I am new to trading and have been through babypips.com about 1.5 times. The past month I have been demo trading and have had mixed results.
To my question…
As most do, I work full-time 8:30 to 5pm EST.
My available trading hours are:
-from 6 - 8:15 in the morning - again EST - before work (Mon-Fri).
-from 11 - 12pm for lunch (Mon-Fri)
-from 9pm - 12am in the evenings (Sun-Thu) - I know the market closes Friday evening.
Please advise on what would be a good currency pair to focus on during each of these timeframes - along with your experiences.
Hi,
I too have the same situation but on PST time. Here’s a little e-book that has given me something new to consider. It’s based on 4HR timeframes but it gives the best days/hours of the week, avg trend length, how many pips you might expect, etc for the major pairs. So I’ve been testing systems based more on 4H and found it actually is working better…still gives lots of signals & I don’t miss so many.
I also live on the East coast… If you can stand it the best time is 2:00am to about 5:00 , Then back to bed for a few hours… Opening of Europe… Really depends on how you are trading. Those hours are great for breakout trades from Asian market…
But during the evening Austrialia and Asia are open. But move very slowly most the time. No volume. Same after 11:00 am our time evrything slowwwws down when London closes, unless big news comes out…
Anyway first you need to define how you are trading. Might be better to look for signals after everything closes in the evening and make your trades then and just set it and check it when you can… I can’t do that myself. I need to get in and out quick. Just the way I am…
I like your cheat sheet, Sweet Pip. Then again, anything less that a 1-hour chart makes me bug out.
I’m not a sit at my computer and wait kind of girl. I check the market certain times of the day fairly religiously (i.e. somewhere around 8:30-10:00AM, 3:00PM, 9:00PM, maybe 4 or 5 AM, all Eastern daylight savings time). I trade off a 4hr chart or greater using a 1-hr chart for entry. I look for pairs that give a nice weekly average true range and watch them, but it should work for most currency pairs.
Draw in trendlines and put in moving averages for the weekly, daily, 8hr, and 4 hr for entry, and catch breakouts and trend channel action. If you miss a few pips, there should still be some left out there, but don’t force trades that have long left the station
Have a few pairs drawn up and ready to go and wait for good volume and action to strike (a news event a few hours ago with a nice fresh stochastic cross up or down, perhaps). If you miss one bus, another will come. With the currencies I trade, I get enough signals to make the trades I want to make each week.
KJ, if you have your charts set up and ready to check, your available times should give you some great intermediate-range trade swings that could last anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days. As an example, I just got 220 pips off GBP/CHF over the past 20 hours or so. Yesterday afternoon that pair was trading at the top of a channel for the 8hr and daily charts, stochastic crosses down, and I got in on a sell with a short stop and closed it today when it reached one of my moving averages.
You don’t have to be at your computer continuously to make a good profitable trade, but you need to have the right trading strategy for you. We’re all very different traders. And there’s room for all of us to make money, thank goodness!
Find your trader personality and be true to it. Right y’all?
Thanks everyone who posted and everyone who may still post to this thread.
I will digest the information here and finish my 3rd iteration of the babypips school along with finishing a technical analysis book I got from Amazon.
My go live date is 7/15 - that will be my full 2nd month of demo’ing.
There are so many different ways and strategies to trade, but it’s important that you narrow down your choice of strategy to one or two and focus on just those. I’ve also learnt, the hard way, that you MUST be consistent in your trading efforts. You can’t trade 2 days out the week and not trade the other 3 if your strategy calls for it. You could lose on those two, but it’s possible you would have BE or better yet, came out ahead for the week had you been there on the scheduled time you were supposed to trade.
It comes down to time management I learnt. Set aside EVERYDAY a block of time to trade and litterly, treat it exactly as a business or in my case, my pt-job/business.
You really must have a plan,limits on what you will or will not trade, a pre-set time you stay up or wake up to search for possible oppoetunities, and measurable and attainable goals. There are a few other things I’m sure like keeping emotions in check and the like, but that you will have to research on your own time.
For me, I’ve decided that trading is what I do to bring in income because I choose not to hold a regular 9-5 and take these earnings to do other things - primarily real estate…for some they want this to be a lifetime profitable career. You must have a reason and purpose for trading, and making lots of money is certainly not one of them let alone a good enough reason to succeed as a trader. If money is the reason, again, WRITE DOWN a realistic and measurable goals you expect to achieve in your first 6 months, than the next 6, than the next and so forth.
Start keeping very strict track of your spending and expenses…this will control your spending DRAMATICALLY and ultimately reduce expenses while boosting wealth. Part of growing wealthy is learning to control your money and what comes in and out…extremely important. Wealthy people spend less than their income, and this is the first step to achieving financial freedom. I only tell you this because I use it myself and it works…you find yourself having control even when you have little money to work with…you soon learn that you have lots more than you thought, so more money always have a way to come to you more often.
Basically, manage the money you have now, and more money will come your way. This is very powerful.
I strongly recommend you pick up T.Harv Eckers book MILLIONAIRE MIND and start there before you put your money into anything. I wish I’d read this one book before I got started trading because this will CERTAINLY, and only if you follow the principles, put you in the mindset of being a millionaire - even in trading.
one more thing, I’ve stopped reading and participating in forums much anymore(this one and others i used to frequent) b/c what I discovered was that most of those who give advice, arn’t even qualified to do so(there largely unsuccesul wannabes who take what they’ve read and spit it out again). Taking in the wrong info is not good, and ppl end up in bad spots b/c of it. If your going to do it, do your due diligence and NEVER take anyones word here as gospel, as it can get you in big trouble.
Learn what you need for your personal situation, and just focus on trading and being a success in this endeavor. Despite all the naysayers and their various statistics, it is very possible to get rich in this game - if you so choose…the only time the odds are against you, is if you mentally allow them to be
Many riches to you buddy,
Cheers!
Josef Benjamin
Remember: Pick up T.Harv Eckers “Millionaire Minds” book
I also live on the East coast… If you can stand it the best time is 2:00am to about 5:00 , Then back to bed for a few hours… Opening of Europe… Really depends on how you are trading. Those hours are great for breakout trades from Asian market…