forex-scalping.com

A Swing Setup Using Weekly and Daily SMC

For traders who prefer fewer, larger trades, SMC applies on higher timeframes as well. The logic is the same, but the time scale is different. A step-by-step swing framework:

Step 1: Weekly structure. Identify the trend and the major swing highs and lows. Mark weekly liquidity pools.

Step 2: Daily bias. Confirm that the daily trend agrees or is retracing within the weekly trend.

Step 3: Find the zone. Locate a daily order block or fair value gap in discount (for buys) or premium (for sells).

Step 4: Wait. Set alerts and be patient. This may take days.

Step 5: Confirmation. On the 4H chart, look for a sweep of liquidity and a structure shift inside the zone.

Step 6: Entry and stop. Enter on the 4H retrace, with a stop beyond the sweep or the daily zone, depending on your risk tolerance.

Step 7: Target. The next weekly or daily liquidity level.

Step 8: Management. Consider partials at intermediate targets and trailing with daily structure.

Risk notes:

- Stops are wider, so position size must be smaller
- Weekend and news exposure needs a plan
- Check swap costs
- Avoid piling into correlated positions

Swing SMC trades are few, but each can be meaningful. They reward patience and careful location more than speed.

Practice on replay with weekly and daily charts to see how many valid setups appear in a year. The number may surprise you.

Something I forgot to mention: with weekly and daily setups, your stop is going to be wide, so the lot size has to come down a lot to keep risk at 1 percent. People see the setup, keep their usual intraday lot size, and end up risking five times what they intended. Quick example: on a 5,000 dollar account, 1 percent is 50 dollars. With a 25 pip intraday stop on EURUSD that's 0.2 lots. With a 150 pip daily stop it's about 0.03 lots. It feels tiny, but the target is also much bigger, so the money at stake per trade stays the same. Always calculate the lot size from the stop, never from habit.

A tip for managing these: set alerts at the daily levels and check at fixed times. If you're checking the 15 minute chart every hour on a weekly setup, you'll end up managing it like a day trade and exit too early. I check at the daily close, which on most brokers is 10pm Lagos in summer, and once in the morning before work. Moves to breakeven or partial profits happen only at those checks, based on the daily structure. A swing trade can sit in drawdown for several days before the weekly level does its job. That's normal for this timeframe.