How to Use Market Sentiment in cTrader for Better Trading Decisions

In this instructional video, Vladimir Ribakov of Home Trader Club explains the concept of market sentiment—collective trader emotions and attitudes—and why it matters for trading decisions. He demonstrates how to access and interpret cTrader’s built‑in sentiment bars, which show the percentage of accounts holding long or short positions on a given instrument, and outlines practical thresholds (e.g., 70‑75% extreme sentiment) that can signal potential reversals when combined with technical confirmation such as divergence, overbought/oversold indicators, and multi‑timeframe analysis. Ribakov then introduces the third‑party Market Sentiment Pro indicator, which visualizes the same data with customizable overbought/oversold levels and divergence detection. Using examples on EUR/JPY, GBP/USD, and Bitcoin, he shows how to spot entry opportunities when sentiment becomes extreme, while warning about common pitfalls like early entry, over‑leverage, swap costs, and lack of exit plans. The video concludes with a call to engage with the channel for further education.
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Hello traders, Vladimir here from Home Trader Club and welcome back to our playlist section where we have our educational videos on cTrader platform. In today's video, I want to talk about, from my point of view, very important concept in trading. I would say sometimes it is underrated. Sometimes traders are not aware of that. And I'm talking about the market sentiment, what it is, why it is important to pay attention to the market sentiment. What is the mood of the market? What is the attitude? What are the emotions among traders, right? It's important to understand, and I will explain why. So in this video, we will break down the market sentiment and what can you do with that. So let's begin. So before the charts, if you are new to our channel, and even if not, I started some time ago a dedicated playlist to cTrader platform. If you missed it, make sure you watch it here on the right top corner of this video, the playlist Where I talk about the platform, strategies to be used on platform, tools on the platform, and more. So make sure you watch this playlist. And why specifically on cTrader? I can prepare a video talking about it for, for an hour, but here is the list of all the reasons why cTrader is superior to other platforms. I myself was exposed to cTrader A bit more than a year ago or so. I don't remember exactly when. And I can clearly say this is a great platform for retail traders. So how do we work with the market sentiment? There are several tools available on cTrader, some built-in, some you can trade, you can take from their store. Maybe there are also other places, but I'll be showing these ones. And convert the numbers and the data you have from the market sentiment to action. Okay. So how do we use that? What are our options? First of all, what is the market sentiment? Why at all do we need to pay attention to that? So this is, I would describe it as kind of collective total of the participants' attitude, their emotions about the the market or the instruments you look to trade. It could describe kind of psychological behavior among the participants. Are they risk-on, tolerant to risk? Are they seeking for some safety and some confidence and risk-off? Are they in sort of euphoria, right? When like, whoa, the run is unstoppable, the bubble would never explode, these kind of things. Or are they in extreme And then you have opportunities to trade. So all that is important to understand because of simple logic. I'm not sure how true it is to 2026, but there is a saying that more than 90% of traders at some point of their career would be losing money. Of course, logically, it happens at the beginning of the trading journey. Right? So when you take that and you understand, okay, if people are, if most people are losing money, they are probably doing some things wrong. For example, selling too early or buying too early, selling in an uptrend without any signs. It makes sense, of course. To sell after something is very expensive, but most traders do it very early and without official reversal signs. I just oh it's too expensive. I just give it a shot. Okay, and they do not take into consideration important factors like even technical factors like support resistance of the higher time frames or supply demand or geopolitical things or some technical things like. Overbought, oversold conditions, or candle patterns, or false breakout, or divergence. Nothing. They don't do not take any kind of information. They just sell because it's expensive. There are also factors like swap. That's the interest rate that you pay overnight. And if you trade instrument that like the euro yen, for example, or other yen pairs, where the rates is against the yen and you sell this pair, you'll be paying swap every single night. All these factors will affect your trade. Fact. So it's important to understand that prior making any trading decisions. So let's break down the available information. I'm now on a desktop version of the cTrader platform. Of course, you can find it in mobile and the web version, of course. But here is how it's built in. There is a beautiful quick trading window in the center here. So when you look at these bars under the price, right, what you will see here is the percentage of positions, trading accounts among all the cTrader servers having sell position and buy position on a given instrument. So I'm on the EUR/JPY in that case. 66% are already selling. It's okay to enter a trade when there is an established setup, like reversal signs, like trendline breakouts, like false breakout resistances, candle, anything. But when it just, you just start to sell with the hope, not taking into consideration the swaps and all the other factors that could be in some times Very expensive. Of course, and sometimes, you know, if the market right now suddenly crashes, then basically everything I say is kind of irrelevant because the market crashes. But in most of the times, that's not how it goes. Most traders start to sell too early and start to buy too early. So how do we use this information? So there is a common, I would say, not consensus, but a common use of these numbers. When the numbers of the percentage of traders buying or selling an instrument exceeds 75%, you will see in times even 80% or 90%, that means this is heavy sellers. Most of the traders would start to sell much earlier. They don't sell here. Most traders start to sell here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and they add on the positions with the hope it will reverse one time. I also did that in the very past, and we can talk about it for hours. Is it good? Is it not? Of course, if you control your total risk, this is definitely doable strategy. But for most traders, it's wrong because they over-leverage and over-risking, and they do not have Exit plan, and they do not have any specific risking plan. Just a hope. Hopes will work until some point. At some point, it will explode and will stop working. So how do you use that when the number exceeds seventy five or more percent? Usually that happens when the market makes some quick run. So imagine. A scenario where it goes and completes something like that, 3 waves. The numbers start to be above 75%. And then this is something you need to pay attention to. There could be a developing divergence. Of course, there is already developing divergence, but as the numbers exceed, these technical signs would start to build up more and more often. And when you go on the multi-timeframe, imagine the weekly, for example, does something like that. Right? Complete some divergence here, maybe RSI. By divergence, I mean higher highs on the chart, but lower highs on the indicators like MACD, RSI, and others, Elderforce. But when you have these kind of conditions, multi-timeframe, and the number starts to be really extreme, not little bit, like 66%, it's, it's, it's of course more buyers, but it's still not extreme. When it starts to grow more and more and more, That's where you need to be careful and look for the opportunities for the reversal signs. Okay. So pay attention to that. Of course, reversed for the buys. When you have a strong drop to the downside and then the market, like, like for example, let's take a look on the pound dollar, for example. You can see that already 62% start to buy here. When you stand on the, on the number, 62% start to buy. That means again, it's usually A little bit early, right? But if the market continues to drop, which is very likely to happen here, and starts to reach some more extreme points, and these numbers start to be not 60+% but 70+% on the green, that's your time to start looking for possible reversals, for some divergences to complete, for some oversold conditions on indicators, and to look For the buys. Okay, so the market sentiment really helps you here in terms of understanding what is the collective emotions on the market, the collective attitude, mood, positions on a given instrument. Well, this is one way to work with the market sentiment. It also helps you to understand that when the— you know that when the buyers are in majority, but not extreme majority. And usually that's the first sign that early buyers are in the game. And usually they are wrong. That means the trend very possibly continues until the number of buyers actually reaches the point of extreme. And when the numbers are extreme, then the more professional traders look for their opportunity because they know majority of traders Especially the beginners will lose and they will do their mistakes. Okay. So this is the first available tool in the platform of cTrader. Now there is another tool. This is a Market Sentiment Pro indicator and you can find it in cTrader Market. This is not recommendations or any sort of promotion or anything like that. Absolutely not. It is a Tool I personally got to test and to show you in this very video. So absolutely no recommendations if because what you will see here is basically a representation, just more visual representation of pretty much the same numbers. Okay, you can see here on the left side beautifully summarizing for you the available data from C-Trader. It's a more visual indicator and everything. Of course, on the bottom you would see also the numbers which you can print the. Fine. This is the indicator. Once you get it from the market like I did, again, no recommendations for action or anything like that, just presenting you the how it looks like and how it could help you. So once you install everything inside the settings, you can predefine overbought and oversold level 70, 75, 80, anything you want, where you want to show and what you want to show. Detect divergences, everything you want to see, everything would be visible for you here. And pay attention to this visibility that helps to understand when the market opens the gap and reaches some extreme levels. That's where you would want to pay attention to the trading opportunity. As simple as that. Okay, so this indicator is called Market Sentiment Pro. So when it comes to the buys discussed, so look at these levels, for example. You know that there are some key support levels on the way for Bitcoin, right? Let's go to the daily chart, for example. You will see that a little bit better here, or maybe even weekly chart. Okay. The numbers don't change because it basically gives you the Amount of the trading accounts having buying or selling positions for all among all the C-trader servers. So this is a key zone here, as you can see, right? We also have trending rising trend line. So imagine we get to this level. Usually what happens, these numbers start to exceed, and it's not going to be 64, but usually 70, 75, 80, sometimes even more. When that happens. That's your time to start looking for the reversal signs and buy opportunities. Okay. Now, could you miss sometimes and the market flies? Of course, but it's very rare. It happens, but it's rare. Usually the very early birds are wrong. Usually, you know, the first geese flying in a cold country like Canada. Because it looks like the first sign of spring coming, they usually are exposed more to hunting, for example. So same here. Okay. Think about it in terms of the professional trader hunting. Okay. So when you see these numbers around the 60%, for example, 64%, that's still your time to look for these sell opportunities. In most of the times, you can still enjoy them. And once it completes these waves in the moves, reach some key levels, Then it's your time to start looking for possible reversal signs. Okay, with all the other technical tools you have, of course. But this is where the market sentiment is so useful. That's it for this video. As always, I hope it brings some value to you and some ideas how you can implement that in your trading. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask in the comments. Make sure you follow our channel. Make sure to subscribe if you still did not, so you know when there is new content available for you and you can enjoy all of our education here. And of course, all the trading opportunity and market analysis that I upload during the days for you. Thanks for watching. Best to you and yours. I wish you wonderful trading. I am Vladimir Ribakov from Home Trader Club. I wish you all the very best. Bye for now.
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