VOLATILITY IN THE FOREX MARKET

Hello Forex traders. Today we are going to talk about the concept of Volatility in the Forex market. We will talk about what it is, what volatility depends on, and most importantly how we can use this data to build and improve our own trading strategies and, as a result, get more profit from trading.

What Is Volatility?
Volatility is the range of price changes from high to low during a trading day, week, or month. The higher the volatility, the higher the range during the trading time period. This is considered to be a higher risk for your positions, but it gives you more opportunities to earn money. Volatility can be measured over different time periods. If we open a daily chart and measure the distance from high to low, we will get the volatility of the day:

It turns out that on the chart above, it was 121 pips.
We can also measure on another timeframe, for example, weekly chart. The distance from the high point to the low point was 162 pips. The total volatility during the week was 162 points. Volatility can be measured within a trading session or within a trading hour. This allows us to conclude that it is a fractal value.

As a rule, the average volatility for the last candles is taken into account. If we take daily charts, the average volatility is usually considered for the last 10 days. Roughly speaking, the last 10 candles are summarized and divided by 10.

What Does Volatility Depend On?
It depends on the number of trades in the market, players, trading sessions, the general state of the economy of a currency, and, of course, on speculation. It depends on how speculative the market is about a given currency. Note that volatility can be measured both in points and in percent. But it should be noted that most often, the volatility of stocks is measured in percent. In forex, it is more usual to measure in pips. If you are told that the average price change of EURUSD is 0.7%, you can easily convert it into pips. And vice versa, you can calculate percentages from points if you need them for any research. Now let's move on to the most important question.

How To Apply Volatility Data For Profit?
It's actually quite simple. As they say, everyone knows about it, but no one applies it. This is especially true for intraday trading. Nobody wants to apply the simplest rule.
Suppose you know that the average volatility of GBPUSD is 120 pips. Question: if the price has moved up 100 pips from the beginning of the day, should you open a buy position? The answer is obvious, we should not. Because the probability that the price will go up another number of pips is too low. Therefore, we should not open a buy position and on the contrary, we should focus on bearish positions. But for some reason people forget about this simple technique and follow their system. I believe that it is absolutely necessary to include volatility, at least on intraday strategies, in your checklist for market entry.

The same can be done with higher timeframes. Let's imagine that we know that GBPUSD has an average weekly volatility of 200 pips. If the pair has moved 50 pips since Monday, we can expect that if the price continues to move down, there is a potential of about 150 pips. Of course, there are days when some movements become bigger or smaller, but we try to rely on statistics. With its help we can calculate the sizes of stops and take-outs. If we decided to be guided by the volatility data and open a sale on the pound, then we would try not to put a large (relative to the weekly timeframe) take profit. Because our expectation within the week is 150 pips.

If the average volatility of a pair is 200 pips, it is silly to expect 1000 pips move. At least within a week. Thus, volatility can also be used for risk calculations. If you have opened many positions on different pairs, you can calculate what will happen if all stop-losses are triggered. Of course, the market is not obliged to obey your calculations, but it gives some support for your convenience and trading.

Volatility-based Indicator
The first indicator is ATR
Average True Range indicator invented in 1972. It shows the average volatility and it is used most often to set targets and stop losses. The value of the indicator is multiplied by a multiplier and thus calculate the stop loss or and/or take profit. The calculations will automatically change depending on the current volatility.
Volatility is higher, take profit becomes higher. Volatility is smaller and take profit becomes smaller.

The next indicator is the CCI
It is based on average price and moving average data. It is used as an oscillator, that is, when it is in the oversold zone, it is recommended to buy. And when it is in the overbought zone, it is recommended to sell.

Another indicator, which is known to everyone, is Bollinger Bands
They consist of a standard moving average and a moving average plus and minus standard deviation, which is calculated based on price. These bands are used most often to determine the limits of movement from the standard average. We can draw conclusions based on this indicator about the end of the movement, correction, etc.

Conclusion
In this article I have tried to give you an understanding of what volatility is in the forex market and most importantly how we can apply it in our trading. I hope that it will help you in developing and adjusting your own trading systems.

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