better location with a defined stop. If the retest fails, the break was a liquidity sweep.

How much should a beginner risk per trade?

A common range is 0.5–1% of account equity per trade, which keeps a normal losing streak survivable. Position size should be calculated from the stop distance, not chosen in advance: risk budget divided by stop distance in ticks gives the number of contracts or shares. If the resulting size feels too small, the account is too small for that instrument.

Can a course or mentor fix repeated account blow-ups?

Only if the losses come from a knowledge gap rather than from behaviour. Overtrading, oversized positions and re-entering after a stop-out are process problems that no course removes; a trade cap per session, a fixed risk percentage and a journal address them directly. A mentor helps most when they show live decision-making, including losing trades and the rules behind them.

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