Naked Forex: High-Probability Techniques for Trading without Indicators
Alex Nekritin and Walter Peters · 2012 · 290 pages
A candlestick-and-support-zone system dressed up as something new: draw zones where price has reversed before, then wait for one of five named catalysts to print on that zone. The patterns are real and well described, but the book never shows a losing streak or a forward test.
The one idea
Naked Forex argues that indicators lag price and clutter the chart, so the authors strip trading down to two things: support and resistance zones (which they call 'zones,' described as fat, squishy areas rather than exact lines) and five candlestick catalysts that only count when they print on a zone. The three-part method is always the same: find the zone, wait for price to reach it, wait for a catalyst to confirm it before entering.
The five catalysts are the last kiss (a breakout that retests the edge of a consolidation box before continuing), the big shadow (a wide-range reversal candle with a close near its extreme), wammies and moolahs (double bottoms and double tops filtered so the second touch must be shallower than the first), the kangaroo tail (a single candle with a long wick that overshoots a zone and snaps back), and the big belt (a wide-range candle that opens at one extreme and closes at the other, with almost no wick). Each has its own entry, stop, and target rules built around the zone that triggered it.
The back third of the book covers exits (zone exit, split exit, and two runner-style trailing exits) and trading psychology, including a chapter on back-testing that pushes readers toward manual, discretionary testing over automated back-tests. There is no walk-forward test, no equity curve, and no stated win rate or expectancy for any of the five setups anywhere in the book.
What it actually teaches
The naked-trading process is the same three-step sequence for every one of the five setups; only the catalyst pattern in step three changes.
DRAW THE ZONES
On a higher timeframe than the one you trade, mark areas (not exact prices) where price has repeatedly reversed. The book recommends switching to a line chart to spot these 'bends' more easily, and warns against marking minor zones: on a daily chart, major zones are typically 100 to 200 pips apart, and on a weekly chart, around 500 pips apart.
WAIT FOR PRICE TO TOUCH A ZONE
No trade is taken away from a zone. A catalyst pattern that prints in open space, off any zone, is explicitly called not a valid setup in this system, no matter how clean the candle looks.
CONFIRM WITH A CATALYST
Five catalysts to know: the last kiss (price breaks a consolidation box, then returns to retouch the box edge with a strong candle in the breakout direction before you enter); the big shadow (a two-candle reversal where the second candle has a wider range than nearby candles and closes near its extreme); the wammie/moolah (a double bottom or top where the second touch is shallower than the first, i.e. a higher low or lower high); the kangaroo tail (one candle with a tail much longer than its body, overshooting the zone); and the big belt (a wide-range candle that opens at one extreme and closes at the other, with almost no wick, printed directly on a zone).
SET STOP AND ENTRY OFF THE CATALYST CANDLE
Entries are stop orders placed a few pips beyond the catalyst candle's high or low, not market orders. Stops sit on the other side of that same candle, except for the last kiss, which uses an emergency stop at the midpoint of the consolidation box (support level plus half the box's pip width) and a tighter practical stop the moment price closes back inside the box.
EXIT AT THE NEXT ZONE, OR SPLIT IT
The default exit is the next zone in the direction of the trade, placed a few pips short of it as a cushion. The book's split exit example on a bearish AUD/JPY kangaroo tail took 30 pips off half the position at the first zone, then moved the stop on the remaining half to breakeven and let it run to 65 pips at the second zone.
What it looks like Monday morning
A reader opens their charting platform, moves up one timeframe from whatever they trade, switches to a line chart, and starts marking the handful of spots where price has visibly turned more than once. That is the entire actionable homework: no indicator settings, no new software, just zones drawn by eye.
From there they watch for one candle shape, most often the kangaroo tail or the big shadow, to print on one of those zones before entering, with the stop and target already implied by the setup. What they will not have on Monday is any evidence, from the book itself, of how often this actually wins.
| Step | Value |
|---|---|
| Consolidation box | Support 85.95, resistance 88.23 (CAD/JPY four-hour) |
| Box width | 88.23 minus 85.95 = 228 pips |
| Emergency stop loss | Support (85.95) + half the box width (114 pips) = 87.09 |
| Entry | Buy or sell stop a few pips beyond the retouch candle's high or low |
| Practical exit | Trade is closed if a candle closes back inside the box, usually well before the emergency stop is hit |
This is the book's only fully numeric worked example; every other setup is shown on live charts without the arithmetic spelled out.
The naked trader will not take a trade unless price has reached a zone.Nekritin and Peters, Naked Forex
Where it fails
- Zero backtest data for the actual system. Chapter 3 spends pages persuading readers that manual, discretionary back-testing beats automated back-testing, then the five naked-trading chapters that follow show only hand-picked winning examples. No win rate, drawdown, expectancy, or sample size is given for the last kiss, big shadow, wammie/moolah, kangaroo tail, or big belt anywhere in the book, in an edition published in 2012.
- Every chart example is a winner. Chapters 5 through 9 each walk through two or three real currency-pair charts where the catalyst worked. There is no example in the method chapters of a kangaroo tail or big shadow that failed on a zone, so a reader has no idea from the book alone how a losing trade under this system actually looks or how often it happens.
- Zones are drawn with hindsight, not defined by a rule. The book's own metaphor is that zones are 'squishy, like a beer belly,' an area rather than a price. It offers spacing guidelines (roughly 100 to 200 pips apart on a daily chart) but no objective rule for exactly where a zone starts or ends, or how many touches make a zone valid versus minor. Two readers looking at the same chart can draw different zones and both believe they followed the method.
- MetaTrader software and video links are from 2011 and dead weight now. The book repeatedly points readers to www.fxjake.com/book for free trading software, video tutorials, and a trade journal spreadsheet. That site and the associated MT4 add-on are tied to a specific 2011-era platform and are not something a 2026 reader can assume still exists or still works.
- Assumes screen time and a discretionary eye the book itself warns is hard to build. Chapter 16 openly tells readers that wanting more screen time or wanting to quit a job to trade full time is a trap, then the entire method depends on a trained, subjective eye for what counts as a major zone versus a minor one and what counts as a valid catalyst versus a lookalike. That skill is exactly the kind of judgment call the book admits takes real screen time to build, which undercuts its own naked-and-simple pitch.
Who it is for
Buy it if
You already trade price action and want a clean vocabulary and a specific set of five reversal and breakout candle patterns to test against your own zones. It is also a reasonable read for a trader who wants to get off indicators and start looking at raw price, provided they plan to run their own back-test before risking money.
Skip it if
You want a system with a published win rate, tested drawdown, or any statistical backing; none of that is in this book. Skip it too if you already know standard price-action concepts (support/resistance, double tops, pin bars, engulfing candles) since the five catalysts here are mostly those ideas renamed and filtered.
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