In this instructional video, the presenter, a trader with over 20 years of experience, ranks the most common beginner trading strategies from worst to best, using a tier system (A, B, C, S) based on how well each method accounts for market liquidity and phase. He begins with support and resistance, noting that alone it is an A‑setup but becomes an S‑setup when combined with liquidity analysis. He then critiques Elliott Wave theory as a B‑tier approach, arguing it only reflects past price patterns and ignores large‑liquidity dynamics. Fibonacci retracements receive a B rating as well; they can be useful at all‑time highs but otherwise lack context with liquidity flows. Indicator‑based systems such as RSI and MACD are assigned a C grade because they rely solely on historical price data and fail during strong liquidity‑driven trends unless the trader correctly identifies the market phase. Breakouts and fakeouts are deemed top‑tier (S) when applied in the appropriate market phase—breakouts in trending phases and fakeouts in sideways phases—provided the trader can classify the phase accurately. Finally, the PBD (price‑action, supply‑demand, liquidity) model is championed as an S‑setup, offering a logical, liquidity‑aware framework that is beginner‑friendly and effective across long timeframes. Throughout, the speaker emphasizes the necessity of understanding market phases, liquidity concentration, and proper timeframe selection, and briefly promotes his “World Class Edge” course.
Chapters
Which strategy should you really learn, and which strategy is just a waste of your time? After over 20 years in the market, I know both sides of the coin. Today, I'm putting the most well-known strategies into a ranking from the very bottom to the very top. Let's take a look together. We'll see which strategies are actually effective. We'll look at support and resistance, Fibonacci retracements, and indicator-based strategies like the RSI, for example. We'll examine how things look with moving averages. Does that really work in the long run? And so we have a great opportunity to see how the PBD model works, for instance, and why it might be effective or not. And that's exactly what's exciting for you. So let's get started. Yes, let's start by looking at support and resistance. What is support and resistance actually all about? Ultimately, it's about identifying technical structures in the market where prices repeatedly hit a ceiling or a Eventually break through, potentially turning from support into resistance. For many people, the first reaction is, "Hmm, what's he talking about?" It's quite simple. I think support and resistance are good, provided they're used cleverly. Because I have specifically picked out a really nice clear example for you to look at right here. And if you just take a moment to look closely at this example, you will see that if you only focus your attention on the lows and the absolute high. Well, it very often happens that you simply do not get a trade, or perhaps the market just does not stop where you expect, or we see yet another significant run-through at these specific levels. Hmm. It is a common trap to fall into. That is precisely why, in my professional view, support and resistance levels represent an A setup. However, if you combine that concept correctly with liquidity, specifically by learning how to read exactly where the highest liquidity was resting here and there, and then carefully assign it to the right timeframe, well, for me, it truly becomes an S-setup. But again, I must emphasize that you really need to know much more than just the basic mechanics of how to draw in resistance and support lines on your chart. Let's move on to the topic of Elliott Waves. A lot of people love this Elliott Wave theory. It basically says that the market moves in waves, and these waves have different characteristics. And then it forecasts into the future where the next wave will go. I can tell you, for me, that's a B-tier option at best. Why? The idea behind it is quite nice, but Elliott Waves only reference prices from the past. So they don't tell you where market participants have ultimately positioned themselves, whether they're playing with large or small liquidity. Because there's one thing we must always understand together: markets are driven by large liquidity, and large liquidity is usually generated during sideways phases. And in these sideways phases, you have completely different opportunities to read the market accordingly. This means Elliott Waves simply refer to past prices and a prediction: where might the next wave be heading? And these mights are always nice, interesting ideas, but in trading, at the end of the day, especially in market phases where things change, they unfortunately don't help us at all. Let's move on to Fibonacci retracements. Fibonacci retracements simply state that you have a range where you apply your corresponding Fibonacci retracement, and from this range you project different price levels upwards, which are between 0.236, 0.38, which is very well known, 0.5, and 0.618, which is also very well known. It's claimed that if the market goes above that, the trend is over, and so on. I also find this model problematic, especially when it's applied to highs and lows that, in my view, again have no relation to the liquidity flows of the global players. This model is also based on prices and ranges from the past. That means, A, which range do you even use to apply a Fibonacci retracement? And B, do these ranges have any kind of context to previous price movements? Because just imagine a market is moving like this, for example, and suddenly it does this and the volatility increases incredibly fast. How is the market then supposed to be priced based on a previous range? It just doesn't make any sense. And that's why I have to say I personally consider Fibonacci retracements a B setup, because there's one point where I find them helpful, and that's at an all-time high when a market goes above an all-time high and you have no other way to make any theoretical predictions because you lack the expertise to read whether liquidity has entered the market after an all-time high or not. And you can use it for that. But it's definitely not a very good setup. And it's not an A setup either. It's a B setup at best. Before we get back into it, a quick notice. World Class Edge just launched. And if you want to know how really institutional traders and market makers actually trade, click the link below and secure your spot at World Class Edge. All right, back to it. Let's move on to indicators like MACD, RSI, and all the others out there. Perhaps very important for those who don't know yet: such an indicator has a line somewhere between overbought and oversold. This means that here the market has supposedly been oversold too much, and here the market has supposedly been oversold too much. Then you assume that if a market like here, for example, let's take this nice example, has been overbought, which means The upward trend was too strong, then it has to go back down. As you can see, here it is then oversold again. That means that from this point on, a long stretch must follow. And when you look at it like that, the whole thing even seems to work. But now here's the big problem. Now imagine that all of a sudden a lot of liquidity flows into the market, and only us few retail traders who think we're referring to exactly this here are now of the opinion here where the RSI tells us, oh, the market is heavily over. Overbought, it has to fall now. And now look at what the market is doing here. The market just keeps going up, and the corresponding RSI, which shows you that the market is currently overbought, starts to go down and ends up down here at the absolute low point. But what did the price action do during that time? It continued to rise and made a very small consolidation here. Here the whole thing would be oversold again, and the market would rise again. Yes, here it fits again. But just look closely, and you'll see immediately in this stretch here, the market didn't do at all what this supposed extreme would have played out. And therefore, indicators are very, very problematic to evaluate when markets are suddenly strongly supported by liquidity and move into a stable, strong trend. And I know that there are such trading systems that tell you that you then simply have to build up positions upwards. If you say here, for example, you build up a short position because the market has to fall now, and that can kill your whole account. And therefore, I can clearly say indicators are a grade C for me. You should definitely not use them, especially not as a standalone indication of how the market might move up or down in the next price action. Indicators do nothing more than take the price from the past, and by that I mean the price and nothing that has anything to do with liquidity inflow or anything like that. And now it goes even further. Now people claim that you have to use it in different time frames, you have to make the wildest settings in these indicators, and so on and so forth. The truth is, such an indicator can only work if a market is in a stable market phase. As soon as the market hits an extreme, whether long or short, all these models stop working. And so you need to have the ability to know which market phase we are actually in. That is why, for me, indicators are absolutely not effective. Breakouts or fakeouts— meaning breakouts are, for example, market phases where markets are expected to accelerate rapidly. Fakeouts are essentially the opposite, where markets face rejection. It is the same here. A breakout or a breakout setup like you see here in such a market phase, it kills you. Because look here, here would have been the breakout, then the market runs back in here. Here would have been the next breakout, and the market runs back in here again. Now one could say, yes, that is exactly where you have to take fakeouts, meaning counter-trading setups against the trend. That is also correct. And for me, both breakout and fakeout setups are very exciting. They are top tier if you understand where and how the market is playing right now. Here too, it depends. Can you categorize if we are in a sideways phase, then you can use fakeouts? If we are in a stable trend phase like the market starting here with an impulse, then you can take breakouts. Therefore, you must be able to classify that. Breakouts and fakeouts must be used appropriately in relation to balanced market phases or trend market phases, and that is why breakout setups only work in the corresponding market phase, and counter trades or trend reversal setups, counter setups, only in the corresponding market phase. I think they are great, but only if you can categorize them. PBD setups, when viewed purely technically, show you impulse, meaning strength, for example with a B, from the sellers and the subsequent range. This means the market is telling you that it now supports the supply and demand logic at lower prices. And so, you know, after a B, the probability of a breakout is high for now. You also know that where the greatest liquidity was traded, the market often receives its rejection if it makes a pullback to that point. You also know that if it breaks out of a D, for example, and does so via closing price and liquidity to the downside, a trend continuation is likely. This means you must know that the PBD setup is essentially built on supply and demand. It shows you where markets are in balance, and it shows you where markets are in imbalance. And the logic behind it is that supply and demand shift, and a trend continues until it returns to a pre- previous equilibrium where acceptance comes into play. This means the PBD setup is based, if you will, on market profiling approaches, but it's the technical derivation from impulse and sideways phases that shows you exactly where there's high liquidity, where trends accelerate, and why major market players prefer to trade in certain price ranges. And once you understand that major market players like this and that they can't even deploy their liquidity here, you'll immediately see for yourself that this concept is very logical. And that's why I can clearly tell you that this concept is an S setup for me, especially once you've understood the interplay of supply and demand for yourself. It's absolutely suitable for beginners to correctly read and analyze the markets, and it's incredibly smart and easy to apply, especially over long time periods.
